Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

 

Oh my goodness. This book went so far off the deep end that not even infinite space can save it. 

There was almost something good here, some real questions to think about. It could have gone in the direction of, How technology interferes with relationships  or How humanity's dependence on technology can get us into trouble. The book could have delved into humanity's psychological need for escapism. There were any number of interesting and intelligent routes the author could have taken, but instead, we ended up on The Afterworld -- a virtual planet dedicated to Prince -- for an insanely long time, all while people's lives hung in the balance.

Ready Player Two picks up -- after a lot of exposition -- a few years after the first book ends. The "five" heroes of Ready Player One have settled into their positions as owners of GSS with Og advising, and the business growing. Wade (Parzival) is lonely and more dependent on the Oasis than ever, with nothing to really do. 

With all the access he's gained as Halliday's heir, Wade discovers an unreleased piece of tech known as an ONI headset. They're different than the suits worn in the first book because the ONI actually detaches your consciousness from your body, and puts it into your Oasis avatar. This allows you to feel virtual experiences like you're really living them. The only catch is your mind separates from your body in order for this to happen.

Everyone but Samantha (Art3mis) agrees to release the ONI into the world, so out it goes and everyone is hooked. At the same that this happens, a new quest appears in the Oasis that only the heir can complete. The 7 Shards of the Siren's Soul. Wade teams up with his crew, and with a little outside help, it begins.

Then, like last time, there's some serious trouble and a powerful enemy (not the Sixers this time) and Wade is forced to think fast, while puzzling out the quest, to save the day.

What is nice is that it takes the collective knowledge of all the players to get the job done. Wade doesn't have all the insider knowledge himself. In fact, he would've failed the quest if he'd worked alone.

The crazy starts after once we move on from the quest. Without revealing the specifics, the book ends up in this 2001: A Space Odyssey place, with copies of people's consciousness awakening in a virtual reality on a trip through space. The book gets into it more eloquently, and I promise I didn't really ruin anything for you. But, you need to know the ending is just weird and almost uncomfortably sorted out -- like the end of a Spielberg movie.

Parts of Ready Player Two met my expectations after liking book one, but most did not. It's a sequel you can avoid -- I promise.

Also by Ernest Cline:

• Ready Player One
• Armada

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This book is a lot. A lot of characters with dual purposes. A lot of movement and action in a place that's hard to visualize. A lot of narrative changes which reveal information so far apart, it's hard to pull it together. I still don't totally understand the ending, but I get it enough to feel a little, "meh," about it.

A secret world exists right beneath our feet. It's a world that holds story -- all of it. People find this world because they're meant to, by going through the right door. While it seems that most people who make the discovery just go down and enjoy being surrounded by caverns upon caverns of books, a few enter with a purpose to fulfill. Zachary and Dorian are two of those people. Lured down by the discovery of two curious books, and aided by two locals of this underground world, the men must complete a journey full of fear, pain, heartache, and ultimately love. One that concludes rocking along the waves of the starless sea, which seems to be a living thing itself, on its own mission.

This synopsis leaves out a ton of characters and a lot of action. It's all difficult to explain and harder to summarize. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. Suffice it to say, this is a book about love and creating the right situation for the love you're meant to have to grow. It also drives home how complicated it is to find happiness.

I almost feel like this is the kind of pseudo-philosophical story a developing writer creates before they really know anything about writing. There's a compulsion to put all your thoughts into the story without self-editing, to use a lot of metaphor, and to blur good concepts with an excessive amount of words. While I like the ideas toyed with in the book -- love, human connection, and the evolution of a person's story -- the setting really overcomplicates things. There's just too much to this book all around. The physical space and layers of time within the story somehow dilute the ending, which I feel should have hit with a more exciting punch.

This book is tough to recommend. I liked it, but I wish the story had pieced itself together better. There's definitely something here worth reading. An adventure is always fun. It just doesn't feel totally right to me.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

This is a modern-day adventure story, what Indiana Jones might have gone through if the Internet and cell phones existed in the 1940's. Instead of dark caves with lots of skulls and scurrying animals, the characters here have Google and CG as their tools to solve the great mystery of a secretive society.

Everything about this book is quirky. Even the realistic impression of the crazy stuff going on at Google HQ is odd (and probably not that far from reality.) Clay is an out-of-work marketing person whose most recent job at a start-up that went under has left him a little disillusioned, so he takes the night shift at a unique 24-hour bookstore run my Penumbra. It's not your typical bookstore. There are only a few shelves in the front that carry modern-day books for sale. The rest of the store is devoted to a collection of old books all written in code. The regulars at the store don't buy anything, just borrow these old books, one at a time. Clay must track the activity of these regulars in great detail. He has no idea why or what's going on and probably would have stayed only slightly curious if not for a girl. She works for Google and she's extremely curious about everything and very persuasive.

So, the adventure begins to discover what these coded books are for, why they must be read in a certain order, who Penumbra really works for, and what the strange symbol on the door really means. In order to figure things out, Clay enlists a special effect wiz with a preference for building models out of real materials and his best friend who happens to own a company that creates anatomically correct body parts digitally. He also takes advantage of some pretty serious equipment and some serious brain power at Google. I won't give anything away, but even the cause for the adventure is quirky - it's all about a specific font with a cameo plot line about a fantasy writer (think dragons and magic.)

A quick and light read, this was a great departure for me from all the fantastical books I've been reading lately. It took place in today's world but was still a little mystic and exciting. It was a real adventure, one that anybody with the right resources and the right mystery to solve could go on today. The focus was on the quest itself with a little bit here and there about the characters so you were easily kept in the moment and not bogged down with too many flashbacks and internal monologues. I had fun reading this book and definitely feel like it has mass appeal potential.