sequel, making a point of saying a character could be trans or is black or gay or Japanese and then assigning stereotypical phrases...then never addressing it again does not equal inclusion." Laura Hudson from Slate noted a sexist undertone to Ready Player Two in the novel's treatment of women: "[There is] the idea that after reliving the recorded memories of women, supposedly clueless men experience a moment of enlightenment and now realize that women are people. It never occurs to [Wade] that he also could have come to the same conclusion about [Halliday's misogyny] by using the greatest empathy machine of all, his brain, and running the...program that is listening to other people and believing them about their experiences." Readers heavily mocked it upon its first day of release, causing Ready Player Two to trend on Twitter when popular threads chided passages for their perceived pandering and poor prose. Andy Ihnatko commented that "The opening page is what it's like to be stuck on a four hour flight next to a little kid who wants to tell you knock-knock jokes the whole time." Michael J. Nelson and Conor Lastowka of the podcast 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back riffed on the novel's greatest shortcomings from November 2020 to February 2021. Film adaptation In November 2017, Cline acknowledged that the resurgence in his motivation to write Ready Player Two was due to working on the first film's script, as well as its successes both financially and critically. The author stated that a sequel may be desired by the film studio. By March 2018, Cline reiterated this, stating, "I think there's a good chance that, if Ready Player One does well, Warner Bros. will want to make a sequel. I don't know if Steven [Spielberg] would want to dive back in, because he would know what he is getting into. He's said that it's the third-hardest film he's made, out of dozens and dozens of movies". Co-star Olivia Cooke is contractually attached to return in sequels. In December 2020, Cline confirmed that a film adaptation was in the early stages of development. References 2020 American novels 2020 science fiction novels Action novels American science fiction novels Books about video games Cyberpunk novels Dystopian novels Fictional video games Massively multiplayer online role-playing games in fiction Novels about virtual reality Novels by Ernest Cline Sequel novels Ballantine Books books