Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed luckily Wade was not at home. The latter tries to recruit Parzival when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg.

Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

Heat Wave by T.J. Klune