Ready Player Two

My Review (Spoiler Free)

Ready Player Two is Ernest Cline's long awaited follow-up to Ready Player One. In this sequel, we return to the Oasis three years after the events of the first book. Wade and his friends have assumed control of GSS and unleashed the Oasis Neural Interface (ONI), which is a virtual reality headset that is truly virtual reality. Players can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the Oasis as if it were all truly real. True to his form, James Halliday has created a second Easter Egg: The Quest for the Seven Shards of the Siren's Soul. This new challenge can only be completed by Halliday's heir, Wade and Ogden Morrow. 

I won't go into too much detail about the quest or the story, because it would very quickly give away key bits of information. Suffice it to say that this is not a great follow up to Ready Player One. The writing is subpar and the pop culture references seem forced. There is too much time spent explaining movies and video games that no one would recognize, with many people potentially not even having a passing idea of the reference prior to reading this book. Cline's story for this book mirrors the first book far too closely and the opening is very weak -- it probably would not grab anyone who wasn't already determined to read and finish this book. Ready Player One was fun and tropey. Ready Player Two is just as tropey, but no where near as fun. The best part of the book is at the end of the story when the biggest (by a slim margin) twist of the story is revealed. There is too little time spent discussing the problems and outcomes of the ONI. Instead, Cline spends all of his time trying to write a book to make another movie.