$>ReadyPlayerOne__

OMG.

I finished reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline about one o'clock this morning and I would have blogged about it immediately if I was not seriously in need of sleep.  I just could not put it down.  I am already considering reading it again sometime this week.

This is the best cyberpunk novel I have read is quite a while and is likely the best book of any kind I have ever read.  I firmly believe Ready Player One is this generation's Neruomancer or Snow Crash.  Like those other two icons of cyberpunk, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, Ernest Cline has completely captured the essence of the technology revolution.   The prose is easily readable, the references are relevant and the flow is perfect - every chapter is a cliff hanger.  

I seriously could not put this book down.  At one point on an earlier evening at about midnight, my eyes were blurry and I was fighting off sleep.  Just as I was ready to put the book aside for the night I read the line:

        I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon.  

        City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey.

        The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky. 

Recognizing the stanza above from one of my favourite Rush albums, I got up, splashed water on my face and read for another 2 hours before finally being pulled unwillingly into the realm of sleep - book still in my hand.

Cline has managed to touch on the very heart of the technology revolution - not inventing an unimaginable future, but building a realistic model based on the real events of the past.  There are hundreds of references to 1980's pop culture, digital revolution, music, books, movies, and the general philosophy shift that was happening at that time.  That decade was a pivotal point in history on all facets and Cline has capitalized on that while speaking directly to the geeks of that generation.  From WarGames to Pat Benatar to Japanese Anime, this book touches every aspect of the 1980s revolution and does it with very close attention to detail.

That is the thing the bothers me the most about books and movies about technology - the accuracy.  When I watch a show or read a book that tries to sound technical, but their tech adviser is obviously uneducated, I get completely turned off.  Ready Player One has NONE of that, even down to the detail of serial numbers of console games.  This guy is a geek god.

If you are a geek and you lived through the eighties, drop everything and go buy this book now.  Seriously.  If you must actually walk to a physical bookstore, then do so as soon as possible, but as the book reminds us "Going outside is highly overrated".  Even if you have never heard of Zaxxon or Qbert, if you have any interest in reading an amazingly well written book and have any interest at all in technology, then you are welcome to wait a day or so, but then go get a copy and read it anyway - you will not be disappointed.

Okay, that is enough rant ... I have to go re-read that book now.

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