Ready Player One
Unabridged Audiobook, 15 hrs and 46 mins
Random House Audio, 2011
Read: March 19 – 27, 2014
As much as I enjoy a good audiobook, I rarely have time for them, and I usually only listen to books that I’ve previously read. When my family needed something to listen to on a road trip last month, this was an automatic top contender — the printed version of this was probably my favorite book of 2011, and I was due for another read.
I’m so glad we picked this one, it was long enough (an important consideration for a road trip) and it was marvelously done. Wil Wheaton was an inspired choice to read this — not only is he an experienced, and accomplished audiobook performer (is that the right word?); but being who he is — an Internet/Nerd icon and a 1980’s child star — he adds a layer of authenticity and authority to the book.
I’m not going to talk about the book, I can’t. I’ve tried it before, and failed. But it’s just about perfect — funny, adventurous, immersed in pop culture (particularly from the 80’s, my formative years), smart, with heart — a lot of it.
So when you add one of the best performances of Wheaton’s career to that, you’ve got something worth spending 15 hours with. If only for his Sean Connery impression.* Wheaton captures the flavor, the pathos, the charm of the book and the characters that inhabit it. Go grab the book and give it a read. The audiobook’s almost as good. If you’ve read it, the audiobook’s a good way to revisit it.
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* There are several other “if only”s I could’ve used there, that’s just the first that came to mind. As Alan Sepinwall would put it, Deyanu!
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