Halliday was dead, to begin with. The book opens up with the
announcement of Halliday’s death and the start of the Hunt for Halliday’s
Easter egg. The video, the book described, showed Halliday morphing through
several eighties films as well as his own dwelling talking about the Easter egg
hidden inside the video game, Adventure, which is the creator’s name. Then he presents three keys, saying that they aren’t just
hiding under a rock, but could be hiding in a secret room in a dark maze.
Wade Watts showers us with exposition riddled with pop
culture references, from his upbringing, to the death of his parents (Dad was
shot rooting a store during a blackout, and Mom suffered from a drug overdose),
to him being raised by his far from loving aunt Alice and 15 other people in
the stacks of Oklahoma City, to living on the OASIS. The OASIS is a virtual
reality game where you can do anything, be anybody, and go anywhere you want. It
was a place to escape. A place where many people did business. Wade attends an
online school in the OASIS, on the planet Ludus. When he’s not in school, he’s
Parzival, a third level gunter on a quest to find the egg. Except that he was
always so broke he couldn’t leave Planet Ludus. Along for the ride is his best
friend Aech, a tenth level gunter and fellow classmate in a different school.
They spent most of their time together watching movies, playing video games,
and tearing competitive gunter iR0k apart with a pop culture quiz. Even though
they are best friends, Parzival couldn’t ask Aech for money to go beyond the
planet; it’s a guy thing, I guess. But little did he know that a boring class
session of Latin would kick start his quest.
Deciphering the riddle to the Copper Key:
The Copper Key awaits explorers
In a tomb filled with horrors
But you have much to learn
If you hope to earn
A place among the scorers
He already knew the challenge was based on the Tomb of Horrors, from Dungeons and Dragons, but he didn’t know
where it was until one day in Latin class. Ludus
was Latin for “school” as well as “sport” or “game.” Cue the DeLorean Reveal.
The first challenge had been on the school planet the whole time. He applied
for a voucher to an away game near the site of the entrance, blew off Aech and
their movie marathon, and descended into the Tomb of Horrors. The first
challenge was defeating the king Acererak in a game of Joust. After one attempt and switching sides with the king, he wins
Joust and the Copper Key just in time
to encounter another challenger. Her name was Art3mis, a legendary woman gunter
on a quest for the egg as well. She developed a reputation from her blogs,
detailing her adventures as well as her thoughts on classic movie titles. Sounds familiar.
Parzival decides to play it like he failed at his attempt at Joust, but it immediately backfires when
Art3mis pulls up the Scoreboard displaying his name at the top. Aech also
wasn’t pleased to hear Parzival beat him to the key, but he easily forgave him.
Parzival travels to the planet, Middletown, made of multiple copies of James Halliday’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio, to unlock the Copper Gate. The challenge was to participate in a Flicksync game playing Doug in the movie WarGames. Shortly after Parzival completed the first challenge, came Art3mis, followed by Aech, then two brothers, Daito and Shoto, filling the top five spots of the Scoreboard and making up the High Five.
Parzival travels to the planet, Middletown, made of multiple copies of James Halliday’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio, to unlock the Copper Gate. The challenge was to participate in a Flicksync game playing Doug in the movie WarGames. Shortly after Parzival completed the first challenge, came Art3mis, followed by Aech, then two brothers, Daito and Shoto, filling the top five spots of the Scoreboard and making up the High Five.
Then Parzival got a mysterious invitation from IOI, an
Internet service company bent of getting the egg first. The invitation was from
the COO, Nolan Sorrento. He offers Parzival a $4 million salary to finding the
egg with a $25 million bonus once the egg was found plus $1 million dollars up
front. Parzival tells Sorrento to “go f*ck a duck.” Then Sorrento lays it on
him, revealing that he knows Parzival’s real name was Wade, and that he lived
in the stacks. When you bribe an online administration, you can get anything.
They even had profiles on Aech, even though his school record showed a fake
name and address, planting the seeds of foreshadowing. Then Sorrento spills the
beans that the stacks, that held Wade’s house in particular, was rigged with
explosives. Desperate he logs out to warn Alice, but he heard nothing, thinking
Sorrento was bluffing. Then it happened. The news claimed it was a meth
explosion.
Afterward, Parzival contacts the other members of the High
Five to meet in Aech’s Basement, Aech’s exclusive chat room. He tells them that
his house was bombed by Sorrento and tells them to be careful of their
whereabouts as well.
While IOI’s Sixers team and a handful of gunters fight for
the Copper Key, Parzival and the gang struggle to the riddle to the Jade Key:
The captain conceals the Jade Key
In a dwelling long neglected
But you can only blow the whistle
Once the trophies are all collected
He seeks Art3mis for guidance, but it slowly merges into a
cyber relationship.
He drifted apart from Aech, and they lost touch completely.
The more he and Art3mis hung out, the more he fell for her. He started
imagining what she looked like in real life. There was a running joke that she
could be a balding middle-aged man, named Chuck, who lives in his mama’s
basement in suburban Detroit. Even Art3mis got in on it, calling Parzival butt
ugly.
Then it all comes to a head at Ogden Morrow’s birthday party, at
the Distracted Globe. Parzival blurts out his feelings to Art3mis, who tell him
that he only likes what she wanted him to see, and that they should spend time
apart. Before it could go any further, a squad of Sixers crashes onto the scene
in an attempt to kill both Art3mis and Parzival. They both make it out okay,
thanks to Og’s avatar’s powers to vaporize every Sixer in the joint, but Parzival
sees Art3mis left without looking back.
By this time, Wade has earned enough money, through
contracting deals he got for clearing the first challenge, that he made a new
identity, booked a ticket to Columbus, Ohio, rented an apartment, and purchased
a top of the line OASIS rig. He’s been focused on finding the egg and hanging
out with Art3mis. But now they are separated. He also has not been getting any
exercise, and the OASIS locks him out until he got into shape again. Since he
wasn’t speaking to Art3mis or Aech, he made better acquaintances with Daito and
Shoto by inviting them on a quest to complete the Shodai Urutoraman level. They
won the Beta Capsule, which gives the owner the power to transform into
Ultraman for three minutes. Parzival gives it to them, saying that the power of
the Japan’s greatest superhero should be in Japanese hands.
After a long day at work, as technical support clerk,
Parzival was shocked to find that Art3mis had gotten hold of the Jade Key. His
heart sank even more when a large group began flying towards the next location,
thanks to the Fyndoro’s Tablet of Finding, pinpointing her location. He felt
slightly hopeful, though, and headed that way himself.
Parzival lands on the planet, Archaide, home of OASIS
classic video game museum. Inside the museum, he stumbles on Happytime Pizza,
an arcade replica of the one in Halliday’s hometown, Middletown. There he finds
an unplugged Pac-Man machine, but
when he plugs it in, it roared to life. He notices a quarter at the top of the
machine, but it stayed glued to its spot. He also notices that the high score
was 3,333,350, but it should not have been there since the machine was
unplugged. Feeling that he was onto something, Parzival pursues to play the
perfect game, earning a higher score. But nothing happens. Instead, the quarter
at the top of the machine deposits into Parzival’s inventory. He feels
disappointed, especially when he learns that Aech now holds the Jade Key.
But then Aech sends him an email, giving him a tip to the
key, in return to Parzival giving Aech a tip to the Copper Key. The Jade Key
was to be obtained through challenged based on the text game, Zork, on the planet Frobozz. Inside the
game, there is an abandoned house (a dwelling long neglected) that housed a
trophy case. Parzival already figure out the captain holding whistle part from
his knowledge on John Draper, known for exploiting a Cap’n Crunch whistle’s
ability to emitting a sound that gave analog phones free long distance calling.
The challenge was collect all nineteen trophies, placing them in the case and
blowing on the Cap’n Crunch whistle. It transforms into the Jade Key wrapped in
a wrapper like a chocolate bar. Parzival makes a narrow escape as the Sixers
descended on the planet. Then Parzival eyes the Scoreboard where he saw Shoto
got the Jade key, but Daito’s name disappeared entirely, indicating that
Datio’s avatar had been killed. Then it was worse when he finds out that Daito
had been killed for real.
Shoto admits to Parzival that he and Daito weren’t real
brothers; they met online and began doing quests together. They did so much
together that they felt like real brothers. He also shows Parzival his feed of
Daito’s avatar keeping watch of the house while Shoto got the key. But then
Daito says that someone was inside, and he unexpectedly logs out, leaving his
avatar defenseless. News reports state that he committed suicide.
Since his encounter with Sorrento, Parzival kept watch of Sorrento’s
IOI number, and he watched it clear not only the Jade Key but the Jade Gate as
well. Then he acquired the Crystal Key.
Despite feeling ill of watching Sorrento climb the
Scoreboard, he discovers that the wrapper was origami paper that folded into
the unicorn from Blade Runner.
Parzival travels to Axrenox to take the Voight-Kampff test. Instead he plays a
perfect game of Black Tiger, a game
Halliday was able to beat with only one quarter. Parzival did the same, winning
a toy robot as a prize. Then he was given a clue to the Crystal Key, but
instead of a riddle he sees a key floating in a bright red star. The star
referenced to a Canadian band named Rush and its album 2112, which clued Parzival that the Key was on the planet Syrinx,
based on the album. He also remembered in another part of the album where it
mentioned an offering hidden behind a waterfall. Inside was a 1974 Gibson Les
Paul electric guitar similar to Alex Lifeson’s from the 2112 tour. He plays it to the song, “Discovery” which reveals the
clue to the Crystal Gate, and then he places it on the altar and receives the
Crystal Key.
On the key is a monogrammed “A,” revealing that the Crystal
Gate was at Castle Anorak, Halliday’s avatar’s stronghold, on the planet
Chthonia. But Sorrento and the Sixers had already arrived and set up an
impregnable force field around the castle.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, Wade is arrested by
IOI police and they take him to IOI headquarters where they had purchased his
outstanding debt and consolidated it. He would be forced to work it off for
IOI. He was assigned to customer service over the phone to help avatars with
their problems. After work he heads straight to his pod where he watches a
sitcom/training video series. But if IOI looked carefully, his earpiece and his
pod security camera are showing him asleep. But Wade had actually hacked into
his own account, fudged his own financial records to get him arrested. Once
inside, he hacked the intranet, using an IOI code he purchased a while back,
and played a recording of him sleeping. Meanwhile he is hacking the mainframe
and he gains access to IOI’s Oology notes on the egg. He also finds files with
his name as well as Art3mis’, Aech’s, Daito’s, and Shoto’s. Daito’s record
showed he had been killed, and it even had a video displaying a group of Sixer
agents grabbing Daito and hurling him off the balcony of this 22-story
apartment. He also examined Art3mis’ file, which included her real name as
Samantha Cook and she looked like her avatar, except for a port wine birthmark
of the left side of her face. He also found a memo written by Sorrento to
abduct her as well as Shoto from their homes to force them to help IOI find the
egg. Aech’s address was mobile so they couldn’t find his real location.
Using his code, Wade created an administrator account and
requested a flash drive and a janitorial outfit over the course of the week. He
copied the files, zeroed out his balance, and reset his identity, so that he’s
Wade again. He snuck out of IOI and headed to the post office where he had
ordered a portable OASIS rig before he was arrested. He logged on and sent
Art3mis, Shoto and Aech a message with their separate profiles as attachments.
He also sent a postscript to Art3mis, saying she looked more beautiful in real
life than he was led by her. He scheduled a meeting in Aech’s Basement.
They were all glad to see that Parzival was alive and were
stunned by his adventures as an indentured servant to IOI and hacking into
their mainframe. But Art3mis called out that Parzival couldn’t resist looking
at the secret. Parzival defended himself by saying he had to see how much IOI
knew about them. It didn’t go from there, but Parzival had to know what she
meant.
Parzival also gave them directions to completing the Jade
Gate and acquiring the Crystal Key. Now they all have one. He pulls up a feed
of Sorrento trying the place his key into the keyhole and reciting the
inscription on the door: “Charity, Hope, Faith.” Thinking it was familiar,
Parzival suggested that they say it in reverse, reminding them of the Schoolhouse Rock number, “Three is a
Magic Number.” Only three of them had to insert their keys into the door. But
the problem was the impregnable force field was still up and there was an army
of Sixers outside. Parzival had a plan for that too. But first they needed to
band together in the real world where they were safe. That is where Ogden
Morrow comes in. He charted planes for them to meet at his mansion in Oregon.
Aech picked up Parzival and reveals that Aech is actually an
African American woman named Helen. At first Wade felt embarrassed because he
talk man stuff to Aech, especially about their shared respect for the female
figure. But as they reconnected, Helen reveals her sexuality, and that she had
been dating a woman she met online. Once they landed at Ogden Morrow’s mansion,
Art3mis and Shoto had already logged in. Wade wouldn’t meet Art3mis until after
the Hunt.
Wade had composed an email and sent it to everyone in the
OASIS, as well as posting it on memo boards, calling everyone to join him in
defeating the Sixers and preventing IOI from getting the egg.
To his surprise everyone responded and traveled to Chthonia,
and launched an assault on the Sixers and the force field. The other plan was
that while Parzival was still at IOI, he programmed a robot to collect an antimatter
friction-induction bomb and detonate it near the Orb of Osuvox, an artifact
that was generating the shield. It had done some so fashionably and the shield
fell.
On the way to the Castle, Shoto broke off from the group and
attacked Sorrento directly in revenge for Daito’s death. All five avatars have
activated their toy robots; Sorrento’s was Mechagodzilla. While Shoto’s robot
flew to Sorrento, Sorrento fired at Shoto, killing his avatar. Parzival
couldn’t seem to bear that Sorrento had personally killed two of his friends’
avatars, because he activates the Beta Capsule, given to him by Daito upon his
death, and destroys Sorrento’s avatar.
Once inside, Parzival, Art3mis, and Aech unlocked the door
to the Crystal Gate. Then they died.
A Sixer had detonated a Cataclyst, a bomb that killed
everyone on the planet, including the owner. In one swift move, 75% of the
OASIS population was gone. Well almost.
Parzival rematerialized because the mysterious quarter he
won at Pac-Man was an extra life. But
his inventory was wiped out. And the Crystal Gate now hovered twenty feet in
the air. Art3mis, Aech, and everyone were actually able to see the broadcast of
Parzival continuing. Art3mis and Aech could actually talk to him. Parzival was
able to find Art3mis’ flying shoes and he flies into the door. The final
challenge was playing a near perfect game of Tempest. They say "near" because the game had a bug in which the
character may die with a certain number of points and receive 40 free credits.
Doing so, Parzival receives his credits, got a score higher than Halliday and
proceeds to the second challenge: another Flicksync this time playing King
Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy
Grail.
Completing the challenge, Parzival proceeds to the final
challenge: Halliday’s office. He comes across an IMSAI 8080, similar to the one
in WarGames. He types a number of passwords,
but no avail. Then he remembers Ogden Morrow’s biography stating that Halliday
was always a afraid of women but Ogden’s wife, Kira, was the only girl he could
talk to (Morrow also reveals that Halliday had loved Kira), but he would only
address her as her D&D character, Leucosia. Entering that in, every machine
in the room lit up and Parzival runs to the Atari 2600 and plays Adventure to where he finds the Easter
egg in the game, but this time its not the creator’s name. It’s Halliday’s Easter
egg. Halliday’s avatar, Anorak appears and when he shakes hands with Parzival, Parzival
transforms into the wizard. Halliday had given him everything, including
complete control of the OASIS.
After Halliday disappears, Parzival resurrects Aech,
Art3mis, and Shoto’s avatars, but only Aech and Shoto, logged in. Art3mis had
gone out to the garden.
Wade had met up with Art3mis, who introduced herself as
Samantha. He told her she was beautiful, she said he was butt ugly. They sat on
the bench holding hands.
Right now should be when I tell you what I think about the book,
but I’ve already burned through 5 pages on my Microsoft Word.
Stay tuned to see how I compared the book to the movie.
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