A very interesting read, certainly. Although, Ernest Cline’s sequel and the supporting cast are every bit as vacuous and nostalgic as their predecessor. The Events of Cline are always intriguing. This one has a dark undertone to it.
The simplest way to explain the narrative of Ready Player Two is to retell the plot of its predecessor, Ready Player One since they are substantially the same. In the mid-2040s, as the world outside crumbles into poverty and environmental ruin, a young man named Wade Watts undertakes a virtual reality quest where all the puzzles can be solved with his personal superpower: an encyclopedic knowledge of trivia about ’80s movies, TV shows, music, and video games.
Also, other important names of stars join him. It’s evident why author Ernest Cline opted to replicate the formula, given the success of the first book, which sold millions of copies and spawned a Steven Spielberg film version.
As befits a novel whose only mission is to pilfer more popular tales and make them worse in every way, Ready Player Two now plunders its own antecedent, too.
Despite the fact that Ready Player One was a self-indulgent and philosophically bankrupt piece of nostalgia stitched together with page-long synopses of vastly superior media, there were glimmers of the mindless joy a little boy might have powerful experiences while smashing action figures together in between its awkward prose (and even more awkward treatment of women).
And the new novel came to a close with a modest step forward for the protagonist Wade, who recognizes that “as terrible and horrible as reality might be, it is also the only place where you can find genuine pleasure.”
In Cline’s sequel, however, our protagonist is no longer an underdog orphan yearning desperately to leave his orphanage; instead, he is a bored, resentful tech millionaire who has learned nothing from his orphanage experience.
The Introduction Plot
Wade improved the lives of his subjects and the limits of games for his avatars and rich friends. The opening 100 pages of the novel see Wade embodying the worst elements of individuals such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as he launches a new technology termed the OASIS Neural Interface, which is based on the OASIS Neural Network.
The new method of seeing the digital world takes just a short period of time for OASIS users to become utterly hooked, and Wade is no exception. In addition, the ONI has the capability of allowing users to record and experience the lives of other users, both within and outside of the OASIS.
Wade is correct in asserting that this new technology has opened the door to new levels of global empathy by allowing users to put themselves in the shoes of others. However, the argument appears to be on shaky ground when the most popular ONI recording in the world is a 50-person orgy and GSS is forced to employ a team just to monitor illegal, illicit ONI uploads, among other things.
That the situation may escalate is utterly overlooked while Wade searches for the Siren’s Soul. The decision to base the story around yet another Easter egg hunt was a significant gamble, and the payoff was ultimately disappointing.
The first had a clearly defined goal for which the whole world was willing to battle, and in an impoverished future, possession of the OASIS is akin to winning the lottery. Wade’s admiration for Halliday, as well as their similar interest in pop culture, were also driving forces for the search.
When it comes to Wade’s pursuit of the Siren’s Soul, the mystery surrounding the Macguffin’s nature is a major hindrance.
Although we spend much of the second novel not knowing what Wade is fighting for, at least we now understand why he is fighting: the villain is using the annoying 12-hour ONI usage limit as a ticking time bomb of a bargaining chip to compel Wade to collect the artifact for them, an exchange that will have some seriously uncomfortable implications once you learn what the Siren’s Soul is actually made out to be.
The Main Plot
Even if the OASIS is still as imaginative as ever, it proves to be a more tiring environment this time around. We got a lot more insight on how the events in the OASIS were influencing the outside world in the first book, which contained a lot of back-and-forth between the actual world and the virtual world in the debut novel.
Because of the nature of the villain’s scheme, as well as the fact that Wade, unfortunately, remains the sole point of view of the black character in the novel, practically all of the action takes place inside the OASIS this time around.
There are two ways in which this seems to have been a lost opportunity. Not only are the real-world stakes of Wade’s new quest enormous and deserving of being followed up on with greater depth and regularity than they currently are, but Wade also continues to be a difficult popular character to root for, and giving us a break from his point of view in favor of, say, Samantha Evelyn Cook, might have been a welcome a real change of scenery.
Protagonist Wade Watts doesn’t seem to have retained any of the lessons about humility and connection that he acquired on his first expedition, and this seems to be the case much too frequently. It seems like Wades redemption story.
There are mean things happening. A lot of his shortcomings were more forgiving readers the first time around because he was an outsider, a poor youngster with a lot to learn about the world and other people.
This time around, however, his mistakes were more difficult to overlook. Art3mis, who leaves him after 10 days because she knows the ONI technology is bad for human beings, she told him to eat a virtual cake.
Also, she believes that the ONI will cause a bunch of hate crimes, which will foreshadow the worth of the win.
But if that youngster has had the opportunity to absorb those lessons and has gone on to become one of the richest people on the planet, you’re less likely to feel sympathetic toward him, particularly given how often he displays a total lack of self-awareness. It is important also to mention the Samurai Shoto from ready player one.
The Final Plot
The final plot of Ready Player Two has a problematic relationship with hero worship, as hero Wade himself acts as a continual reminder throughout the film. The flaws in questmaster James Halliday’s personal life are brought to the forefront more prominently this time around, and the advantages of his works increasingly seem to be insignificant in comparison.
The delights that next-level uses of Halliday’s technology are allowing Wade and his companions to experience here appear to exceed the responsibility Halliday has for the harm that they may (and do) do them in the process.
This seems to be a painfully naïve approach, given that the extended awareness that Halliday has pioneered in his virtual world does not appear to be wholly ethical, or even safe. Wade has established himself as a hero (but also a villain) in his own right, and new ally Lohengrin’s fangirl obsession with him, complete with kneeling and calling him “sir,” pushes the book toward self-parody at times, with Wade simply going along with it giving the impression of unintentional self-parody.
Ready Player One was known for its many pop-culture allusions, and fans will be pleased to know that they return in the sequel and are less obnoxious than in the first film. Fortunately, since the second hunt is almost totally focused on Wade, much of the elitism that accompanied competing Gunters battling with one other over minor details and judging individuals they felt to be posers has been eliminated.
There are plenty of new worlds for Wade and his buddies to explore, many of which are based on fan-favorite movies, music, and literature, and the inside jokes and obvious love interest for the source material prevent Ready Player Two from seeming like a complete failure. A happy ending?
The Final Verdict
The time of publication of Ready Player Two was a bit later than the publication of the Aech. Ready Player Two is a horror narrative that believes it is a fantasy, as told by a monster who believes he is the hero. Ready Player Two is a horror story that believes that it is fiction.
Prepared Player Two forgoes the enjoyment and wish fulfillment of its predecessor in favor of a fundamentally broken and inconsistent journey towards the singularity.
Nerdy allusions abound, but they aren’t enough to redeem a plot that revolves around a protagonist who is even more difficult to root for a second time as he searches for a relic that you begin to wish he wouldn’t locate in the first place.
However, although the OASIS neural interface continues to be filled with legendary pop-cultural stalwarts, there is no heart to be discovered this time around, and the sequel suffers as a consequence of it.
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