Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

This is a story for young adults, focusing on a massively multiplayer online game, that I really enjoyed. The protagonist is a young man in a bleak future world where the environment, the economy, and the nation are all falling apart, but at least there is this really wonderful online world you can go to where things are much better. The creator of this world has just died, and left all his billions to whoever can solve a series of puzzles using clues he buried inside the world. Because the popular culture of the 1980s was his passion, all the games and clues are based on comic books, video games, TV shows, and movies of that era, so it's a lot of fun for those of us who remember that decade! The antagonist in the story is pretty cardboard: an evil multinational corporation bent on stifling all individuality and turning the game world into a cash cow, and not above torture and murder to get the prize. On the other hand, the protagonist and his friends are rather amazingly good. Still, I enjoyed the action and the rapid-fire cultural references. Fun!