This was a huge disappointment. I can't deny that part of it is because I loved Ready Player One, and hopes were high for Cline's sophomore novel ... but even if this was a brand new book by a brand new author, it would still be disappointing. 
 The writing was pretty bad in places (for example, the main character comes home and sees his mom watching a TV show, so he literally takes the opportunity to watch her and exposition-dump about who she is and what she's like. Show, don't tell!). 
 I had an issue with the "oh isn't that CONVENIENT" type of deus ex machina events in RPO, and in this book, they were even more tiresome. 
 The 80's geek pop culture reference thing is getting old ... the author's now come up with two book concepts that allow him to show off his 80's geek cred. We get it. Let's try something else. 
 One of my biggest complaints is that all the characters sound like each other. Which was also kind of true in RPO, but in that book, all the characters were antisocial nerdy gamer treasure hunter types, so I could buy it. Also, in RPO, it made sense that everyone immersed themselves in 80's lore since the Oasis creator was a fan. But in this one, we're supposed to believe that despite the 80's link being Zack's dad, everyone he encounters is also an 80s geek superfan? EVERYONE (Zack's mom, every other Armada/Terra Firma gamer we encounter despite it being made obvious that they're supposed to come from all walks of life, just about every military person we meet) talks and behaves like a geeky teenaged 80s-soaked gamer nerd. It's so odd. 
 I was pretty close to giving this one star throughout most of the book. But by the end, I could see that the author was having fun with the story, and it softened my heart a little. Just a little - I still wouldn't recommend this. But at least it eked out two stars from me.