Ready Player Two: A Novel

This book reads like an apology for the first. Whereas Ready Player One makes heavy use of nostalgia, there is a clear change in the authors tone and the sequel tears off the rose coloured glasses to treat nostalgia as something toxic. The intellectual properties and franchises that the characters supposedly enjoy, they frequently sneer at and dissect to imply racist/sexist/homophobic undertones. The change in direction between the first and second books way of looking at past cultural icons will give you whiplash.Similarly, characters from the first book seem to regress, losing their depth and reverting into some form of stereotype (typically becoming avatars of an identity group) This is most notable with the protagonist, who in the first book was a geeky, virginal, gamer, outcast who served as the Underdog hero; the second book apologises for representing that ‘type’ of person so positively and from the beginning makes clear he is a bitter, possessive, bully with mental health problems.I wanted to like this book, I really did; but it was like a shadow of the first, both with the similarities in some of the plot and the way it subverts what made the first book so popular. Reading this became a chore by the final chapters.Ready Player One was charming, fun to read and had a definitive end.

I bought this because the first was interesting, fast paced and had a lot of video game references even I recognised. I am assuming the only reason the publisher backed this book was that the first got made into a movie. Save your money, save your time, stay away from this repetitive garbage.