"Then I paused and spent a moment staring at my immersion rig. I'd been so proud of all this high-tech hardware when I had first purchased it. But over the past few months, I'd come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn't exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself".
This novel takes computer gaming to a whole new level (no pun intended!). Based in the year 2044, people log onto the OASIS virtual world where they lead completely different lives, go to school, get real qualifications, and 'hang out'. In fact, OASIS seems to *be* the main form of socialization in this futuristic year, where everybody from youths to elderly people don their haptic gloves, wear visors, and sit in their special suits in their haptic chairs shutting out reality and living out better lives than they really have.
That is, until OASIS's founder, Jim Halliday, dies and leaves his whole fortune hidden within the game, in the form of an Easter Egg Hunt, for 'gunters' to find; the winner acquiring billions of dollars as well as control of the OASIS world. Wade Watts, the protagonist, decides to undertake the challenge of looking for the prize "egg", undergoing several trials and threats in the process chiefly from the "Sixers" (the 'baddies') - an enemy communications conglomerate and service provider - who are itching to gain control of this virtual world and run it for capitalist reasons.
Sci-fi is not really my genre, but yet I really liked this book. There are a lot of references to 1980s pop culture and video games (as this was Halliday's favourite and happiest era, and one in which he based his Hunt on), and the characters are likeable - even if, in our world, Wade could be considered a bit "weird"! The author keeps the suspense moving through a fast-paced narrative, related from the viewpoint of Wade himself, with one or two twists in the storyline; the many diversions that Wade ("Parzival") takes from his Hunt for the prize and the choices he makes ensure that this book is a real page-turner as well as one which saw me yelling at the pages in frustration with him!
I think I would have enjoyed the novel more if I didn't know the outcome of the adventure at the beginning of the book, if the author had instead left the reader wondering whether he would succeed or not, finding out at the very end. Personally, for me, it kind of dampened the excitement level a little. However, that said, it was still addictive reading, and I am glad I took up this recommendation from Booktube.
This novel takes computer gaming to a whole new level (no pun intended!). Based in the year 2044, people log onto the OASIS virtual world where they lead completely different lives, go to school, get real qualifications, and 'hang out'. In fact, OASIS seems to *be* the main form of socialization in this futuristic year, where everybody from youths to elderly people don their haptic gloves, wear visors, and sit in their special suits in their haptic chairs shutting out reality and living out better lives than they really have.
That is, until OASIS's founder, Jim Halliday, dies and leaves his whole fortune hidden within the game, in the form of an Easter Egg Hunt, for 'gunters' to find; the winner acquiring billions of dollars as well as control of the OASIS world. Wade Watts, the protagonist, decides to undertake the challenge of looking for the prize "egg", undergoing several trials and threats in the process chiefly from the "Sixers" (the 'baddies') - an enemy communications conglomerate and service provider - who are itching to gain control of this virtual world and run it for capitalist reasons.
Sci-fi is not really my genre, but yet I really liked this book. There are a lot of references to 1980s pop culture and video games (as this was Halliday's favourite and happiest era, and one in which he based his Hunt on), and the characters are likeable - even if, in our world, Wade could be considered a bit "weird"! The author keeps the suspense moving through a fast-paced narrative, related from the viewpoint of Wade himself, with one or two twists in the storyline; the many diversions that Wade ("Parzival") takes from his Hunt for the prize and the choices he makes ensure that this book is a real page-turner as well as one which saw me yelling at the pages in frustration with him!
I think I would have enjoyed the novel more if I didn't know the outcome of the adventure at the beginning of the book, if the author had instead left the reader wondering whether he would succeed or not, finding out at the very end. Personally, for me, it kind of dampened the excitement level a little. However, that said, it was still addictive reading, and I am glad I took up this recommendation from Booktube.
No comments:
Post a Comment