Plot Twist!
Ok, so it wasn’t a difficult question as The Martian and Ready Player One are two of the most successful sci-fi novels of recent times. Both books have or will be turned into a major movie and both have outstanding directors (Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg, the godfathers of movie). However, Andy Weir, author of The Martian has taken the connection a little bit further, and it’s quite a plot twist.
Last week on his Facebook page, Weir explained that he read Ernie Cline’s Ready Player One a few years ago and absolutely loved it. The story inspired him to write a short story set in the world of the book, and eventually he posted that story to his own website. That’s not such a big deal, thanks to the Internet fan-fiction is quite a thing, but then came The Martian!
At some point, we’re guessing after The Martian became famous, Cline read Weir’s short story and he liked it so much he made it an addendum in a brand new paperback edition of Ready Player One. He then told Weird that his story “Lacero” was now canon in the world of Ready Player One.
If you don’t want the new paperback version of Ready Player One you can read Lacero here (Spoiler warning, Weir says you’ll want to read Ready Player One first). The short story is a backstory for one of the novel’s more prominent characters, and here you can read Weir’s Facebook explanation of how he became inadvertently tied up in the world of Ready Player One after his Martian success.
The Devil all the Time adaptation coming to Netflix
