Positives: Fast plot and fun – good to see a different approach to Sci Fi writing/genre

Negatives: You really need to know your 80s games/music/film/media to totally enjoy this although this could also be seen as a positive!?

Book Description: It’s the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We’re out of oil. We’ve wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate realit

OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, 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 stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.

Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions – and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.

Review: I liked this book I really did, something different. Now you need probably to be able to relate to some of the games mentioned (but not to the depth the characters get into). Anyway the MMOG (massive, multiplayer online game) rules the world, people learn, live and play in this environment – provides the structure, nay the support for the whole book and the quest to find the eggs and inherit the fortune. There is a lot to relate to this book, particularly if you will find if you are 30 +, younger readers may struggle to reference some of the subject matter, but then you pays you money you takes your choice dont you>? (well at least read the book description to get an idea). So yes something different and if you want to get away from ‘Space Opera’ trilogies then try this one out its good.

Out of ten: Ill call it a 8, enjoyable enough and something different on the high-tea plate of cucumber sandwiches (erm) !