Ernest Cline’s reportedly awesome Ready Player One released today, and geeks of a particular variety will be happy to learn that Wil Wheaton–Evil Wil Wheaton himself–is reading the audiobook version. If you haven’t heard about Ready Player One yet, here’s a brief description and the book trailer:

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifXryyx4erU&feature=player_embedded

They had me at “virtual space opera.” The hardcover is $13.95, the Kindle edition is $11.99, and for $26.40 Wil Wheaton will read Ready Player One just for you and no one else.*

*Not intended to be a factual statement.