Ernest Cline
I was standing on the shoulders of other science fiction writers like William Gibson, who had written 'Neuromancer' on a typewriter before home computers even really existed, and Neal Stephenson who wrote 'Snow Crash' in the early '90s and imagined an online virtual world before the birth of the modern Internet.Collection: Computers
In a zombie apocalypse movie, nobody's ever seen a zombie movie. Or in an alien invasion movie, nobody has ever seen an alien invasion movie, like 'Independence Day.'Collection: Independence
I was always obsessed with the 'Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai,' this weird little cult movie. There was this promised sequel before the end credits - 'Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League' - and I knew instinctively they were never going to make that movie, because the first one had made, like, $8 at the box office.
Personally, I'm kind of swirling in this hurricane of virtual reality because of 'Ready Player One.'
I think it's a bit silly to brand the Internet as the 'downfall of youth.'
Once the people of planet Earth are all hanging out together online in a virtual world without any borders, I think it could change social networking, entertainment and even politics.
I was 7 years old when the '80s began and 17 years old when they ended, so it was an incredibly formative decade for me.
I'm incredibly nostalgic for the '80s, because I think that's when Geek Culture really kicked in to high gear.
I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.
My favorite video game of all time is called 'Black Tiger'. It's a Capcom Dungeons and Dragons game from 1987. I have the actual arcade version sitting in my office.
Before I became a full-time writer, I worked in tech support in those giant cubicle farms you see. I was surrounded by people who played video games all the time - sometimes actually in the call centers, playing online multiplayer games. I saw friends of mine who began to feel that going online was more compelling to them than real life.
I've never really collected anything other than old Atari cartridges. I only had, like, 12 Atari games as a kid, so at some point in my 20s I decided I was going to own all of them.
I feel like I was hit by all of geek culture at once while I was growing up in the '70s and '80s. Saturday morning cartoons like 'Star Blazers' and 'Robotech.' Live action Japanese shows like 'Ultraman' and 'The Space Giants.'
I spent most of my childhood welded to my Atari 2600, until I got my first computer, a TRS-80.
I've wanted to own a DeLorean since I was 10 years old, but it always seemed like a silly daydream. Like owning the 'A-Team' van or something.
I noticed in the late 1990s that my friends and I were already nostalgic for the 1980s, and by the turn of the century, VH1's 'I Love the '80s' gave all of us an accelerated nostalgia for our generation.
I notice when I'm at a party where I don't know anybody - even if I have nothing in common with somebody - we can still talk because we were raised by the same TV and cartoons and movies.
I don't know if the '80s were unique, but we certainly got original, groundbreaking stuff at the time with movies like 'Back to the Future' and 'Star Wars' - movies that became classics.
For the whole history of cinema, we've been experiencing movies and television through a two-dimensional, letterboxed window. But once you can start programming entertainment for all the different senses, it becomes a wholly different medium.
Gibson wrote 'Neuromancer' on a typewriter, you know, before the technology he was writing about existed.
Now, a lot of early VR worlds or universes that are coming online take inspiration from 'Ready Player One.' It's just the coolest thing ever.
'Fanboys' was the first real screenplay that I ever wrote that was an original story with my own characters.
I still tell people, 'I'm pretty sure I'm the only 'Star Wars' fan in history to ever break into Skywalker Ranch by writing a movie about breaking into Skywalker Ranch.'
In a book, you can describe a scene and have any song you want playing on the radio and have any painting you want hanging on the wall. That was really freeing to me when I was writing 'Ready Player One.' I could throw in everything that I love.
'Star Wars' was the mythology of my youth. I longed for adventure.
Whenever I watch 'The Matrix,' I think that it is possible, but I don't think that it's going to be machines enslaving humans.
Everything you could ever want to happen happened to me when 'Ready Player One' came out.
I'm surprised that VR has come about so quickly. It's lucky I just happened to write a book imagining virtual reality right on the cusp of it actually happening.
VR really changes everything for flight because the old simulators for the PC were 2D, and you couldn't look around inside the cockpit and learn the controls or even track other planes through the cockpit.
I was just starting out, trying to become a screenwriter, and I became the Austin slam champion three times. For a nerdy, kind of a socially awkward guy, that did wonders for my self esteem.
I don't even think I was quite a year old. My mother was maybe seven months pregnant with my little brother. I was sucked out of her arms, and she landed 75 yards away from our trailer and had a ruptured disc. The tornado set me down on top of this pile of corrugated lumber and scrap metal.
Growing up in rural Ohio, I knew my way around a double-wide pretty well.
I wanted to be able to write in the voice that I talk to my friends and assume that everybody would know what I was talking about.
When you're hanging out with your friends, you reference books and movies, and you don't always know if your friends know what you're referencing. But you throw it out there, and if it connects, it makes people laugh.
It's weird that, in a way, by writing about video games, I get to develop them, too.
I have such a vivid memory of seeing science fiction movies and going to the lobby and playing whatever the space games were, and imagine I was blowing up the Death Star.
I love stories like 'The Terminator' movies and 'The Matrix,' where our machines become self-aware and turn on us.
What's really astounding to me is a lot of the guys at Oculus VR and other companies who were creating VR tell me that 'Ready Player One' is one of their primary inspirations in getting into virtual reality.
I've been to Oculus a few times to do book signings and things there, and they tell me 'Ready Player One' is, like, required reading for new employees.
Going outside is highly overrated.Collection: Overrated
No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.Collection: Being Human
I was obsessed. I wouldn't quit. My grades suffered. I didn't care.Collection: Care
Video games paid for my house. What am I saying? Go ahead and keep playing!Collection: Games
I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there.Collection: Real
You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out.Collection: Looks
Steven Spielberg making a Ready Player One movie is going to change the course of human history as pertains to how quickly virtual reality is adopted. He's going to shows the whole world the potential of VR, which is one of the reasons I think he's doing it. Once you have to compose for 360 degrees, and a movie is different every time you watch it depending on where you choose to look, it's like the dawn of a new era.Collection: Player
Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star. One of over a hundred billion in our galaxy. A galaxy that was just one of billions of other galaxies in the observable universe. This helped me keep things in perspective.Collection: Life
If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me. There, inside the game's two-dimensional universe, life was simple: It's just you against the machine. Move with your left hand, shoot with your right, and try to stay alive as long as possible.Collection: Moving
You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You're going to die. We all die. That's just how it is.Collection: Wonder