The sequel to Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, predictably named Ready Player Two, came as a surprise to me as I had not received any advance notice of it’s arrival. The sequel picks up right from the end of the first book with the same protagonist, Wade Watts. In contrast to the underdog role he played in the first book, he is now all powerful as he takes on a challenge to his personal utopia (while the earth’s population is still suffering through poverty and environmental collapse -- despite the distractions his virtual reality devices provide).
The adolescent fiction, Ready Player One, was warmly received by the gaming community which then turned on the book once it became popular outside of the hobby. It is most routinely criticized for a strong reliance on making references to popular culture (or at least popular culture as seen through the eyes of someone with the same experiences as Ernest Cline).
Cline does have a knack for engaging the reader’s interest and for the first third of the book it’s a real page-turner which is hard to put down. Once the play is revealed however the pace drops considerably. The format of the first book is repeated by once again relying on a “fetch quest” for a plot.
The book then paints a giant target on it’s back for it’s critics by concentrating the popular culture references to a single topic for entire chapters, such as Lord of the Rings or the musical performer Prince. If you have no interest or knowledge of the reference material, entire chapters become incomprehensible laundry lists of meaningless winks and nods. Reading the Lord of the Rings chapter I recalled a lady who came to church and would turn every conversation (within seconds) into long soliloquies about genealogies from the bible (her name was Jean).
Ready Player One begat Ready Player Two begat a page-turning adolescent reading experience that I could have done without. Wait for the movie.
Phil Fogg