Ready Player Two

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Ernest Cline: Ready Player Two (2020, Penguin Random House)

400 pages

English language

Published Nov. 30, 2020 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:
978-1-78089-743-1
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3 stars (18 reviews)

An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?

Days after Oasis founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday's vault, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous, and addictive, than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle and a new quest. A last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who will kill millions to get what he wants. Wade's life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

13 editions

reviewed Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (Ready Player One, #2)

Review of 'Ready Player Two' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Way more compelling sci-fi transhuman ideas to explore than the first, but a bit less gripping.

The first half of this one was a bit too slow and the last half way too fast, the romantic subplot resolution felt contrived, and a decent amount of character growth from the first book seems to have reverted itself by the beginning of the second, and there were several moments where I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

But the ideas brought up in this one are fascinating to think about; ideas about the nature of consciousness, the responsibility of the human race to itself, what makes us good and evil, and the dangers of hero worship, just to name a few.

Plus, the action was more deliberately cinematic in this version, with plenty of vivid word pictures and thoughtful exuberance. Victories feel earned, denouements feel narratively consistent, and characters have …

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