Brief Synopsis
“Ready Player Two” is a sequel to the massively popular “Ready Player One” novel, both by author Ernest Cline. This story again follows the journey of Wade Wilson, beginning days after his victory in the previous novel as he discovers another contest created by James Halliday. This time, however, there are no clear rules, and nobody quite knows what Wade will win if he succeeds. So the question becomes: should he even bother?
Content Warnings: References to Sex, Death, Violence (PG-13)
What Do I Think?
So here are my honest thoughts: “Ready Player Two” isn’t entirely terrible.
Is it as strong as its predecessor? Absolutely not. Those were some impressively big shoes to fill, and realistically there’s just no way this novel was going to meet that expectation. Overall, however, I think that “Ready Player Two” is an enjoyable read.
One of the big issues I had with this novel: there needed to be more editing. The first chunk of the book is just too long and unnecessary, meant to fill the reader in on the going-ons since the end of the first novel. Normally this would be understandable – it’s been nearly a decade since the previous book came out – but “Ready Player Two” focuses too much on irrelevant information that ultimately plays no important part in the overarching story. There’s just too much here that could have been cut without harming the plot.
The second big issue I had: Wade Wilson, the protagonist. He’s just…unlikeable. In the first book, he certainly had faults – his obsession with Art3mis comes to mind – but he was the underdog, just a kid squaring off against a robotic mega-corporation. That was part of what made him a good protagonist then. But now? He starts off the story a super-rich zillionaire, who abuses his omniscience and omnipotence inside the OASIS to bully detractors and make terrible decisions. I fully expected the story to be a good exploration on the consequences of this sort of action, on how letting anyone, good or not, have that much money and power is a bad thing, but it just…didn’t. There was an attempted parallel between Wade and the creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, but the connections are slim at best and Cline does a sloppy job of reinforcing them.
Overall, the story is a fun, quick adventure that has some clever setpieces and poses a genuine question about surveillance, the moral grey area of VR/AR, and even immortality. If you enjoyed Ready Player One, I suspect you’ll probably enjoy this one, too.
Jacob Ryckman 