Ready Player One

Ready Player One is a novel that talks about our world in the future where virtual reality takes most of the place. It was a nice book to read, although it is kind of lengthy, it always kept me wondering what will be going on in the next few pages. It has a relatable character -- Wade, who is a senior in high school and is very good with video games, especially anything about Halliday-- and a simple goal for the character-- to win the Easter Egg that James Halliday had left for OASIS players. During Wade's hunt for the Easter Egg, in one part of the book we see him rarely or never goes out of his apartment, just to focus on the virtual reality world and achieve his dream there. This could be an issue that will possibly relate to our situation too, where you always hear people say that "technology is taking so much of our time" and "escaping the reality".

As our technology advances, we became more and more attached to electronic devices, wireless internet, social media... etc. Sometimes we became too attached to them, like in the book described how the main character only wants to live in the OASIS for one time. Personally I think this is an inescapable result of the technology, but it is also not necessarily a bad thing. Technology has helped us through the ages, and also helped us solve a lot of problems. It gave us power to discover more, learn more, and be even smarter than we are now.

Also with the advance of technology, social media might be another thing to discuss about. There's a lot of pros and cons about social media, one big thing might be the unknown identity of each other. I remember once Art3mis in book told Wade that he knows nothing about her in real life, and Aech told Wade that she could be some mid aged dude name Chuck who lives in his mother's basement. The risk and danger of anonymous is obvious, but I guess it also creates excitement for meeting new people who you don't interact in real life.

After all, I really enjoyed reading this book. The pacing kept me going and wanted to know more about it. I am really amazed by the world created by the author (and I think it could be a possible thing that would happen in the future). I look forward to read more books like this!

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