Why you should read ‘Ready Player One’ instead of watching the film

Recently, I saw the film “Ready Player One,” directed by Steven Spielberg, and I instantly fell in love with the story. Following the pre-film excitement, I looked into the book the movie was based on. I never got a chance to actually read the book until after I saw the film, though I’m quite happy with how the order of events played out. I seemed to have forgotten how much more a book has to tell than a film, and would’ve hated the drastic changes the film made if I had read the book first.

Comparing the book to the film — in this case — is almost a crime as now having read and seen both, they should really be considered two separate things. The film was marvelous and seeing that world come to life was so exciting. However, the plot of the book is more developed and true to the core of its story and characters.

“It was the dawn of a new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame,” wrote Ernest Cline, author of “Ready Player One.” The book was released in 2011 by Random House and is a New York Times bestseller.

The story revolves around the video game creator James Halliday and OASIS, a “multiplayer online game that had gradually evolved into the globally networked virtual reality most of humanity now used on a daily basis.” Wade Owen Watts, the protagonist and narrator, explains his recollection of his own story when he managed to win the first key of The Hunt for Halliday’s Easter Egg and the events that followed.

Halliday became an icon and after his death, left his fortune in the form of an Easter Egg hunt, hidden in the virtual world he created. Halliday grew up during the ’80s and his obsession with the era passed on to the new generations of kids studying his life, hobbies, favorite films, video games and music. Watts is one of these kids, committing everything to OASIS and Halliday’s Easter Egg.

Picking up the technological route humanity seems to be moving forward with, Cline wrote of a fictional world that very much mimics ours. The book calls out issues and concerns that we deal with today such as climate change, politics, equality and gender. One of the points the book brings up is privacy and the protection of identity in the digital world. For a book that was published seven years ago before the Facebook scandal, it brings up how big corporations take advantage of its users to use their information without the users knowledge or permission.

“Ready Player One” follows Watts’ journey through loss and growth in The Hunt. It no longer becomes just a game for money but a mission to save the integrity and protection of the OASIS and freedom for those who use it. So, it pretty much involves the world and its protection all while weaving in major ’80s entertainment, love, friendship and learning how to renavigate the real world.

I highly recommend reading the book regardless if you’ve seen the film or not. “Ready Player One” provides a thrilling story about humanity and peoples’ relationships with each other and technology. The book is available at all major bookstores, the ACA Library of SCAD and online.