Ready Player One

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.

No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school grounds, anyway.

After that, going public with a clue became known as “pulling a Pendergast".

And then it finally happened. Right while I was sitting there daydreaming in Latin class.

Regardless, you’re a fellow hunter. And a clever one too, or you wouldn’t be standing here.

The Great Recession was now entering its third decade, and unemployment was still at a record high. Even the fast-food joints in my neighborhood had a two-year waiting list for job applicants.

You’d be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever.

Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

For the first time, I knew what is was to be a natural at something. To have a gift.

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.

Being human totally sucks most of the time.

A lot of kids owned their own interplanetary vehicles. School parking lots all over Ludus were filled with UFOs, TIE fighters, old NASA space shuttles, Vipers from Battlestar Galactica, and other spacecraft designs lifted from every sci-fi movie and TV show you can think of.