I don't know why, but I'm imagining a Ready Player One but aimed at Lisp nerds. With excursions into AI, programming language theory, etc. cultures.

Classic MIT AI Lab memo publication numbers are significant, details of PDP micro-architecture are important to the plot, ...

Characters meet at a VR version of Steve's Ice Cream in Boston, whose mixin ingredients inspired the design of Flavors, the first object system to include mixins. (Most of the preceding text will actually appear in the novel.)

Traveling in "spaceships" that are structures from Conway's Game of Life. (Does that already appear in Ready Player One? Feels like it could.)

Someone wears a ratty t-shirt that has a branch cut illustration from Common Lisp the Language, 2nd ed. https://twitter.com/RainerJoswig/status/1330293184778407937

I was trying to figure out how to work in HAKMEM. Here it is. https://twitter.com/__pvg_/status/1331385982067720192

Characters definitely speak using the -P convention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_convention

CLIM, the Common Lisp Interface Manager ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp_Interface_Manager) has been adapted to VR and its presentation types are the foundation of most virtual interaction techniques.

(Damn, now I'm wondering if "CLIM-style presentation types for VR" could actually be a thing. Or is that kinda already baked into most VR?)

One task is to beat Eurisko at Trillion Credit Squadron. In fact, Doug Lenat is probably the James Halliday of the book.

Of course first they need to find a copy of Journal of the Travellers Aid Society issue #10 from 1981 (I have several issues that I bought in the 80s, but not that one).