Earlier this year, I completed reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It was the first novel that I had read in a while, as I have been reading mostly nonfiction in recent years. I discovered the book from an episode of the “Triangulation” podcast in which Leo Laporte interviewed author Andy Weir, who enthusiastically recommended the book.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The prose is efficient and the pacing is swift. I thought it started out strong, and I liked the world building and the build-up of suspense in the early chapters. After a while, though, I tired of all the 1980s video game and movie references, and wanted the book to end. While I was about three quarters through the book, I referred to it as “the reading equivalent to watching somebody else play video games”. For me, the stakes felt too low, and the characterizations were too thin, to make a lasting impression. Still, I had fun reading it, at least most of the way through.