This is a tale of near future earth. The world has become a pretty terrible place to live. Nuclear wars, depletion of oil, good land and jobs. Most of the population has retreated to living mostly inside a virtual reality game called the Oasis which has become the world's employer, school system, entertainment, news, etc. The inventor of the game, a child of the '80s, dies and in his will he leaves an announcement of a challenge to all Oasis users...an Easter Egg. Whomever finds the Easter Egg, will get his gazillion dollar fortune, and control of the game and therefore pretty much the world. Enter the protagonist, Wade/Parzival. The hunt is on to find the egg and defeat the evil, fascist IOI Corp who control much of the game already and want to control it all. 
 All perfectly fine for the premise of a story but a bit too predictable. The author could have taken a few more chances with the story, not have the outcome be quite so "little David, with nothing more than standard issue Oasis visor and haptic gloves, a good heart and superior brain, prevails (after much hardship and with the help of his friends) over big, bad Goliath". (view spoiler)[ When the protagonist's best friend's avatar turned out to be a female irl instead of a male...predictable. When the protagonist's love interest's avatar turned out to be almost exactly the same irl, except for a slight disfiguring condition...predictable. (hide spoiler)] All the '80s trivia was interesting and sometimes humorous, although at times really too much. I lived through the '80s...where they really that fantastic? Where early video games like space invaders and joust and pac man really that great? Maybe to his target audience...gamers...which I am not. 
 All in all though I thought it wasn't a bad read. Cline obviously knew his subject. Oasis is after all just SL or other mmorgs on steroids. Or maybe, it is a cautionary tale of what they could have/may become.