Ready Player Two

I absolutely loved Ready Player One, so I was pretty psyched to get into Ready Player Two. This book, however, was a disappointment.

The formula was very much the same, but unlike the first book, the characters' motivations don't make nearly as much sense. There's a huge, overly-preachy discussion of alternative sexuality that really didn't serve any purpose in the plotline. Clearly this was just included to meet the required standards of appeasing the culture fascists that currently run the SF/Fantasy realm. But it wasn't done well and it wasn't ‘integrated' into the story (like Aech's was in the first book) in any way that mattered.

Whereas in RPO, the 80's geek culture reference were very well integrated into the story and felt fun and added to the enjoyment, in this one it felt totally forced and done in a way that just felt “blah.” I imagine based on the reviews out there that many people felt this way about RPO, but I totally loved it in that book. I can't pinpoint why it's so much different in this book, but it was. Also, the romantic angst included in this book was pretty poorly done. In the first one it felt fairly realistic and you were rooting for Z and Arty to end up together. In this one, the gulf was too large and Z just talked about it too much, instead of the feelings being “acted out” in the story.

The gang still gets to go on an egg hunt. They do visit cool places, like John Hughes World, Middle Earth, and a planet devoted to the artist we all know as Prince. These were fun and cool. If they hadn't been, this would have been 2 stars at most. Because the plot holes were huge. Character action just didn't seem to match up with motivation and turned on a dime without explanation. I also didn't like the trope of things getting progressively more and more negative with the hope that the end rescues the whole book. It makes for a pretty miserable read in huge sections in this case. And the end was OK, but didn't make up enough to create the feeling of satisfaction. It took me almost a month to get through the audiobook! That should tell you something.