I absolutely loved Ready Player One, so I jumped at the chance to buy Ernest Cline’s new book when it came out.
Ready Player One was one of the funnest books I’ve read all year, so of course I was expecting something similar with Armada.
Now, to be sure, Ready Player One set the bar pretty high, and I understand it’s not easy to live up to those expectations, even if you’re the one who wrote it. I’m sad to say Armada did not live up to my expectations, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading.
It’s still a fun read about a senior in high school (Zack Lightman) who is one of the highest-ranked players of Armada, a video game wherein the players operate drones to fight off an alien species that’s trying to exterminate the human race.
Except it’s not just a video game.
It turns out, NASA made contact with an alien species back in the 1960’s and it didn’t go so well. The aliens (called “Europans” because they were found on the moon of Jupiter named Europ) declared war on the human race and began building an armada. Fortunately, they built it in plain view of of NASA’s cameras, giving us about 40 years’ worth of warning they were coming and simultaneously allowing us to copy them and reverse engineer some of their technology.
Meanwhile, the government funds all sorts of sci-fi books, movies, and video games in order to prep Americans for the day of invasion without freaking everyone out and telling them what’s going on before they absolutely have to.
So the big day comes when the Europans send their armada to Earth. Of course, the Earthlings see this and are able to calculate their approximate arrival time, resulting in the formation of a sort of doomsday clock. They have just enough time to gather their top players and brief them before they get attacked.
If all of this seems a bit preposterous, that’s because it is. It turns out the aliens are testing us. They’ll attack a base and do just enough damage to send the message they can destroy it, then they’ll pull back. They’ll create an unbeatable weapon, then give us a chance to beat it. None of their tactics make sense, and once it’s pointed out to Zack that it might all be a test, Zack can’t help but see evidence of the theory everywhere.
Like Ready Player One, Armada is full of references to geek culture. Some of which I got, many of which I didn’t. That’s OK, because I don’t think it’s really necessary to get all the references in order to enjoy the book. It took longer to get to the action than Cline’s first book, but the mystery of why the Europans were acting so strangely was enough suck me in and keep me reading.
One disappointment I had was the lack of editing. I understand Ready Player One made a lot of money and got a sweet movie deal, but isn’t that all the more reason to devote more resources to polishing the next book, rather than less? The book wasn’t exactly riddled with typos, but there were several, and at one point Zack says the countdown clock hit the one hour mark and they did some stuff, then some time later he again says the countdown clock hit the one hour mark and they did some other stuff. That’s such a glaring mistake I don’t know how it survived even an initial round of editing.
Oh, well. That’s the nature of publishing companies I guess. You throw them a little money and they get lazy.
What about you guys? What did you read this week? Anything that didn’t live up to your expectations? I want to hear all about it!
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