Ready Player One

Front Cover
Random House Publishing Group, Aug 16, 2011 - Fiction - 384 pages
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.

“Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly

A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. 

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly San Francisco Chronicle Village Voice Chicago Sun-Times iO9 The AV Club

“Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”HuffPost

“An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN

“A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”Boston Globe

“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR

“[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”iO9
 

Selected pages

Contents

Chapter 0000
Level One
8
Chapter 0001
9
Chapter 0002
23
Chapter 0003
33
Chapter 0004
43
Chapter 0005
48
Chapter 0006
57
Chapter 0020
195
Chapter 0021
203
Chapter 0022
211
Chapter 0023
221
Chapter 0024
229
Chapter 0025
236
Chapter 0026
244
Chapter 0027
254

Chapter 0007
64
Chapter 0008
73
Chapter 0009
83
Chapter 0010
96
Chapter 0011
104
Chapter 0012
112
Chapter 0013
124
Chapter 0014
130
Chapter 0015
144
Chapter 0016
156
Level Two
163
Chapter 0017
164
Chapter 0018
175
Chapter 0019
185
Level Three
262
Chapter 0028
263
Chapter 0029
270
Chapter 0030
277
Chapter 0031
289
Chapter 0032
298
Chapter 0033
307
Chapter 0034
321
Chapter 0035
329
Chapter 0036
337
Chapter 0037
344
Chapter 0038
354
Chapter 0039
363
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Ernest Cline is a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.

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