Ready Player One
The real world is a ruin. Everyone lives in a virtual one. A dead billionaire hid his fortune inside it.
The Easter Egg Hunt
Ernest Cline's 2011 novel is set in a near-future America where most of humanity escapes grinding poverty into the OASIS, a vast virtual reality world created by the eccentric billionaire James Halliday. When Halliday dies, he leaves his entire fortune to whoever can find the three Easter eggs hidden in his creation. Wade Watts, a teenager living in a trailer stack outside Columbus, becomes the first player to find the first key and suddenly has the largest corporation in the world hunting him.
Reading Ready Player One
Nostalgia
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"Going outside is highly overrated.
"Ernest Cline · Ready Player One
Cline originally self-published and distributed the novel as a podcast audiobook before it attracted a publisher. He wrote the screenplay himself and Stephen Spielberg directed the 2018 film adaptation.
The film adaptation grossed over 582 million dollars worldwide and was praised for its visual inventiveness despite criticism that it softened the book's references. The novel launched a renewed interest in 1980s nostalgia culture.