The core idea of the book (the OASIS) is great, and a lot of fun to think about. The actual story gets absurdly bogged down in 80s pop culture references. Even for people who enjoy all that stuff, it seems like a bit much.

I'd still recommend the book too, as a fun read. I just hope there's a sequel that's completely detached from the 80s.

At the risk of sounding overly negative, I think RPO gets a lot of praise that it really doesn't deserve. The concept of the OASIS is neat, and the segments dealing with the nature of VR in society (education in VR, logging in to escape the reality of life in the "stacks", the lengths to which the main character goes when dedicating his life and daily habits entirely toward the Quest). But it's all wrapped up in a bunch of shallow 80's references that made me feel like the author was insecure about the strength of his own ideas and needed a bunch of Family-Guy-esque name-dropping so the nerd demographic reading it could say "Oh, I know that reference!" When I read a book taking place in the future, I sort of hope that there's something there about the future to explore rather than getting the sense that all culture and media just stopped in the end of the 20th century and the only thing that happened since was VR getting developed. Strikes me as reader/author wish fulfillment. The protagonists weren't likable, the villainous evil corporate anti-open-source drones were stunningly one-dimensional, the two Japanese brother characters felt like walking MY SAMURAI HONOR stereotypes, and the romance with Art3mis felt like getting the princess at the end of a game as a prize (which would be a neat parallel with the video game references were it not played straight). If I was younger when reading it I would have been more forgiving, but it all felt like a "kids rule, grown-ups drool" sort of plot.

It seems like, despite the protagonist's fears about IOI turning the OASIS into a soul-less amusement park, that's kind of what the OASIS already was in the story. There wasn't much talk about players generating new worlds and new experiences -- most of the time characters were enjoying the pre-packaged "Lord of the Rings", "Star Trek", or "Dungeons and Dragons" VR worlds, reliving existing ideas again and again. The gunter protagonists weren't off creating fantastic new landscapes or generating culture, they were poring through the ruins of the old trying to find some arcane clue -- and I didn't get the sense that they would be doing that if they didn't have the Hunt to focus on. These are interesting things to think about -- and definitely a worrisome part of dystopian visions of VR that turn the ultimate communication/creation tool into a trough full of pre-packaged feed for consumers -- but I don't think that RPO's author was attempting to focus on that. Rather, the sterile emptiness I felt from the OASIS seemed more a result of the author just not describing much that wasn't necessarily "just so" for the plot.

There are a lot of neat VR ideas in it that I hope get more exposure, but it's despite the nature of the book rather than because of it.