Press Release: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sarah Breivogel, 212-572-2722
A Virtual World. An Impossible Quest. An Extraordinary Debut.
ARE YOU READY?
READY PLAYER ONE
A Novel
By Ernest Cline
PRAISE FOR READY PLAYER ONE:
—Indie Next pick, August 2011
—Amazon, best book pick, August 2011
—Apple, best book pick, August 2011
“Ready Player One is the ultimate lottery ticket.”
—New York Daily News
“An exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyber-quest. Mind-twisting settings, nail-biting action, amusing banter, and unabashed sentiment make for a smart and charming Arthurian tale . . . Cline’s imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe.”
—Booklist, starred review
“[An] adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom . . . loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans.”
—Publisher’s Weekly, Pick of the Week
“This non-gamer loved every page of Ready Player One.”
— Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series
“Fascinating and imaginative . . . gamers must navigate clever puzzles and outwit determined enemies in a virtual world in order to save a real one. Readers are in for a wild ride.”
—Terry Brooks, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shannara series
“Completely fricking awesome . . . This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me.”
—Patrick Rothfuss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wise Man’s Fear
“I really, really loved Ready Player One. . . . Cline expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future.”
—Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse
Genre-busting, ambitious, and irresistibly charming, READY PLAYER ONE (on sale August 16, Crown Publishers) by Ernest Cline is a jaw-droppingly cinematic debut that is part thriller, part love story, and part high-stakes quest through a virtual world.
Set in a terrifyingly plausible near future, READY PLAYER ONE tells the story of Wade Watts, who, like most of his contemporaries, escapes a grim, poverty-stricken reality by spending his waking hours jacked into a sprawling online utopia known as the OASIS. Created by the reclusive James Halliday, the OASIS is a place where you can be anything you want to be, and where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And somewhere within this alternate reality, the ultimate lottery ticket lies concealed: Halliday has promised that control of the OASIS—and his massive fortune—will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late-twentieth century. And then Wade unlocks the first puzzle. Suddenly the world is watching, and Wade finds himself embroiled in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, pitted against powerful opponents who are willing to commit very real murder to gain control of the OASIS. If he’s going to survive, Wade will have to leave behind his perfect virtual existence and face up to the real world he’s been terrified of for so long.
READY PLAYER ONE introduces Cline (a screenwriter best known for the 2009 cult film Fanboys) as a gifted and terrifically entertaining new talent. His novel features a breathtaking, meticulously imagined world that’s simultaneously futuristic and charmingly retro—a universe where light-speed-traveling DeLoreans battle it out with X-Wing fighters and entire planets are inspired by classic video arcades—combined with a plot that incorporates pop-culture esoterica such as Cap’n Crunch commercials, John Hughes movies, and giant Japanese robots. Yet READY PLAYER ONE is more than the sum of its far-out references. This imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age saga about the joys—and perils—of living in fantasy worlds will speak directly to the geek inside every reader, and invites the question . . .
ARE YOU READY?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ERNEST CLINE has worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video-store clerk, and tech-support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those promising career paths to express his love of pop culture full-time as a spoken-word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film Fanboys, much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon. These days Ernie lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, their daughter, and a large collection of classic videogames. Ready Player One is his first novel.
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
Crown Publishers • August 16, 2011
Price: $24.00 hardcover • 384 pages • ISBN 978-0-307-88743-6
Please visit www.crownpublishing.com or www.ernestcline.com
Also available in audio and electronic versions