It was a no-brainer for me to read this book after reading Ready Player One, because I liked his fast-paced, occasionally tongue-in cheek writing style. I knew it would never be as great as Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One, and i was right.
Spoiler alert: Do not tread past this point if you haven’t read it.
Zackary Ulysses Lightman is an ordinary high school senior, except that he’s really good at playing video games. He’s the fifth ranked player in this alien invasion simulator-type game, Aramada, and has some unresolved Daddy issues since his father died in an explosion in a sewage plant when he was very young. His mum has been single ever since, and they somehow get by with enough money, because Lightman Sr has left them enough.
But soon, Zack discovers his father’s crazy conspiracy theory-type notebooks, and that every bit of pop culture that has to do with an alien invasion, is supposed to prepare humanity for said invasion. Oh and the video game, Armada? That’s no simulator–it’s really used for humanity to train themselves to fight off aliens.
Also, guess what? Zack’s father isn’t dead; he was merely recruited to fight the aliens. Cue the witty, one-liner pop culture references, a smart but two-dimensional love interest, and an ultimate alien showdown that will leave readers wondering why the human race hasn’t been exterminated already.
Cline’s fast-paced and engaging writing style saves the plot from being trite — with nods to Ender’s Game and The Last Starfighter, it is really hard to sell this one. But his voice shines through the teen’s point of view, although using pop culture references to describe one’s own feelings is cheat code that I’ve seen a little too many times in this book.
I also did not understand why the main character had to have anger issues if it did nothing for the plot. The ending — with the whole alien invasion being a test — was a letdown, since I thought of other alternatives as to why the aliens had gone easy on humanity throughout this invasion; they wanted to spread their religion, they showed mercy because they wanted to experiment on us, and so on.
Armada is a pretty good book, and it’s useless to measure it up against Ready Player One. ’80s Sci-Fi nerds will always find a fellow geek in Cline, regardless of what he writes.
7/10