** DNF means Did Not Finish **

Ready Player One was great – actually that’s why I checked this one out when I saw it available at the library and found the sample to be fine. But still,  I had not read good things about it.

Ready Player Two 
by Ernest Cline 
2020 / 371 pages
Read by Will Wheaton 13h 46m
Rating;  DNF –

So at first glance I was pleasantly surprised by how compelling it seemed.  So okay, Cline writes well and Wheaton is excellent with the narration. It starts out as a fairly good book. And then it slides. I understand it was the unplanned sequel to an amazing book, Ready, Player One, which I loved. WHich was made into a pretty good movie (I understand). But to me, this second helping seems seriously marred by the over-attachment of the author to the video games and movies of the 1980s.   Those are, unfortunately, two big strikes against it.  

In Ready Player One (2011) Wade Watts,  our first person hero, wins the big computer game contest and gets all the fame and fortune he ever wanted.  But as is revealed in Book 2, the winnings include a huge techie change to the world and a new riddle with a new prize for the winner. These are “game changers” for reals.  

Too bad –  when, at about halfway through, the movie Pretty in Pink became the latest 1980s cultural relic to be mentioned I caved, closed the book and said to myself – it’s a DNF, write it up and don’t count it because you just can’t finish this.  

Will Wheaton does a great job of narrating the book, but a good reader only goes so far… .  

Fwiw, I was 38 years old in 1986 and I don’t think I ever saw that movie as if I’d even remember, because that was 35 years ago and not in my impressionable youth.  

I have rarely not finished books I’ve started, but I usually purchase my books. I ‘ve just started using the library for whatever I can find there. I have been delighted with some but this time I was appalled and am really glad I didn’t pay money for it and don’t feel compelled to finish.