Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is a satisfying recapitulation of a favorite SF trope--the underdogs pitted against the evil establishment. In this case, Wade (aka Parzival), and his friends eek out a meagre existence in a dystopian near-future while spending most of their time in a vast, online world--the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation (OASIS). OASIS was the brainchild of an eccentric computer genius (and 1980's nostalgic geek), James Halliday; when he dies without heirs, his will remits his entire online empire to someone who can complete a series of puzzles and quests, find three keys, and win Halliday's "easter egg" (a nod to Warren Robinett and "Adventure"). Of course, finding Halliday's egg becomes an obsession for a generation of children raised on OASIS, but, of course, not just them. The world's largest Internet service provider (Innovative Online Industries) has developed an entire "Oology Divi...
Occasional posts on anthropologically interesting science fiction, anthropological futures and my own future as an anthropologist.