The best novels about virtual reality games

Let's just get this one out of the way early. Steeped in 80s gaming and pop culture nostalgia, Ready Player One cemented itself as the quintessential VR gaming book for a whole generation. The story is light on deep technology details but full of delightful references that retro geeks are bound to appreciate (I'm a child of the 80s so I was hooked). It is also a somewhat hopeful dystopian tale that shows how the fictional worlds we love can give us the tools we need to fight real threats.

I first read this book back in 2004 when I was spending way too much time with MMO games. This YA novel is certainly a product of a time where the tech of today was within sight but social media and smartphones didn't exist as we know them now. But the story more than makes up for this unfortunate timing with its witty characters, a structure reminiscent of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books and a fantasy game setting that leads this book to cross genres. I’m a big fan of sci-fi stories that follow the “Groundhog Day” structure like Returnal and Edge of Tomorrow. Do-overs are a crucial part of gaming and this novel builds that idea into its core premise while adding a unique twist.

Spies, hackers, VR eSports, and exciting action scenes in stunning worlds. This book has it all, plus a little bit of romance. I love stories with diverse casts and this novel delivers that and a plot that moves with relentless purpose and intrigue. The ending is a tad abrupt but leads in perfectly to the equally fun sequel, Wildcard.

This one doesn’t involve a game in the traditional sense but indulge me for a moment. Imagine an online world of subterfuge and countermoves where the stakes are the revelation of your true identity and the loss of your freedom. It's a world where digital avatars mask influential hackers determined to bring down real-world institutions, and the manipulative games they play against each other aren’t for points or pride, but power. This is the world of True Names, arguably the first book to lay the foundations of cyberspace fiction. This short 1981 novella is like an ancient artifact reflecting the beginnings of a major shift in civilization. Although some of the tech references are so dated many readers won't even recognize them, a lot of the concepts were far ahead of their time.

Representation matters in popular fiction, and few pop stories showed that better than Marvel’s Black Panther film. Slay is often described as "Black Panther meets Ready Player One," and it's easy to see why. Ready Player One had a brilliant game creator who modeled his world after the culture he was raised on, Slay has similar elements, but in this unique novel the creator of a popular VR game is an African-American high school girl just trying to create a space for her and others like her. Steeped in Black culture in a way that feels accessible but genuine, Slay offers a different perspective on the genre via strong elements of mystery, anti-racism, and healthy doses of tech nerdery.