Ernest Cline - Ready Player One

My heart felt like it was on fire. I took a moment to work up my courage; then I reached out and took her hand. We sat there awhile, holding hands, reveling in the strange new sensation of actually touching one another.

Some time later, she leaned over and kissed me. It felt just like all those songs and poems had promised it would. It felt wonderful. Like being struck by lightning.

It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.

Many of my favorite people were subjected to early drafts of this book, and each of them gave me invaluable feedback and encouragement. My sincere thanks to Eric Cline, Susan Somers-Willett, Chris Beaver, Harry Knowles, Amber Bird, Ingrid Richter, Sara Sutterfield Winn, Jeff Knight, Hilary Thomas, Anne Miano, Tonie Knight, Nichole Cook, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Jay Smith, Mike Henry, Jed Strahm, Andy Howell, and Chris Fry.

I’m also indebted to Yfat Reiss Gendell, the Coolest Agent in the Known Universe, who managed to make several of my lifelong dreams come true just a few months after I met her. Thanks also to Stéphanie Abou, Hannah Brown Gordon, Cecilia Campbell-Westlind, and all of the awesome folks at Foundry Literary and Media.

A huge shout-out to the amazing Dan Farah, my friend, manager, and Hollywood partner in crime. My gratitude also goes out to Donald De Line, Andrew Haas, and Jesse Ehrman at Warner Bros., for believing that this book will make a great movie.

Thanks to the incredibly talented and supportive team at Crown, including Patty Berg, Sarah Breivogel, Jacob Bronstein, David Drake, Jill Flaxman, Jacqui Lebow, Rachelle Mandik, Maya Mavjee, Seth Morris, Michael Palgon, Tina Pohlman, Annsley Rosner, and Molly Stern. And to my fantastic copyeditor, Deanna Hoak, who found the Secret Room in Adventure back in the day.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Julian Pavia, my brilliant editor, who believed in my ability as a writer long before I finished this book. Julian’s startling intelligence, insight, and relentless attention to detail helped me shape Ready Player One into the book I’d always wanted it to be, and he made me a better writer in the process.

Finally, I want to thank all of the writers, filmmakers, actors, artists, musicians, programmers, game designers, and geeks whose work I’ve paid tribute to in this story. These people have all entertained and enlightened me, and I hope that—like Halliday’s hunt—this book will inspire others to seek out their creations.

Ernest Cline lives in Austin, Texas, where he devotes a large portion of his time to geeking out. This is his first novel.

For more information please visit: www.ernestcline.com

Careful analysis of this scene reveals that all of the teenagers behind Halliday are actually extras from various John Hughes teen films who have been digitally cut-and-pasted into the video.

His surroundings are actually from a scene in the 1989 film Heathers . Halliday appears to have digitally re-created the funeral parlor set and then inserted himself into it.

High-resolution scrutiny reveals that both quarters were minted in 1984.

The mourners are actually all actors and extras from the same funeral scene in Heathers . Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are clearly visible in the audience, sitting near the back.

Halliday now looks exactly as he did in a school photo taken in 1980, when he was eight years old.

Analysis reveals dozens of curious items hidden among the mounds of treasure, most notably: several early home computers (an Apple IIe, a Commodore 64, an Atari 800XL, and a TRS-80 Color Computer 2), dozens of videogame controllers for a variety of game systems, and hundreds of polyhedral dice like those used in old tabletop role-playing games.

A freeze-frame of this scene appears nearly identical to a painting by Jeff Easley that appeared on the cover of the Dungeon Master’s Guide , a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook published in 1983.