In contrast to Snow Crash, this was a decent “metaverse” book. The concept was stronger than the execution. The writing, while accessible, was tedious at times as Cline has a huge imagination that’s larger than his storytelling abilities. Many sentences felt like statements intended to check off boxes so he could avoid technical criticism (“well, if he has power X in the metaverse, wouldn’t he just do Y, Cline?”). I’d say this was a cross between Hunger Games and Matrix with a heavy dose of 80’s pop culture throughout. The clues of the Oasis contest were so obscure that the reader couldn’t really play along by hypothesizing what might be next. This was a big miss; the difference between an okay novel and something that could have been really compelling. Overall was enjoyable, but no desire to revisit the premise by reading the sequel.