Take On Me

I’ve been hearing about this one forever, and when my favorite reading friend lent me her copy it moved to the top of my TBR (because that’s what happens when your favorite reading buddy hands you something!).   She was right, this was a lot of fun.

Wade lives in the near future in the poverty and despair that seems to be gripping much of the nation.  He spends most of his time as Parzival, his avatar in the Oasis, a vast virtual reality created by brilliant recluse James Halliday. Wade attends school in the Oasis, there’s a thriving commerce, his only friends are there.  When Halliday dies, he leaves behind a giant video game quest for the rights to his culturally and monetarily important universe.  Game on.

I’m in the age demo to get all the references, but was never much of a gamer so I got pretty nervous that I wasn’t going to love this as much as everyone else.  But the world-building and likeable characters kept me invested in the quest even though I did have a bit of the voice in my ear, “This is silly. This is a video game.”. I reminded myself there were billions of dollars at stake.

My favorite thing about this book was similar to what I liked about John Scalzi’s Locked In.  The ability to present yourself via avatar (or Threep in Locked In) removes our preconceived notions of identity based on appearance, gender, and age.  The strongest parts of this book for me involved contemplating if presenting only your personality and not your appearance meant that you have a “real” relationship.

I wavered between 3 and 4 stars on this, but decided to go with 4 based on keeping me invested even though I’m NOT a gamer.  80’s gamer fun for all!