Restricted Section Book Club discussion

Wow! This book in intense!

How are you liking it? What's been your favorite part so far? Favorite thing about OASIS? Least favorite part about this version of the future?

I think the most interesting part of this book is the dystopian society that they live in. People are ignoring the outside world and living in their fantasy in order to feel some inkling of hope. This mirrors society today, I think, as we rely heavily on entertainment to feel happiness. We read, watch television shows, go to opening nights for movies to live vicariously through another persons pov. I'm not saying I don't love this, but this book shows the extremes of forgetting about facing the real problems in the world outside our fictitious stories. As this book progresses, I think Wade kind of discovers this as well.

The "living in a virtual world" aspect reminded me of Idlewild by Nick Sagan. Has anyone else read that?

Cat wrote: "I just finished chapter 9 and I have to say I'm loving this book! I can definitely sympathize with Wade in wanting to escape from the world's issues. I'm expecting that as the story goes on Wade wi..."

The quips keep getting better. This book just gets better in every aspect as you go along!

I think that it's really odd how the beginning of this book starts out in the real world with so much description of it, but the majority of it so far has been in the OASIS. It makes me wonder if we're even going to go back into the real world. Kayla and Cat did mention that they think Wade will realize the differences between the virtual world and the real one, and I didn't even think about that. Although I agree that that might be a possibility, I'm thinking/hoping that most of the conflict will occur inside of the virtual world, regarding his quest to find the egg.

But I sure am loving this book, and this version of the future seems super interesting...I keep forgetting that the OASIS is not the real world, which I think is the point. My favorite part was when Wade finally figured out where the copper key was, and I loved how resourceful he was in getting free teleportation from his school!

As Amanda mentioned, this is an interesting real world for our character to be in. It's different from many distopian societies I've read about and that's refreshing with so many ideas recycling new story lines in distopian literature today. There are also some messed up qualities about the Oasis. The present of the sixers, inequality among players, cooperate presence, etc. All of these things are a reflection of the real world encoded into their slice of utopia.

I thought I would be sick of dystopian worlds by now, but this world seems so interesting and realistic (in the future) that I cannot put the book down. The book comments on our lives today. We know global warming is affecting us, we know we are destroying the forests, that fracking is hurting us and people are dying from sickness and lack of resources. However, there are so many problems affecting us that they seem overwhelming. Then, we push them all away, thinking we can't do anything, and forget about them in order to live our lives. Similarly, Wade doesn't think Art3mis' plan to use the money in a charitable way would have any effect. He escapes into the OASIS in order to forget his loneliness and grim surroundings. I can't blame him, but I hope Art3mis wins.

This book is so good! I had been wondering how Wade was going to find it without being able to pay for transportation and then when they shared the clue and I picked up on the learning clue I got so excited I was shaking until he figured it out. And I love that it didn't matter that he was low level because it was about the old video game, not actual combat. Everything is just so good so far and I'm excited to find out what will come. I hope Wade and Art3mis are able to be friends (or lovers) and not let the competition make them enemies.

I'm enjoying this so far. There was one very obvious parallel with Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore which made me smile. I was a bit worried that this could turn out to be a simplistic dystopia vs. utopia (real world vs. OASIS) tale but it seems a lot more nuanced than that

I like the free education part of OASIS the best but even educating everyone for free doesn't seem to have solved the real world's problems

I'm totally sucked in. OASIS is really interesting. You can get a legit education, you can have jobs and you can play games. It's a more intense version of the internet. Until I started reading through this thread I actually forgot that Wade was sitting in a lawn chair in the back of a rusty van! I'm nervous about him being found out irl, because I assume that is where the plot will eventually have to go. The Stacks make me think of what Earth looks like at the beginning of that movie Elysium.

I think one of my favorite things about this book, is how realistic some of the science fiction can seem. Especially with the more recent tech devices like Oculus coming out, in another 30 years, I could definitely see something like OASIS being a reality. Unlike some other science fiction pieces out there... This one doesn't seem so far fetched, and so it makes it that much more of an amazing story.

Ashley wrote: "I think one of my favorite things about this book, is how realistic some of the science fiction can seem. Especially with the more recent tech devices like Oculus coming out, in another 30 years, ..."

I was thinking the same thing...I mean it almost doesn't even seem like science fiction because it might not be too far off. I guess that's the point though since the book is set in the near future.

Alice wrote: "I was thinking the same thing...I mean it almost doesn't even seem like science fiction because it might not be too far off. I guess that's the point though since the book is set in the near future. "

I guess so, but I also think about things like Back to the Future which had that same 30-35 year gap between when it was made and when it was set and how inaccurate that still seems today. There's just such a sense of, almost impending dread and excitement of "Is this really going to happen" and even more "Oh my god am I going to be one of those old people who grew up in that time-frame and when the young kids revive 80s culture have these horrible flashbacks?"

Ashley wrote: " I also think about things like Back to the Future which had that same 30-35 year gap between when it was made and when it was set and how inaccurate that still seems today"

It seems that no matter how we predict the future in literature, the real thing will never measure up! I love your comparison to Back to the Future!

It's fun to think about the future, but we definitely shouldn't assume that any of it is super realistic.

I haven't had a problem separating what's happening in the real world and what's happening in the OASIS. Interesting. It reminds me of when I was really into a Harry Potter role play a few years ago on Facebook, though. When I was role playing in the beginning, it was very easy to lose myself in it.

The only thing that I don't love about this book is how Wade randomly switches to the present day sometimes. I feel like I'm in the world but then he'll say something like "I later discovered that the Copper Key can't be dropped or stolen" and it takes me out of the story quite a bit.
Other than that, I'm totally hooked!
I also love the fact that I started reading this book right after I finished marathoning the show "Freaks and Geeks" which takes place in the 80s so I feel more on top of the references.

Tia wrote: "The only thing that I don't love about this book is how Wade randomly switches to the present day sometimes. I feel like I'm in the world but then he'll say something like "I later discovered that ..."

I hadn't even thought about his switching tenses. Thanks for pointing that out! Also, Freaks and Geeks is the best. I wish more people would check it out.

Man oh man am I excited to see what happens next. I really like how even though there isn't a bunch of player to player interaction thus far except with Aech and Art3mis the story is still keeping me interested. It does such a good job in showing us the extremes of what we're doing today in a really in-your-face kind of way but making it feel like it isn't... if that makes sense

ALSO, I feel that since the entire world knows who he is the other Gunter's are going to go out of their way to kill him to make him lose the key or Aech won't talk to him or something with negative implications is coming.

I love this book! This book had me at the get go. The way everything has played out at the beginning is perfect. The OASIS is a very interesting creation but it works really well. The characters in this book are fantastic and you really get a sense of being a part of it along with them.

This dystopian world seems a little bit cooler than all the others I've read. I think one of my favorite parts of the OASIS is getting to mute people! I never grew up with video games as a kid so it's a little slow going for me with all these references, but so far I'm enjoying it very much. I can compare my job a little bit to the OASIS. We have to log into a virtual office space in order to access certain parts of our office system, so I think the whole concept of the OASIS isn't too far into our future. It's fun comparing Halliday's recreation of the 1980s to our current day and then Wade's 2045. I'm interested to see what happens both within this book and in our actual reality.

Kristin wrote: "This dystopian world seems a little bit cooler than all the others I've read. I think one of my favorite parts of the OASIS is getting to mute people!"

Ha ha! Yeah I totally wish I could mute people in real life sometimes. :)

The book might get better, but so far I don't like Wade whatsoever. He's just a stereotypical, presumably white, straight male, longing for his "manic pixie dream girl" Art3mis, disdaining organized religion but worshiping James Halliday's every word along with all the other gunters, and wanting to claim the prize just so that he can selfishly become rich and famous. For crying out loud, one of the reasons he likes the OASIS is because he can troll someone with a dirty insult and then mute them so that they don't hurt his ego.

I'm definitely going to keep reading, though, and just hope for some extensive character development.

Joel wrote: "The book might get better, but so far I don't like Wade whatsoever. He's just a stereotypical, presumably white, straight male, longing for his "manic pixie dream girl" Art3mis, disdaining organize..."

Thank you, I totally also feel this way. I feel like Wade is everything I dislike about male-centric gamer culture. The dialogue so far has been poor, but I can't tell if it's pastiche or genuinely annoying. There is a lot of exposition in this book so far, and usually that would be a really negative trait of a novel, but after reading two pages of Wade and H's dialogue, I didn't miss it. Also, I really hope most of the references have a point, otherwise it feels like blatant reference to the 80's just for the sake of referencing it.

I felt the same way. Wade was really off-putting, just the way he relates to his friend & to Art3mis, and that thing about muting other people, his whole attitude, like you said, is evocative of that male-centric gamer culture. I just want to know, if you finished it, does it get any better in this aspect? I stopped reading it because I wasn't looking forward to more of that.