I grew up playing way too much Atari. Back To The Future is one of my favourite films. Me and my other half's first trip together was to a Star Trek convention which we had to take out a loan to afford. I fucking love Rush. This book sounds like it was made for me personally, sadly I found it incredible lacking. 
 The characters were bland. So so bland. We are told that they have these great friendships and that Art3mis is soooo super funny and wicked smart but we never get to see it. Most of the book has the main character lone wolfing and any time he interacts with someone it normally fades to black with a short "and we spent the next few hours joking and playing etc." Any character building and interacting is just glossed over, making super one dimensional characters who we have to take the authors word that they are actually super cool. You saw Firefly right? You referenced it enough didn't you? Fuck me, Whedon's super trait is the character interaction. Instead of referencing, pay attention and mimic! 
 This leads onto an even bigger issue. The references. Oh dear god the references. It could have been good but the author went a little over the top and never really did anything with it. Where were the in-jokes? Where was the creativity? Instead, something would be referenced, if it was obscureish then the reference would be explained. That's it. There was so much potential here. Look at something like "The IT Crowd." It's a British sitcom that has a lot of obscure references and jokes. They will talk about the ZX81 and on a surface level that's all you need to get the joke but if you are actually familiar with said computer they are making some really obscure jokes that only a few people would get. They don't explain those jokes, they are an little easter eggs for fans of whatever they are currently joking about. "Ready Player One" is "The Big Bang Theory" the novel. Here is a thing you have heard of. Here is another one. And another. Oh did you not know that one? Here let me explain it. The worst part is that the author uses this as a way of having zero imagination. Instead of describing anything and coming up with something of his own, he just says "and this guy turned up in Serenity, this one in a Viper etc." We are inside the Matrix and you're telling me no one designed their own spaceship?! Come on now, know your audience. 
 The actual plot itself was not awful. The book had a very slow start but did pick up towards the end. The entire thing just felt juvenile though. We had such a limited amount of actual character interaction but when they did talk they swore every other word. I have nothing against fucking swearing, don't get me wrong. It's just that if you are swearing constantly you sound like a child and it detracts from the story. 
 If you want bland characters, average plot and REFERENCES then go for it but really, if you're over the age of 10 it's probably not for you. The super hot love interest just wanted to be told she was actually beautiful the entire time for fucks sake. Fuck this book. Fuck the author and Fuck the king. 
 This could have been really good.