Like the unassuming hero of Ernest Cline's debut novel, Ready Player One is discretely climbing our Turnrow 20 best seller list as the season wears on and the hunt for unique gifts reaches fever pitch.
Wade Watts lives in a world that is akin to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Luckily his hero, the eccentric billionaire and game designer James Halliday, has created the perfect video game to help ease the depression of the natural world. Halliday is the creator of the OASIS, the ultimate gaming experience in which players can exist in a virtual world where anything imaginable is possible.
When Halliday unexpectedly dies, he leaves his fortune and game rights to anyone who can successfully find the hidden Easter egg within the game. For Wade, this is a chance to change his dismal life for the better. Having spent much of his life obsessed with Halliday, he quickly begins to decipher the challenge, which is couched in 1980s trivia.
Ready Player One is a fast-paced ride that is part The Wizard (that's right, Fred Savage fans), part Breakfast Club and part Buckaroo Banzai. Steeped in 1980s nostalgia, this book is a blast for those with a similar hankering for that simpler, geekier time. (The author wrote the screenplay for the indie flick Fanboys and owns a DeLorean he has retro-fitted to resemble the time-traveling car in Back to the Future.) It's the perfect Christmas gift for teens who have tired of vampire literature, or any other rad dudes and dudettes on your list.
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