Eric Allerton

This is a great follow-up story to a fantastic first book! I really care for these characters and their allies. That's obviously important in a multi-book series, but what keeps me going are the new situations, the new cons, and the twists and turns that follow. It's been pretty obvious in both books that the Gentlemen Bastards are going to pull off all their long-cons successfully, but they're always pulled off with unforeseen results and consequences.

The most fun part of this book is the plot. Taking our flawed, yet beloved heroes and making them unwilling pirates is a twist on the fish out of water (no pun intended) trope that I don't think I've ever encountered. Scott Lynch's realization to make that the focal point of the book is genius; and making them break into the life of being pirates the way only Locke and Jean could, by conning, is a testament to how well Lynch knows his protagonists.

The ONLY gripes I have about this book are fairly moot. First is that it's too obvious when a certain major character is headed to meet their maker. The whole setup is just like, “Well, OK, they're not making it to the end of this chapter”. It's just a bit disappointing because I didn't get that obvious foreshadowing in the first book's dealing with major characters' death; but I digress.

The other fault is more of a pet-peeve. In TV shows, I greatly dislike it when the show opens with a major battle, or a “WTF situation” and then the credits role and you're presented with “24 hours earlier” first act. Ugh, that bugs me. There's no need to do that unless the story leading up to that moment is sub-par and you (the writer) know it.

In this book, the story begins with an impossible situation from close to the end of the book where Jean betrays Locke. The point is thrown in the reader's face that the always-aware Locke sees no hand signals from Jean that he's playing a role, and then BAM, you rewind a few months to the actual beginning of the story; Chapter 1. Pretty intense. The whole time reading the book, that moment is in the back of your mind. You can't wait for it to happen! Then you kinda forget about it as you are too busy being engrossed in this great story. Then, a chapter begins with a familiar situation to the reader and you say, out loud, “Hell ya, this is it!”. Then the moment happens, the situation is played out and, just like in those TV episodes, it turns out to either be a misunderstanding or a double-cross you see coming from the actual story leading up to the moment. In “Red Seas Under Red Skies” case, the explanation is super lame and a total cop-out. It feels like Scott Lynch himself forgot he wrote that Prologue, realized he needed to craft a scene with it, and then explains what happens in the most character-breaking moment in the history of ALL BOOKS EVER! /hyperbole

So, ya, stop doing that crap, writers. It benefits no one. Focus on the story and not an “inside of the jacket paragraph”-type prologue to grab your audience. There are so many other great pay-offs in this book that the in-your-face moment that needed a huge pay-off was pitiful.

So, after that diatribe, get reading this series. It's fantastic!

Thankfully this was a very short book. The “unreliable narrator” is definitely not for me. Also, this is not a “horror” book; it's “slightly chilling for half a chapter”. I was pretty darn disappointed and Shirley Jackson's writing style didn't help much. I dug her prose well enough, but its point seemed to want to confuse the reader more than enlighten her story, and I wouldn't read another book from her because of it.

I understand this is considered a classic of the genre, but as we all know from reading shite books in high school, classic does not necessarily mean good. A lot of people love this book; deciding in their head what has been happening all along, but like all books and movies that try to pull this crap on me, I don't want to waste my time only to find out that there is no resolution to the story and I'm supposed to figure it out myself. You and I both know, Shirley, that you have a resolution in your head. Don't try to be clever (or lazy) and not give it to me. Pretentious, I say!

Ernest Cline unapologetically borrows lines and objects from all areas of 80's and 90's pop culture; which makes his books a ton of fun to read. With “Armada”, he also unapologetically borrows plot points from 80's and 90's pop culture. That makes it a little less fun to read...BUT even though it's an obvious knock-off of “The Last Starfighter” (the main character even acknowledges this more than once), this book still makes me smile and, like “Ready Player One” before it, made me teary-eyed a bit in places.

The biggest criticism I can give this book is that the tertiary characters aren't given their due time for us to get to know them. I'd really like an Alex backstory as she's quite badass, but we know almost nothing about her (or any of the EDA recruits) from right before they get recruited. It was also a little disappointing to realize that I was more than halfway through the book before the main plot points start. That's not to say that I wasn't enjoying the backstory of Lightman up to that point, but I feel that my biggest issues with the book could have been squashed had the main story started sooner so I could learn about the characters more in-depth.

Anyways, Cline remains the best example of geek writing, and there's a ton of fun to be had in this follow-up novel. Looking forward to his next venture!

Informative, influential and ya, humorous. Because of this book, I'm no longer squeamish of surgery videos. Quite the opposite. I seek them out to see and learn how weird and wonderful the human body is and how we've learned to master it. This is only achievable because of a lot of the history found in this book. Donate your body, people! At the very least, your organs.

Everyone has that song, movie, book, tv show that was “made for them”. This is my book. That should have been obvious from the synopsis, but I didn't believe it.

‘An adventure to find a dead man's treasure in the near-future's hybrid virtual reality of the Internet and an MMO role-playing game. Where solving the riddles and experiencing the world is done through a myriad of mostly-obscure 80's pop-culture references.”

I don't know why I put off reading it so long after hearing everyone I respect in media expressing their love for this book.

I can't recommend this highly enough for any child of the 80's like me who spent more time blowing into NES cartridges and watching every movie, good and “bad”, that HBO had to offer rather than going outside. From “Family Ties” to “Voltron”, this book touches on everything that makes you a nerd from the 80's and makes it so cool, that the future of the world is based around its obsession.

Minus the rampant poverty the book's world, I would champion this future whole-heartedly. I also think that this is the first book to make me shed a tear when (very minor spoiler) Wade meets Aech in real life. That is by far the best relationship in the book.

There's been word of a movie version of this since 2010 and I really hope they find a way to do it justice. Reading it with that in mind makes me realize how hard a movie this would be to just script, let alone make it with enough money for however they'd represent OASIS.

If you're between the ages of 30-45, start reading this book immediately.