Armada

Given how much I loved Ready Player One, I had extremely high hopes coming into this read. I appreciate that E.C. was trying to stick to a similar theme, but the entire plot seemed so over the top, and far fetched, that I just never could get into it. I'd probably give it a 2.5 if Goodreads would let me.

In a lot of ways I shouldn't like this (all the pop culture references, all the wish fulfillments, everything being tied up with a bow at the end), but man if this wasn't a fun ride. I think I like Ready Player One better (it felt a bit more organic if that can make sense at all given the topic), but so, so good.

After reading the amazing nerdgasim that is Ready Player One, I went into this book thinking I'd be reading nearly the same amazing story...just set in space...and with aliens. That didn't happen.

I'm not huge on space/aliens in general...same with “war” stuff as well. But I figured I could give this a shot given Ready Player One was so god damn mind blowing.

How Cline went from RPO to this...mess, I will never know.

It has ok parts...I like the geek/nerd references, Lex was pretty cool, and I liked Milo and Shin (yay for gay characters).

But it has a lot of bad parts. The main character and nearly every character (ignoring the ones I liked) were boring. The plot was...convoluted. All the EDA terms were just...god a mess. Maybe it's because I'm not into mechs and war games...but I was skipping over whole chunks of the book just to get through all the junk about EDA mechs and drones and blah blah blah. BORING.

And the self sacrifice bit was pretty obvious as soon as they introduced the dad.

I thought the “romance” between Zack and Lex was...shallow and shoved into the story. I get that “omg the world is ending...let's find a corner and $%*^” mindset...but it just wasn't needed. Lex could have stayed a friend to Zack...and just been a cool kickass strong female character. I think she was cheapened by the need to force them together for a romantic angle.

It's not Ready Player One, but I didn't expect it to be. I'm not a reader that tries to figure out what's going to happen before it happens, but some of the main plot points were telegraphed a mile away. The ending was only ok, but I wasn't a fan of the obvious doors opening for a sequel.

Ready Player One is my go-to book for when I need a light-hearted read. I LOVE RP1. Armada isn't going to take over that place any time soon. I still enjoyed it, and I went through it pretty quickly. I loved the premise. I was afraid reading the summary that it was just going to be a Last Starfighter redo, but I should have had more faith. Yeah, there's some Last Starfighter elements to it, but there's also a nice Ender's Game-y feel. Some of the usernames Ernie came up with are fantastic. IronBeagle, RedJive, AtomicMom... Loved the interaction between IronBeagle and RedJive.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

I can't quite decide if this book is mocking all those aliens invade type science-fiction movies or if it took them and tried to make this new weird thing. Basically Ernest Cline is either a genius or a maniac and I can't quite decide which one it is. So heres the thing, I enjoyed this book but I also had some massive problems with it. Problems which I don't want to talk about because I will give away many many spoilers. But despite that I did actually really like this.

Its an Ernest Cline book so you go into it knowing that there are going to be references to Star Trek and Star Wars and a bunch of other things. But I like that it also has these really subtle pop culture references. I like that he mentions the Kobayashi Maru without any other references to Star Trek, I like that he gave a little explanation of what it is for people who haven't watched Star Trek while people who have watched Star Trek will fully understand what he is talking about. I like all the references to internet memes, even Leeroy Jenkins. I am a nerd and I like that there is a book with all of these things, where it acknowledges and celebrates the nerds of the world.

However I did feel that all the pop culture references got a little over the top in some parts, especially when Cline was trying to make certain points of the book very serious and it just didn't work because of the references to Galaxy Quest.

I love that the main character actually feels like a real kid. He would rather play video games than go to school, he doesn't want to think about the future, he has no idea what he wants to do after he graduates and when he finds out that aliens are real he reacts in a realistic way. And by that I mean he shouts and screams and has a panic attack.

But it did kind of feel that Ernest Cline had copied Ready Player One. In both books we have a main character who becomes obsessed with this one person, they learn everything they can about them and go as far as to watch the movies and read the books and play the games they liked. In both we also have these huge computer games that basically everyone all over the world play. It felt like Ernest Cline had found this winning plot in Ready Player One and instead of creating something new for Armada just rehashed that same plot again with a few changes

I will admit that Armada has some problems however its very good for what it is, which is basically an adventure book for nerds, if you want to read something without thinking too much about the plot this is great. It's really not meant to be taken very seriously. Basically if you are a nerd, or enjoy science-fiction and gaming, you will probably enjoy this.

I enjoyed Ready Player One, and was curious as to read what Cline wrote next, whether he could keep up the pace of nerdy retro observations.
Well, he can, but it doesn't make much sense outside of that particularly contrived world.

In Armada, it feels forced and purposeless. I wasn't interested in the characters, and I wasn't particularly sympathetic for their plight. I felt the romance was iffy and the twists were unsurprising. It's a shame, because if it was his first novel I'd probably have enjoyed it more.

Where I could overlook the problems in Ready Player One because of the enormous amount of fun it was, Armada actually make me think less of RPO.

Ernest Cline, if you read this, write another book. It must have been an off day.

You know that something is up, and that something is exactly what you expect. I kept waiting for the main character to have a revelation, or do something unexpected, or something unpredictable. But everything happened exactly how you thought it would. Cline even throws in a double writer's cliche to wrap everything in a nice little bow. Disappointing, BUT I do want him to keep writing. And not just because of RP1. I want him to keep writing, because I enjoy the universe he creates for his characters. I just don't want his characters to do what has already been written in other books. Sorry.

Le second roman est toujours difficile, surtout après avoir écrit [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500930947s/9969571.jpg 14863741], et malheureusement Armada accuse le coup. La formule pour ce coup ne marche pas aussi bien, les références étant beaucoup plus obscures, les personnages pas assez profonds, la conclusion un peu baclée. La mise en place prends tellement de temps qu'il ne reste que très peu de place pour que le reste de l'histoire se déroule, tout s'accélérant passé la moitié du livre. Fort déçu donc de ce deuxième opus de Ernest Cline.

A really fun adventure story with a lot of humour and an unexpectedly serious side.

I was doing a lot of travelling and needed something fun to make the 7 hour coach rides go faster. I found I had a copy of this on my ereader and jumped in for a reread.

It was only after the final coach ride that I discovered that my travelling companion had started reading the same book at the same time for the same reasons.

Much like the author's ‘Ready Player One', this felt like a truck had dumped a huge load of 80s/90s pop culture straight into my mind. Barely a page passed without at least one geeky quip mentioned in dialogue or description.

It took several chapters for me to acclimatise to it and was all ready to rant – to pass it off as merely like a lazy 'Family Guy' episode, where flat characters, holes in the story and attempts at humour had been replaced by increasingly tiresome references. A glue to fill the gap where obvious influences ‘Ender's Game' and ‘The Last Starfighter' had been cut and shut together.

However, as the story continued along, I got into the groove and found myself enjoying it and quickly forgave its flaws. It's undoubtedly disposable but a perfect fun holiday read and there's nothing wrong with that. It will interesting to see where Cline goes from here and whether he will evolve his writing style to pastures new. I'll certainly be onboard to find out.

I'm months behind in writing my book reviews, and while I feel like I should finish my older reviews first, I couldn't help but jump in to the current discussion surrounding Ernest Cline's latest novel, Armada.

Before I start my review, I feel the need to state that I am a huge Ready Player One fan. I simply adore that book. It is like a love sonnet to 80s pop culture, and it is honestly one of the best books I have read in recent years. I also got to meet Ernest Cline (briefly) while I was at San Diego Comic-Con this year. He seems like a really cool guy, genuinely enthusiastic about everything nerdy, and very grateful for his fans and all of the excitement over his first novel and upcoming film. I was honestly really excited about the release of Armada. Of course, the fancy Comic-Con swag didn't hurt much either.

I had pre-ordered a copy of this book almost as soon as it was available, and I've been waiting in anticipation for months. When it came it had quite possibly the coolest inside of a book jacket I've ever seen, which definitely only made me more excited for the story that was contained inside.

The back of the book of the book also had a cool feature - an old Maxwell mix-tape of the main character's father's collection of gaming songs entitled “Raid the Arcade.” As someone who had used the Castle Anorak blog's soundtrack list to create a Ready Player One Playlist, clearly I would have to continue my love for all things Ernest Cline by creating an Armada Playlist as a follow-up.

This was the sort of book I knew I was going to love before I even started reading it. Video games, 80s pop culture, Ernest Cline, what could go wrong? I even created a ridiculous hashtag on my social media: #ForgetGoSetAWatchmanImReadingArmada - attempting to gently prod my more literary friends who where almost overcome with excitement about Harper Lee's novel that had been released on the same day. Suffice it to say, I was beyond excited to read this book. Which is why, I'm sad to say, I'm finding it almost physically painful to write this review.

Armada is an alien invasion story about Zack Lightman, a teenage boy who spends too much time playing video games. However, it turns out his youth is not wasted, as his high ranking in the game world means he is actually a highly trained drone pilot ready to defend the earth from alien invaders! Beyond that premise, the story essentially consists of Zack learning about his family, and comparing everything to events from 1980s pop culture.

I really wanted to be absorbed in this story, fearing for the lives of the main characters, worrying at their peril from the alien invaders, but I never really had that emotional connection. Possibly because I was never really able to believe that these characters were teenagers in 2015. This story's main failing is that it is set in the present-day, but the characters feel hopelessly stuck in the past. While in school the students are tormenting each other with spitballs. Spitballs! I'm sorry, but in today's world when you have an uninterested math teacher you don't pelt spitballs across the room. You hide your cell phone on your lap and psychologically torment your neighbor through texts, tweets, and facebook. I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of physical bullying, which is still a problem in schools, but, honestly, today's kids tend to be more sophisticated and less obvious than that. In a world without internet it would make sense, but, as computers and modern technology are a large part of this story, its lack of presence in the classroom feels a bit... odd.

Secondly, it was a bit difficult to believe how much 80s and 90s pop culture the main kids had absorbed. Zack's obsession with his father's possessions explain his knowledge, which was fine, but his friends were a bit too old-school to be believable. Honestly, their conversations would have confused many of my high school friends, and we were in high school when the original Lord of the Rings trilogy was being released. Clearly, my ability to grasp a majority of these references means I'm the Zack of my high school group. I'm not sure how I should feel about this.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I never really believed that the alien invasion felt real. I remember being three quarters of the way through the book and thinking, “This can't actually be happening. Like, it just doesn't make sense.” Unfortunately, the main character points out many of the logical inconsistencies of the book, but even in his attempt to “figure it out,” it just makes the events seem even more ridiculous. Everything just felt so... derivative. I hate saying it, but there wasn't ever really a moment when I accepted this scenario as realistic. The ever critical suspension of disbelief never really happened for me, and, unfortunately, without that the premise of this book really falls flat.

It could have possibly been remedied by an interesting protagonist overcoming difficult obstacles, but even then I can't find much merit in this book. Despite the difficulties Zack had in childhood, he sort of gets everything handed to him on a platter during the invasion. He gets the royal treatment as a top-ranked player from the Armada video game. He sits next to the love of his life who, surprisingly, is pretty interested in a relationship despite knowing Zack for only a few minutes. (Yes, yes, the impending doom of the Earth could be a nice incentive to hurry things up a bit, but still.) He even finds a wise sage with all the knowledge and wisdom and advice he could possibly want (not saying who, because, spoilers). Sure, he has a bit of emotional trauma to deal with, but, on the scale of all-out alien invasion, well it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Even the ending felt a bit like a pat on the head. I sort of assume than an epic war-like event involving an alien invasion would make things feel different for the characters, but, while the story sort of sums up the aftermath of the invasion, if felt as though nothing had really changed.

So, what merits does this book have? Well, to be honest, I still think Ernest Cline is great at writing banter between characters well versed in geek culture. I honestly wish I could be a part of these conversations. They are the sort of ultimate argumentative geek out that people in convention lines are too polite to engage in and your real life friends aren't well-versed enough to keep up with. I appreciate Cline's ever present sense of humor, and his creation of screen-names is really a treat. You can feel his enthusiasm bleed through the page, which is really what kept me reading this book, more than anything else. The quality of the writing itself is pretty good, it is just the story itself which is lacking.

I don't really want to compare this book to Ready Player One, because, honestly, they aren't really the same sort of story. However, it is a bit of an interesting exercise to try and figure out why the first novel was so successful, and why this one isn't. Ultimately, I think it comes down to believability. Ready Player One is set in the quasi-not-too-far-ish future, which, theoretically, means that the kids in that novel should be even less interested in 80s and 90s pop culture than the kids in Aramada are. However, the RPO kids have a strong motivating factor that the Armada kids don't - a desire to get out of the utter shit-hole they've been living in. Let's be honest - if the only distraction you had was the internet and an Easter-egg hunt based on 80s trivia with the potential for lots of money as a prize, then you'd be watching the heck out of Family Ties too. The idea that humanity will have wrecked the environment to end up in such a state isn't too hard to imagine either. And from there the rest of RPO is an exciting adventure mixed with a fun romp through 80s nostalgia, which easily pulls the reader through the story. With Armada, the idea of kids playing video games isn't weird. The idea of an alien invasion isn't weird (or, at least, not new). The idea of using kids and their computer game skills to fight an alien invasion also isn't new. And yet I never felt invested in this world. I never loved these characters. I never cared if things got better for them. And I think it really comes down to the fact that I never really believed that these kids were the characters they were written as. The older generation we meet later in the book felt almost indistinguishable from the younger, and I think that was a major problem - everyone felt kind of the same.

So, ultimately, I can't say I really recommend Armada. There are better things in the kid vs. alien genre out there. And, honestly, if you are considering this book stop and go read Ready Player One instead, because it really is fantastic. If I think about what I really get from this book it boils down to about three things: (1) my Comic-Con swag is still pretty cool, (2) “Raid the Arcade” is a pretty kick-ass playlist, and (3) Go Set A Watchman hasn't been getting good reviews either, so at least my hashtag doesn't make me look like too much of an idiot.