Here’s a sneak peek at the Top Shelf in this month’s Independent, BookPeople’s paper newsletter available in-store. This month, Master Bookseller Kester Smith reviewed the soon-to-be-released novel by Austinite Ernie Cline, Ready Player One.
We’re planning a big 80’s night release party for Ernie on Tuesday, August 23rd, 7p. Details of the party are below the review.
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It’s the year 2044, and, like most of humanity, Wade Watts vastly prefers the online utopia known as the OASIS to an increasingly grim, poverty-stricken real world. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual reality. Somewhere inside the OASIS are hidden a series of puzzles that will yield massive fortune to whoever can unlock them.
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One could have been just one more in a slew of stories about a dystopian future. In just the brief synopsis of the previous paragraph, you’ll find hints of Snow Crash and every novel influenced by Snow Crash. But what you also find is a hint of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and that serves as a clue for readers as to what sets Ready Player One apart; it approaches the apocalypse with a bit of whimsy and wit.
The thing about your standard dystopian novels is that they’re just. so. serious. Sometimes to the point of plodding. Cline’s novel is anything but. It’s a wild ride, a romp through 80’s nostalgia, gamer culture, and seemingly every story ever written about the future and/or how to travel to it. Cline borrows from familiar favorites, but he never goes so far as to rip them off. Instead, the feeling is one of revisiting the past as a way to navigate the future.
This is certainly the path that Cline’s protagonist, Wade Watts, must take. He becomes a student of a distant past that readers will recognize as yesteryear and, as he gathers facts about a time period that Generation X calls childhood, he manages to make geeking out look exceedingly cool.
Ready Player One is most certainly for sci-fi fanboys, but it is, by no means, just for them. It is for anyone who loves a grand adventure story, whether it be Snow Crash or Star Wars or The Princess Bride. It’s fun and it’s funny and it is a thrill a minute, so snag yourself a copy and try to keep up.
~Kester Smith is a Master Bookseller, who also runs the Required Reading Revisited Book Club
Ready Player One Release Party!!!
Tuesday, August 23rd, 7p
Ernie will park his DeLorean, complete with Flux Time Capacitator, out front of the store for folks to pose with in their best 80’s gear. He’s also bringing his “tricked-out XBox” which is loaded with virtually every awesome video game ever created, and we’ll have the games set up on our big screen for everyone to play. We’ll also be serving Pan Galactic Gargle-Blasters (to the 21+ crowd) and impressing all of you with how good we look in Spandex, fluorescents and lace gloves. So come on down and relive the glory with us. It’ll be totally rad.
BookPeople 
I’m the son of an independent bookseller in Katy, Texas (Katy Budget Books) and I’ve heard great things about “Ready Player One” from a huge sci-fi junkie who read an ARC. Cline’s work apparently packs some serious nostalgic punch. Can’t wait to read it.
Quite a few of us here have read it at this point (the ARC has really been making the rounds) and it’s consistently been getting two thumbs up.
Yeah, I’m in the process of trying to track down the ARC at this point. “Ready Player One” is the first I’ve heard of Cline, but I’m intrigued.