Armada

This one was a bit disappointing. I loved Ready Player One in a huge way, and I kind of avoided reading Cline's sophomore effort as I heard it really didn't live up to the previous. Then I got to meet Ernie Cline at a book signing, and I just fell in love with the man. Such a sweet, charming, unabashedly nerdy guy whom I just wanted to support. So I sat down to form my own opinion.

Sadly, I ended up agreeing with the majority. Armada is similar to RPO in that it centers around video games and their application outside being games, in this case the trope of child gamer prodigy asked to use his skills to save the world from impending invasions. Also like RPO, it builds a lot of its humor and plot on nerdy references from a modern protagonist obsessed with 70s, 80s, and 90s science fiction. RPO wove these references in seemlessly and they formed the core of the story. In Armada, they just feel kind of dropped in, kicking me out of the story instead of immersing me.

Also, the characters are a bit flatter. Our hero is a real stop WMP who for some reason girls totally dig. His love interest (who shows up really only as a deux es machina to save the day with HACKING) is inexplicably interested in him despite being older, cooler, and smarter. This would have been a way different book if it was about her or really any of the other top players who are diverse, unique, and interesting (except maybe Chen who has no character besides stock asian genius). Zack is just not very interesting and doesn't have much of a believable character arc.

Not to say the book was all bad. There's a lot of popcorn fun to be had and some good subverting of the alien invasion genre, but I can't help thinking a few changes could have made it a lot better. Sorry, Ernie. I still love you, but I can't quite evangelize this one the way I do RPO.