It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

In teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side, one mysterious man navigates both worlds with perfect ease.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered.

Jamie Grimm is a middle schooler on a mission: he wants to become the world's greatest stand-up comedian - even if he always seems to 'choke' in the spotlight. When Jamie finds out about a contest called the Funniest Kid on the Planet, he knows it's time to face his fears and enter.