Ready Player Two

Ready Player Two is a 2020 science fiction novel by the American author Ernest Cline and the sequel to his 2011 debut, Ready Player One. It is set after Wade Watts wins control of the virtual reality system known as the OASIS, and it was published in Britain by Century.

Wade discovers something left behind by James Halliday, the founder of the OASIS, in the days after the first contest ends. The new challenge concerns a technology that changes what the system can be used for and who gets to use it, and it puts him in competition with a rival whose resources are greater than his own, while the book draws on the films, games and music of the 1980s.

Cline writes the same mixture of quest structure and nostalgia as the first book, with the plot organised around a set of clues that have to be worked out in order. It is a direct continuation, and it works best for readers who already know the first volume and remember its contest in detail.