Resocialization and regeneration in Ernest Cline’s ‘The Omnibot Incident’

This report contributes to scholarship on the bestselling American writer Ernest Cline by examining his critically neglected short story ‘The Omnibot Incident’ (2014). It begins by revealing continuities between ‘Incident’ and his ambitious novels Ready Player One (2011) and Ready Player Two (2020). Across these works, we meet, for example, characters who turn to popular culture for compensation, and in the more recent titles, robots who go (or appear to go) rogue. I go on to suggest that the story’s form, particularly its economy, makes it especially hospitable for exploring how the central character Wyatt overcomes grief following his mother’s death. Notwithstanding the close resemblance in the names ‘Wyatt’ and ‘Wade Watts’, the protagonist of Cline’s novels, Wyatt is far more successful with prioritizing his family over the fantasies presented by science fiction. My broader claim is that we can deepen our understanding of and appreciation for Cline’s programme by looking at his short fiction.