Ernest Cline

These three words were always the last thing an OASIS user saw before leaving the real world and entering the virtual one:

For years hunters had speculated that Anorak still roamed the OASIS, now as an autonomous NPC. Halliday’s ghost in the machine.

At first, these individuals were known simply as "egg hunters," but this was quickly truncated to the nickname "gunters."

And that was when it hit me. Like an anvil falling out of the sky, directly on my skull.

The van was my refuge. My Batcave. My Fortress of Solitude.

Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.

"Dude, you have balls of solid adamantium," Aech said. "Respect."

For me, growing up as a human being on the planet Earth in the twenty-first century was a real kick in the teeth. Existentially speaking.

The OASIS —it’s the greatest videogame ever created, and it only costs a quarter.

We don't need a map because where we are going, there is no map

You look like a low-level wimpazoid to me, Juan Ramírez. And I think you’re hiding something.

Gunters who wanted help joined a clan, and Aech and I both agreed that clans were for suck-asses and poseurs.