It's a fun book, yes, but not great.
Like movies, people put too much emphasis on everything has to be criterion quality, epic masterpieces. Just take it for what it is, entertaining.
Last year I read through a whole gamut of classic sci-fi, from
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to
Fahrenheit 451 to the
Foundation series. All great reads, classics, incredible writing and creativity for their time. Heck, some ideas are in standard sci-fi today!
This year I've been continuing through the Ender series and Star Wars novels. Not the the best writing for sure, but definitely entertaining. Actually for the Ender series I'm more addicted than anything.
My point is, RPO has a lot of fun points that make it a guilty pleasure. I recommend it to people who would get the references, but are also interested in sci-fi stories as it harkens back to the classic virtual world voyerism ideas that were set forth by classic novels like
Neuromancer and the like.
And with VR being the trend now, it's makes sense that Hollywood is jumping on anything related to cash in on.