Armada by Ernest Cline

ARMADA
by Ernest Cline

Crown Publishing
July 14, 2015

From Goodreads:

Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?

Armada is another novel by Ernest Cline that holds something special for lifetime gamers. It’s certainly not Ready Player One, but it’s also a little unfair to compare the two. However, anyone reading this after RPO will find it’s hard not to.

Right off the bat, our lead character is sitting in school, spewing non-stop pop culture references. Is this Wade? No? Seems like Wade. Oh, Zack! My bad. Zack’s obsessed with video games and the ‘80s. Sounds familiar, I know.

Most of the plot rotates around gamers having to log onto their computers to take control of space-drones and battle an alien invasion. It was all fairly predictable, but entertaining. Scenes leading up the action were well done, but then when the action happened, everything went into fast forward. They seemed to be over before they began.

Imagine watching a superhero movie where they stand around talking for 88 minutes and then fight for 2. That’s kind of how this felt.

The big compliment I can hand to Mr. Cline on this is that no matter how many complaints I had with the above issues, I always wanted to keep turning pages. DNF never entered the realm of possibility. When I think back to the first time I read RPO, there are some things in the beginning that I’m not a big fan of. It was kind of speed bump to get over, but then it was full speed. This one had way more speed bumps, but I wasn’t stopping.

This is definitely one for kids of the ‘80s and those that are into video games, but don’t expect another Ready Player One. That one seems to be lightning that I’m still hoping can strike twice…

Fun fact about this post: This one was a buddy read with Erik from Breakeven Books. Check out what he’s been up to on his blog and his new YouTube channel.