Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline

[goodreads]

Title: Ready Player Two
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Sci-fi
Rating: 4/5
# pages: Audiobook ~14hrs
Date read: January 2021

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 thousand times more wondrous, and addictive, than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle and a new quest. The 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.


Surprisingly enough, I think I actually preferred this one to the first one. I thought part of the first one dragged, but didn't have the same problem with this one at all! Of course, that might also have been because I listened to this as an audiobook, and as always, Wil Wheaton did a brilliant job narrating it!

I will have to agree with the people who complain that it follows the exact same formula as the first one (that's never stopped anybody before though - "Catching Fire", I'm looking at you!), but I appreciated that the High Five immediately banded together again, and listened to each others' strengths depending on the world in question. It's really difficult to review this book without spoiling it though, so will leave it at that I thought it brought some interesting ethical issues to light.

However, at the end of the day it was very obviously a sequel written to appease the fans, and I hope that Ernest Cline will let the world rest here.