Download or read book Ready Player Two written by Ernest Cline and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The thrilling sequel to the beloved worldwide bestseller Ready Player One, the near-future adventure that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST • “The game is on again. . . . A great mix of exciting fantasy and threatening fact.”—The Wall Street Journal AN UNEXPECTED QUEST. TWO WORLDS AT STAKE. ARE YOU READY? Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who’ll kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance. Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.

Download or read book Ready Player One written by Ernest Cline and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

Download or read book A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor written by Hank Green and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Who has the right to change the world forever? How will we live online? How do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world? The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While the robots were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction with only their presence. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories. Months later, April’s friends are trying to find their footing in a post-Carl world. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda is contemplating defying her friends’ advice and pursuing a new scientific operation…one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension. Just as it is starting to seem like the gang may never learn the real story behind the events that changed their lives forever, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers—all of which seems to suggest that April could be very much alive. In the midst of the search for the truth and the search for April is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It is a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions about the way we live, our freedoms, our future, and how we handle the unknown.

Download or read book Armada written by Ernest Cline and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Ready Player One, a rollicking alien invasion thriller that embraces and subverts science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could. Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure. So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness. Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator callled Armada--in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders. As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revlations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's life in the balance. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like...well...fiction? At once reinventing and paying homage to science-fiction classics as only Ernest Cline can, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a coming-of-age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before.

Download or read book Sea Wife written by Amity Gaige and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of the Year “Brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the hidden dangers of domesticity, parenthood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel.” —Lauren Groff, author of Florida Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. With their two kids—Sybil, age seven, and George, age two—Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four foot sailboat awaits them. The initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being at sea. The vast horizons and isolated islands offer Juliet and Michael reprieve – until they are tested by the unforeseen. A transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil, Sea Wife is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.

Download or read book Ready Player Two written by Shira Chess and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural stereotypes to the contrary, approximately half of all video game players are now women. A subculture once dominated by men, video games have become a form of entertainment composed of gender binaries. Supported by games such as Diner Dash, Mystery Case Files, Wii Fit, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood—which are all specifically marketed toward women—the gamer industry is now a major part of imagining what femininity should look like. In Ready Player Two, media critic Shira Chess uses the concept of “Player Two”—the industry idealization of the female gamer—to examine the assumptions implicit in video games designed for women and how they have impacted gaming culture and the larger society. With Player Two, the video game industry has designed specifically for the feminine ideal: she is white, middle class, heterosexual, cis-gendered, and abled. Drawing on categories from time management and caregiving to social networking, consumption, and bodies, Chess examines how games have been engineered to shape normative ideas about women and leisure. Ready Player Two presents important arguments about how gamers and game developers must change their thinking about both women and games to produce better games, better audiences, and better industry practices. Ultimately, this book offers vital prescriptions for how one of our most powerful entertainment industries must evolve its ideas of women.

Download or read book Sleep State Interrupt written by T.C. Weber and published by See Sharp Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book in the BetterWorld Trilogy, Sleep State Interrupt centers around Waylee Freid, an unemployed journalist and musician with ever-worsening bipolar disorder, and her countercultural friends in the decaying city of Baltimore. Frustrated by the injustice of a system that benefits only a few, and the apathy of a population content to lose themselves in a virtual reality called BetterWorld, the group busts a notorious teenage hacker out of jail and sneaks into a closed election fundraiser at the Smithsonian castle, where they record incriminating admissions by a corrupt president and a power-mad CEO. Hunted by Homeland Security, Waylee and her friends must reach a substantial audience by broadcasting their video during the Super Bowl. But to do so, they will have to break into one of the most secure facilities ever built.

Download or read book An Absolutely Remarkable Thing written by Hank Green and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Sparkling with mystery, humor and the uncanny, this is a fun read. But beneath its effervescent tone, more complex themes are at play.” —San Francisco Chronicle In his wildly entertaining debut novel, Hank Green—cocreator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow—spins a sweeping, cinematic tale about a young woman who becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagined. The Carls just appeared. Roaming through New York City at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us. Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring for the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye. The beginning of an exciting fiction career, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a bold and insightful novel of now.

Download or read book Solarversia written by MR Toby Downton and published by Toby Downton. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the 29th February 2020 and Nova Negrahnu cannot wait to start playing Solarversia, a year-long game based in a virtual world that's modelled on the real world solar system. Given three lives, three vehicles, and told to master the Science of Solarversia to stand a chance of winning, players compete against 100 million people for the 10m grand prize, and a place in the history books. Solarversia starts three months before Nova's A-levels, the life-changing exams that could see her win a place at Nottingham, the university that Charlie attends, the second-year student she falls for on an open-day visit. As she strains to balance her addiction to the game with her mounting schoolwork, Nova's world is unexpectedly turned upside down when the Holy Order, a mysterious cult-like organisation sets its sights on the game and Spiralwerks, its creator. Told from three different perspectives - Nova the gamer, Artica Kronkite, the CEO of Spiralwerks, and Casey Brown, a newly-initiated member of the Holy Order - Solarversia is a game that author Toby Downton hopes to make for real, to launch in 2020, so that people can actually play it. From the initial press release: The world of virtual reality is about to fundamentally reshape the way in which we live, work and play. The Oculus Rift - the much-lauded and potentially transformational VR headset, which broke crowdfunding records in 2012, and was recently acquired by Facebook for $2 billion - is scheduled to launch in early 2016. While its most obvious impact will hit the world's 700 million plus gamers, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes the potential VR impact to be far more profound: "Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face - just by putting on goggles in your home." The relatively new genre of litRPG, or virtual reality inspired science fiction centred around the gaming industry, is booming, with Ernest Cline's bestseller Ready Player One already in production for a major movie adaptation with Spielberg directing. Downton is emerging as a driving force in the VR revolution. His novel Solaversia is just the first step in his thrillingly ambitious multi-platform story-telling experience that will explore the relationships between artificial intelligence, technology and the human spirit. Downton has incorporated his tech-company - Spiralwerks - in the real world, developing Solarversia as a commercially available game, ready to storm the games market in 2020. Accompanying the publication of Solarversia is the Golden Ticket promotion, which will enable readers to win one of a hundred specially reserved places within the Player's Grid, through a series of innovative competitions."

Download or read book Fair Play written by Eve Rodsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way... It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family—and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was...underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn't enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it. The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With 4 easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a series of conversation starters for you and your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what's important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore, from laundry to homework to dinner. “Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space—the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Stop drowning in to-dos and lose some of that invisible workload that's pulling you down. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let's deal you in.

Download or read book The Art of Ready Player One written by Gina McIntyre and published by Insight Editions. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the captivating art of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One. Our dystopian world lies on the brink of chaos and collapse, but the people have found their salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday. When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune in the form of a digital Easter egg hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. Wade Watts, an unlikely young hero, decides to join the contest and embarks on a reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical world of action, danger, and mystery. Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on author Ernest Cline’s internationally best-selling book, Ready Player One is a hugely imaginative sci-fi adventure set in a rich virtual world. The Art of Ready Player One explores the creation of the incredible design work for this much-anticipated film, showcasing a wealth of concept art, sketches, storyboards, and other stunning visuals. The book also features exclusive interviews and commentary from the creative team, forming the perfect companion to one of the most exciting films of 2018.

Download or read book Flawless Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History written by Scott Andrew Selby and published by Sterling Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Tells the story with the gripping pace of a true-crime 'Ocean's Eleven.'" The New York Post • "Like a diamond, this true-life caper is clear, colorful, and brilliant." Publishers Weekly ★Starred Review★ The Antwerp Diamond Center was one of the most secure buildings in the world. With hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of diamonds stored in its subterranean vault, it had to be. Located in the heart of Belgium's ultra-secure Antwerp Diamond District, it benefited from two police stations, armed patrols, extensive video surveillance, and vehicle barriers securing an area where 80 percent of the world's diamonds traded hands. But on February 15, 2003, a band of skilled Italian thieves — fronted by the charming Leonardo Notarbartolo, who spent over two years clandestinely casing the building — subverted every one of the Diamond Center's defenses and made off with a record amount of loot. Experts estimate they got away with nearly half a billion dollars in diamonds, cash and other valuables. They'd pulled off the biggest heist in history--everybody loves diamonds and they now had more than any thief before them. The robbers did it with stealth and smarts; no one was hurt or even threatened during what was quickly labeled the largest diamond heist in history. The bandits — members of a group of professional thieves known as "The School of Turin" — used cunning in lieu of violence, successfully evading security cameras, thwarting an array of electronic sensors, and penetrating a vault protected by a double-locked foot-thick steel door. Even when the police zeroed in on who committed the crime, how it was done remained a mystery, like something out of a heist movie or TV show. Flawless is a fast-paced global scavenger hunt uncovering the truth behind the daring Valentine's Day weekend heist. Tracking clues, sources, and documents throughout Europe — from seedy cafés in Turin, Italy to sleek diamond offices in Antwerp, Belgium — authors Scott Selby and Greg Campbell retrace Notarbartolo's careful discovery of the building's security flaws. They recreate the heist and its aftermath — detailing how the thieves brilliantly neutralized each element of the security protecting the Diamond Center's vault while inviting the readers into the secretive world of diamonds and diamond dealing. The result is a thrilling ride through the better-than-fiction heist of the century. "Fans of caper books and movies will be in seventh heaven." Booklist ★Starred Review★

Download or read book Constellation Games written by Leonard Richardson and published by . This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First contact isn't all fun and games. Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and doesn't have much to show for it. His computer programming skills are producing nothing but pony-themed video games for little girls. His love life is a slow-motion train wreck, and whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth. Then the aliens show up. Out of the sky comes the Constellation: a swarm of anarchist anthropologists, exploring our seas, cataloguing our plants, editing our wikis, and eating our Twinkies. No one knows how to respond--except for nerds like Ariel who've been reading, role-playing and wargaming first-contact scenarios their entire lives. Ariel sees the aliens' computers, and he knows that wherever there are computers, there are video games. Ariel just wants to start a business translating alien games so they can be played on human computers. But a simple cultural exchange turns up ancient secrets, government conspiracies, and unconventional anthropology techniques that threaten humanity as we know it. If Ariel wants his species to have a future, he's going to have to take the step that nothing on Earth could make him take. He'll have to grow up.

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book Video Palace In Search of the Eyeless Man written by Maynard Wills and published by S&S/Simon Element. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of chilling stories from the leading writers in horror and suspense, exploring elusive urban legends. Join Michael Monelo, one of the creators of the Blair Witch Project, and TV writer/director veteran, Nick Braccia, on a journey through urban horror and suspense. Explore the world of Maynard Wills, PhD, professor of folklore and fan of the podcast, Video Palace. The podcast followed a man named Mark Cambria, who along with his girlfriend Tamra Wulff, investigated the origins of a series of esoteric white video tapes. Cambria went missing in pursuit of these tapes, but not before hearing whispers of an ominous figure called the Eyeless Man. Fascinated by the podcast and Cambria’s disappearance, Wills embarks on his own investigation into the origins of the tapes and the Eyeless Man, who he believes has lurked in the dark corners of media culture and urban legends for at least seventy-five years. As part of his study, he has invited popular writers of horror and gothic fiction to share their own Eyeless Man stories, whether heard around the campfire or experienced themselves. Get swept away in this thrilling and terrifying horror anthology—which can be read on its own or as a companion to the hit Shudder podcast, Video Palace. Short stories include: -“Deep Focus” by Bob DeRosa -“The Satanic Schoolgirls” by Meirav Devash and Eddie McNamara -“Doorways of the Soul” by Owl Goingback -“A Texas Teen Story” by Brea Grant -“Two Unexplained Disappearances in South Brisbane, Recalled by an Innocent Bystander” by Merrin J. McCormick -“Dreaming in Lilac on a Cool Evening” by Rebekah McKendry and David Ian McKendry -“Ecstatica” by Ben Rock -“The Inward Eye” by John Skipp -“The Real Sharon Lockenby” by Graham Skipper -“Ranger Ronin Presents…” by Gordon B. White

Download or read book Kubrick s Game written by Derek Taylor Kent and published by Evolved Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if Stanley Kubrick left behind more than just his classic films? What if he also left behind an elaborate puzzle cleverly buried within his films, which would lead the player toward a treasure that could change the course of human history? An often comedic, sometimes tragic, always entertaining look at an extraordinary "What If?" adventure.

Download or read book Deadly Cross written by James Patterson and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The murder of a glamorous DC socialite becomes Alex Cross’s deadliest case since Along Came a Spider. Kay Willingham led a life as glamorous as it was public—she was a gorgeous Georgetown socialite, philanthropist, and the ex-wife of the vice president. So why was she parked in a Bentley convertible idling behind a DC private school, in the middle of the night, with the man who was the head of that school? Who shot them both, point blank, and why? The shocking double homicide is blazed across the internet, TV, newspapers—and across Alex Cross's mind. Kay had been his patient once. And maybe more. While John Sampson of DC Metro Police investigates the last movements of Christopher Randall, the educator killed along with Kay Willingham, detective Alex Cross and FBI special agent Ned Mahoney find unanswered questions from Willingham's past, before she arrived in DC and became known in DC society as someone who could make things happen. They travel to Alabama to investigate Kay's early years. There they find a world of trouble, corruption, and secrets, all of them closed to outsiders like Cross and Mahoney. Kay had many enemies, but all of them seemed to need her alive. The harder the investigators push, the more resistance they find when they leave behind the polite law offices and doctors' quarters of the state capital. Alex Cross will need to use all his skills as a doctor, a detective, and a family man to prevent that resistance from turning lethal . . . again.