Otaku by Chris Kluwe will have to be compared to Ernie Cline’s Ready Player One because they have a lot in common. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a dystopian world that’s gone to hell and it would really suck if there wasn’t some kind of global virtual reality game for people to get lost in.
That’s the similarity and there’s no getting around that.
Ashley lives in the slumscrapers of old Miami in a world warped by climate change, civil wars, megacorporations and more. She’s the best on the ladder with her teammates, they have beaten the unbeatable scenarios, taken on the unstoppable and then have to deal with the haters on the boards who are convinced that no dumb girl should…
Well, some things never change.
And then they do. And then there are conspiracies. And tech. And…
See, Otaku has all the characterization, world building, plot and consequences while Ready Player One is choking on its ’80s references. And if it was just a matter of that, I’d probably like the book. Instead, it’s a rich read, a bloody (literally at times) good read, and after checking out the ebook from the library, I’m pretty sure this is going to be entering my personal library Real Damn Soon.
–Chris Blakeley, Seattle, WA
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