Armada

Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 7
Prose: 6

Cline asks two questions with this book:
1. Can you retell another, famous story and make it worthwhile?
2. Why are popular culture book and movie references taboo in storytelling?

Though I enjoyed the book, my answers are very encouraging:
1. I always thought you could effectively “remix” a book by changing the story in fundamental ways. In fact, I was eager to have a few authors all explore variations of the same book at the same time, creating 3 or more separate, standalone works. However, while I enjoyed “ARMADA”, everything previously covered in Orson Scott Card's “Ender's Game” was effectively boring: I'd certainly heard it all before. I'm not convinced.

2. Could I have enjoyed the book more if it didn't explicitly say it was a remix of Ender's Game? Most likely. When another story, like Star Trek, is mentioned, the world of the book (diegesis) is suddenly interrupted and possibly merged with a very different fictional setting. It is unnecessarily distracting and I believe strongly that it is taboo. Nevertheless, if Cline didn't mention Ender in Armada, that could be considered a more serious crime (stealing).