If it’s not already obvious from this week’s Unshelved Book Club comic, Bill and I both loved Ernie Cline’s book Ready Player One. We disagree about a lot of books, but both rate this as the best book we’ve read this year. It’s filled with 80s pop culture references, and we both believe (along with John Scalzi and Patrick Rothfuss, apparently) that this book was written just for us.

We had a chance to chat with him last month at Comic Con International. Our conversation ranged from Ernie’s excellent pitch for the book to Oingo Boingo. Bill does his Rodney Dangerfeld impression, Ernie and I discuss Highlander 2’s planet Zeist, and we take him to task for not including more 80s comic book references (though he assures me there’s an Arak, Son of Thunder-based virtual environment in OASIS for me). Listen to the interview in its entirety. (The only thing that’s not on the recording: I played Joust against Cline after our interview. I took yellow and soundly defeated him!)

And since the book is all about games, we’re having one of our own. Tweet a rhyming couplet about your favorite 1980s video game with the hashtag #readyplayeronegame. For example:

Back in high school I was a complete dork
so I spent Friday nights alone, playing Zork. #readyplayeronegame

Bill and I will judge the ten funniest winners. The top two get a signed ARC of Ernie’s book and a Ready Player One t-shirt courtesy Crown Publishing and Random House Library. The next three get an unsigned ARC and a t-shirt. And five runners up get an unsigned ARC. Your entry must be tweeted by no later than noon (PDT) August 26th, 2011. Tweet as many entries as you have in your heart. Individuals are only eligible for one prize. Winning entries will be posted in our blog. (You can keep an eye on the entries so far.)

Click through for this week’s other book recommendations