Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Location 946:
The more I’d learned about Halliday’s life, the more I’d grown to idolize him. He was a god among geeks, a nerd über-deity on the level of Gygax, Garriott, and Gates. He’d left home after high school with nothing but his wits and his imagination, and he’d used them to attain worldwide fame and amass a vast fortune. He’d created an entirely new reality that now provided an escape for most of humanity. And to top it all off, he’d turned his last will and testament into the greatest videogame contest of all time.
Location 1104:
Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. I read every novel by every single one of Halliday’s favorite authors.
Location 1107:
I also watched every single film he referenced in the Almanac. If it was one of Halliday’s favorites, like WarGames, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, Better Off Dead, or Revenge of the Nerds, I rewatched it until I knew every scene by heart. I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Star Wars (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Mad Max, Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones.
Location 1112:
Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue.
Location 1148:
I could master most action titles in a few hours, and there wasn’t an adventure or role-playing game I couldn’t solve. I never needed any walkthroughs or cheat codes. Everything just clicked. And I was even better at the old arcade games. When I was in the zone on a high-speed classic like Defender, I felt like a hawk in flight, or the way I thought a shark must feel as it cruises the ocean floor. For the first time, I knew what it was to be a natural at something. To have a gift.
Location 1709:
It looked just as it had for the past five years, with one change. My avatar’s name now appeared at the very top of the list, in first place, with a score of 10,000 points beside it. The other nine slots still contained Halliday’s initials, JDH, followed by zeros. "Holy shit," I muttered. When Anorak had handed me the Copper Key, I’d become the first gunter in history to score points in the contest. And, I realized, since the Scoreboard was viewable to the entire world, my avatar had just become famous. I checked the newsfeed headlines just to be sure. Every single one of them contained my avatar’s name. Stuff like: MYSTERIOUS AVATAR "PARZIVAL" MAKES HISTORY and PARZIVAL FINDS COPPER KEY. I stood there in a daze, forcing myself to breathe. Then Art3mis gave me a shove, which, of course, I didn’t feel. She did knock my avatar backward a few feet, though. "You beat him on your first try?" she shouted. I nodded. "He won the first game, but I won the last two. Just barely, though." "Shiiiiiit!" she screamed, clenching her fists. "How in the hell did you beat him on your first try?" I got the distinct impression she wanted to sock me in the face.
Updated: Feb 01, 2022
I didn’t think anyone would anticipate this move, because it was so clearly insane.
Updated: May 23, 2022
Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.