Reality

I saw the movie Ready Player One and was curious how it compared to the book.  So I borrowed a copy from a friend.

It had the same general outline--a dystopian world, though one where people slip away into a virtual world where they can do almost anything.  The creator of this world dies and leaves his creation, not to mention billions, to the person who finds three hidden keys and completes a quest.

To turn the book into a movie, however, Spielberg and company changed almost every specific part of the quest.  Perhaps this disappointed some, but since I saw the movie first, it was fine with me.

The book is well done, and a true geekfest.  Though it's set in the 2040s, a lot of the fun is all the references to 20th century movies, TV shows and videogames--especially from the 1980s.

Ready Player One was published in 2011, and one line, I think, resonates differently today. It's on page 201.  Elections are being held, both in the real world and the virtual world. The virtual election is more important to the protagonist, since it actually affects him.

As for the real world election, the hero states "It didn't matter. [...] Besides, now that everyone could vote from home [...] the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV performers, or radical televangelists."