Remember how at the end of Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory, Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka told Charlie Buckett "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted," to which Charlie asked "What happened?" Wonka replied, "He lived happily ever after." In Ernest Cline's sequel to his New York Times #1 bestselling novel and Steven Spielberg adapted box office hit, Ready Player One, we find out exactly what happens to Wade Watts after he got everything he always wanted. It turns out that there are more trials ahead before he gets to live happily ever after.
Ready Player Two immediately picks up where Ready Player One left off. Our hero, Wade Watts, also known by his avatar name Parzival, has just won James Halliday's contest and gains control of Gregarious Simulation Systems and its virtual online universe, the OASIS, after an epic battle and defeating Innovative Online Industries (IOI) head, Nolan Sorrento. Wade ends up splitting his win with his friends, the High Five that include Aech, Shoto, and Art3mis, also known as Samantha Cook in the real world whom Wade falls in love with. The four of them become the new owners of the OASIS, while Wade retains his win as Halliday's heir.
One week later, Wade ends up discovering a highly secretive invention created by Halliday left to him before his passing called the OASIS Neural Interface (ONI). This special headset that connects to the brain without penetrating it allows the user to be able to feel all senses and sensations they feel in the real world in the OASIS greatly altering the way a user can experience the virtual reality. Along with this, users can also record and upload their own experiences both in the OASIS and in real life that other users can download and experience too, giving new meaning to the idiom "walk a mile in my shoes." Wade immediately shares his discovery with the group, with Aech and Shoto in agreement that the ONI should be available to the masses. However, Samantha strongly disagrees pointing out the risks and what surrendering your brain to a computer could do. With three against one, the ONI is distributed around the world becoming a massive success while Wade and Samantha break up. The ONI proves to have no side effects, except that if a user surpasses 12 hours of daily usage they will experience Synaptic Overload Syndrome (SOS) putting its users into a coma and eventually death.
Suddenly, after the OASIS reaches 7,777,777 ONI users a new message appears in the previously dormant Halliday contest scoreboard:
Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren's SoulOn the seven worlds where the Siren once played a roleFor each fragment my heir must pay a tollTo once again make the Siren whole
With this new riddle lies a new quest with a mysterious prize only Wade can achieve as Halliday's heir. Three years end up passing without any success in deciphering the clue and the location for the first Shard with Wade ultimately relenting on awarding a billion dollars to anyone who can help him with any viable lead. Meanwhile his friendship with the High Five grows distant as they each move on with their lives, especially Samantha who has refused to speak to Wade except at GSS business meetings.
After a young gunter (a term referring to egg hunters from the previous book) and Parzival fan named L0hengrin helps Wade finally attain the first Shard, a chain of unfortunate events unfold. Ogden Morrow, Halliday's best friend and co-founder of the OASIS, goes missing and Nolan Sorrento escapes from prison. At the same time, a new name appears on the scoreboard who has managed to win three of the seven Shards: Ogden Morrow. When the High Five meet in the OASIS to discuss what has happened they are confronted by a new foe: Halliday's old avatar Anorak, who has achieved sentience becoming an all-knowing artificial intelligence. Anorak threatens the group urging Wade to complete the Seven Shards challenge and to deliver him the Seven Shards once they are all found. In an attempt to force them all to comply, Anorak has locked every ONI user logged in in the OASIS. So, if Wade and his friends fail to complete the challenge within 12 hours, then it's game over for everyone.
The stakes are high more than ever and it will be up to Parzival, Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto to save not only the OASIS, but the entire world.
My first immediate thoughts upon finishing Ready Player Two was that this book was a really fun thrill ride, despite a few things I had some mixed feelings about, but I will get to them momentarily. I am a huge fan of the first book and I remember being completely hooked in by the first chapter alone like a user logging in to the OASIS. I also really loved the movie adaptation, which I thought did a great job in translating the book to screen (and I mean with Steven Spielberg at the helm, there is no wrong). So, I was anxiously excited when I heard back in July that there was a sequel coming out. I had heard rumors of a sequel in the works after the movie came out and even read the unofficial short story prequel, Lacero, about Nolan Sorrento by Andy Weir, but I never foresaw the sequel ever coming to fruition. The thing about sequels is that they can either elevate the story or diminish it. After I finished reading Ready Player One, I thought it was fine as its own standalone book. However, I did think that if a sequel were to be made there could be some things that could be explored considering that Wade now held great power, and with great power comes great responsibility.
The first half of the book instantly brought me back in. I remember this world and I remember these characters and their love of pop culture, especially the '80s. I was intrigued by the plot too and wondered where this story would go. I definitely did not expect that it was going to lead into Terminator's Skynet on steroids mixed in with Westworld and Black Mirror (particularly the San Junipero episode). I liked the new Seven Shards challenge as it was a kind of homage in a way to the original contest from the first book, but a little less complicated without the three separate keys unlocking three individual gates, which the movie condensed.
Each Shard that Wade collected brought him back to a memory of Kira's, who was Ogden Morrow's deceased wife and Halliday's unrequited love. I kept wondering what all this was about and what it meant to the point that I wondered if there was a twist and that Kira had an illegitimate child with Halliday, but that was too far of a stretch considering their relationship and her love for Og. As the story progressed I had as many questions as Wade did. What did this all mean? How can Wade experience these very real memories if the ONI was created after Kira died? What the heck was going on? Another theory I initially had was that L0hengrin was actually the secret villain behind Anorak, but was fortunately glad that I was wrong because I ended up liking her, and her own band of friends the L0w Five, and saw her as a reflection of who Wade once was before he won the contest.
The actual challenges themselves were the really fun parts of this book just as they were in the first. The comradery between the High Five and the excitement of performing the challenges with its heavy references to pop culture was recognizable and harkened back to the same inner nerdiness felt from the previous book. My favorite one was when they visited Shermer, an immersive virtual planet dedicated to John Hughes's movies where a majority of them were set in Shermer, Illinois. Even the ones that were not in Shermer such as Some Kind of Wonderful and Career Opportunities were included. I liked how the High Five had to change the ending of Pretty in Pink by basically recasting Jon Cryer's Duckie to Robert Downey Jr., who really was the original choice to play Duckie before the studio decided to go with Jon Cryer instead. It was fun to see them visit the high school where all the characters from Hughes's movies converged (turn to your left and you will find Joan Cusack from Sixteen Candles and turn to your right and you will find the moment Brian from The Breakfast Club was unable to turn on his elephant lamp in shop class). Even the part when Parzival and Art3mis had to go to the suburban area where all the teen parties were held, which also merged the parties featured in Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science in order to find Robert Downey Jr. was amusing. To be honest, when they achieved the challenge and the new ending played out, I could definitely see this original ending working better than how the movie actually ended.
When I reached the third act of the book, I felt conflicted and it was not so much to do with what happened, but what became of the characters. In the climactic battle scene, Og uses the ONI to log in to this avatar, The Great and Powerful Og, to fight against Anorak. As I was reading this part, it bothered me a little that these two were fighting to begin with because it almost represented the real life Og and Halliday having one last duel, which felt so disconnected to who their characters were in the previous book. I don't remember Og having ill will towards Halliday even if he was hurt that he was forced to leave GSS. So, it felt strange that they had to have this final showdown especially as it was revolved around Kira, which I thought was resolved in the first book. This brings me to my thoughts on the ending.
It turns out Halliday had made an early version of the ONI and knowingly made a copy of Kira's consciousness when she tried it on unbeknownst to her. When the Seven Shards are assembled, they unlock Kira's digital copy of her consciousness named after her avatar, Leucosia, making her a real albeit digital being in the OASIS. Anorak wanted a chance to be with Kira this time hence why he wanted Wade to complete the quest. Anorak it turns out is a digital consciousness of the real Halliday, however Halliday deleted some of his digital copy's memories and by tampering with it Anorak morphed into this sociopathic AI of Halliday. This whole reveal bothered me because it again seemed like things we learned or that had developed in the previous book were now warped and turned into something darker, which did not have to happen in my opinion. I thought there was a great set up already made with Sorrento breaking out of prison and how Og was able to compete in the challenge that something else could have been made from it than the villain turning out be Halliday's version of Bizarro. Also, when you consider how Sorrento was brought back, I was hoping that his character would be utilized more than being just a henchman for Anorak.
The real conflict I have though is the second twist to the Kira/Leucosia reveal. After Leucosia is brought back to life, she gives Parzival the Rod of Resurrection which gives him the power to resurrect any avatar of a deceased ONI user in the OASIS. This means that every user who had been using an ONI had been unknowingly uploading a digital copy of their consciousness into the OASIS. The epilogue then gets into Westworld season 2 territory when it is revealed that Wade uploaded a digital copy of himself, his friends and millions of other ONI users into ARC@DIA, which is a virtual system inside an interstellar spacecraft called the Vonnegut that he, Aech, and Shoto had constructed. He and his friends remain on Earth, while the Vonnegut descends on a voyage across the universe in search of a sustainable planet with a digital copy of the OASIS, its vast library of history and pop culture, and a number of human embryos. Back on Earth, Wade and Samantha get back together and get married, and are expecting a baby girl they plan to name Kira. Aech marries his fiancée, Endira, and Shoto and his wife Kiki welcome their son, Daito, named after the other member of the High Five who died in the first book.
On an initial standpoint, the ending seemed, for lack of a better word, out of this world. It was not the ending I was expecting as it seemed like it should belong in another book. I have some mixed feelings about it as it kind of took me out of the story and made me question the idea of consent not being taken into consideration despite it being for the greater good. After getting past this notion, I do understand how it gives a cathartic ending to Wade and his friends and maybe the entire Ready Player One series. The thing is did it really have to go this route? Possibly, considering that the story takes place in a world where the problems of global warming and the energy crisis are in the background of the central plot. So, it does make sense when you consider everything. While it is not the ending I would have hoped (I would have introduced a different villain and had Wade push that Big Red Button destroying the OASIS and everyone rebuilding society, but then again that could have gone the Westworld season 3 route), I accept what Ernest Cline has given us.
On a whole, Ready Player Two is actually a pretty decent follow up to Ready Player One when you consider everything and the world outside of the OASIS. It's not perfect, as I wish some things had gone differently especially for certain characters, but it maintains the thrills that its predecessor brought. Ready Player One brought something new to the science fiction genre filled with excitement, adventure, and nostalgia. Ready Player Two continues that journey while offering more beyond what we were introduced to in the previous book.
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Music Featured in Ready Player Two
There are a bunch of music references mentioned throughout Ready Player Two, many of which were top hits of the 1980s. Below is a sample of the soundtrack should you want to completely immerse yourself in the story while reading the book.
