Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Ready Player One By Ernest Cline



(1) Is everyone you meet online who they say they are?




(2) Are you safe when you're online?


Universal truth 1: A: "Despite what I had said to Aech, knowing that I was about to meet him in person after all these years made me more nervous than I wanted to admit... I took a deep breath and crossed the slush-covered sidewalk, feeling a strange combination of dread and excitement... A           heavyset African American girl sat in the RV's driver seat, clutching the wheel tightly and staring     straight ahead."(318)
B: "Art3mis: What if I were a 300 lb. gal named Charlene, who lives in her mom's basement in                 suburban Detroit? Would you still have a crush on me then?
      Parzival: I don't know. Do you live in your mother's basement?
      Art3mis: No.
      Parzival: Yeah. Then I probably still would." (170)

Universal truth 2: A: "Tell us how to reach the First Gate. Right now. Or we will kill you. Right now"
B: "They broke into his apartment, pulled him out of his haptic chair, and threw                                    him off his balcony. He lived on the forty-third floor." (242)

Connections:
1. In Ready Player One, there are several times where the antagonist company of the story tracks the main characters through the internet and tries to kill them. While killings may be not as frequent, there are several internet personalities whose houses and faces have been shown due to people hacking them and figuring out stuff about them.

2. Ready Player One includes a lot of made up virtual reality equipment. The book was written in 2011, and now a lot of what was in the book is rapidly becoming a reality.

3. In this novel, the main character has a lot of friends as well as enemies that he made in the virtual world he spends most of his life in. Similar to him, I have made several acquaintances from all over the world from playing video games.

4. Ready Player One is mostly set in virtual reality, which makes me think of The Matrix seeing as they are both set in virtual worlds for most of the time.

5. In this book, the main character studies and enjoys thousands of T.V shows, movies, and video games from the 70s to 90s. While I haven't seen thousands, I have definitely enjoyed a seriously big amount of movies, T.V shows and video games from the 70s to 90s.




Pictures




In Ready Player One, Wade (the main character) lives in a dystopian world of run down cities.








Wade wears a virtual reality visor in this book, which I imagine would look something like the Oculus Rift.








Wade is in the OASIS for most of the novel, which is shockingly similar to an upcoming game called Chronicles of Elyria where you make an avatar and live life as that avatar in a virtual world.



Wade refers to how people can sell items or services they have in the OASIS, similarly, people sell virtual items on the Steam community market that range in price from $.03 cents to over $400.