Ready Player Two

I have lots of thoughts on this book, some good and some not so good. Overall, I think I can't recommend it generally, and most folks who loved the first one will be okay with this but disappointed.

While both the Player One and Player Two are entrenched in 80s and 90s pop culture, this one is also steeped in tropes, most notably relationship and villain tropes. And, it mirrors the first novel in structure. Outside of different historic culture references, there is nearly nothing new here.

I enjoyed parts of the new quest, but I'm really stuck on the things I didn't like at all: I hated the concept of the bad guy, I don't like what Cline did with Wade and Samantha, and finally, I can't stand that the way those changes to that relationship are essentially ignored once the new crisis hits.

While I like Prince's music, I'm not a fanboy, so nearly all of the references in that section of the book went over my head completely. On top of that I expected this whole section to be a red herring, but fortunately it wasn't. That said, by avoiding the red herring, Cline has left a reference in this part of the story hanging.

It's hard to tell that I didn't hate this book. I gave it three stars because it has an incredible amount of potential, mostly missed potential. I can imagine stories stemming from this novel, and I'm happy with this.

I find it hard to believe that over 8 years have flown since I picked up and devoured ready Player One. I loved it, and although the movie was different, I enjoyed that for what it was too. I have reread One at least once a year since and was truly excited for the release of book two.


I finished Two and, although not as thrilled with it as I would have liked, I think that would have been hard to match. As a sequel, it moves the story on in a very clever way (the ending in particular was great). I did feel that the 12 hour timespan throughout the books’ main action was a little too artificial and everything bot a bit squished, and of course it’s hard to reinvigorate a topic you’ve trod heavily over in a first story. And Prince, yech.

On the plus side our hero grew believably and had a lot to deal with, “all sunshine and rainbows” seemed to be the order of play at the end of One and it’s … reassuring, I suppose, to note that wasn’t exactly the case. The tech progression was great, the sheer variety of problems facing Humanity was quite over-the-top and dramatic, and old enemies were a little hard to swallow. By and large though, I’m glad I picked up the sequel.

I don’t know what Two will do to my enjoyment of rereading One I’ve just done so ready for this book so I guess I’ll find out next year.