Ready Player One - Ernest Cline’s Online Puzzle-Focused Future Novel

With an educational background at UC Davis, Niraj Vora undertook research in the chemical engineering sphere and focused on green energy innovations. An avid reader throughout his years at UC Davis, Niraj Vora particularly enjoys future-focused books such as The Martian and Ernest Cline’s bestselling 2011 novel, Ready Player One.

Set in 2044, Ready Player One places the protagonist, Wade Watts, within a dystopian future in which being immersed within OASIS, a virtual utopia, is his only escape. Watts devotes his days to exploring ’80s pop culture-based clues that the late billionaire inventor James Halliday has set in place as a way of providing wealth and power to whoever solves the puzzle. 

Wade Watts bands together with a number of like-minded avatars within Oasis, and their group, High Five, achieves significant progress toward the ultimate goal of cracking Halliday’s puzzle. Unfortunately, others vying for this objective within the massively multiplayer online game prove willing to get ahead by any means, including killing.