Armada

I listened to the audiobook version read by Wil Wheaton. At first, I had a hard time getting into it. The main character was whiny (decreased a bit over the course of the book) and I never really liked alien shoot'em games. But it started to pick up and it was a very fun book to listen to. As a regular read for the summer it was great. If you are looking for a more dense book, don't read this as it is a simple read.

This story was good but I just did not enjoy Wil Wheaton's reading. I had enjoyed his reading of Ready Player One but something did not fit this story.

This get's 3 stars for being fun (and Wil Wheaton is a fantastic narrator).

It's an interesting, if cliched, concept: aliens are coming to overrun us and humanity's last defense is video gamers! To be fair, the book was a little self-aware and poked fun at this cliche plot. However, the characters fell flat, the dialogue was cheesy, and there were a few glaring plot holes. The pop culture references that added charm to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One felt overdone and didn't really add anything to the story.

That being said, the author knows how to hold your attention in each scene. No part of the book was boring, and some scenes were a ton of fun. For all of its faults, it was an enjoyable read.

Probably my new favorite stand alone. I loved this book from the get go. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish this book (and I love my sleep). The writing is amazing with tons of relatable situations thrown in the most outrageous ideas (like alien invasions for example). I never considered myself a gamer or someone who loves alien sci-fi but this book has showed me otherwise! I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a new, semi short novel!

Unfortunately, a very dull sophomoric novel.

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.

I love Ernest Cline. I really do.I loved this book, almost as much as [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One Ernest Cline https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406383612s/9969571.jpg 14863741], but not quite as much, though I wouldn't be able to explain exactly why! I felt sometimes that the book made quite big leaps in the development of the story, but as soon as this thought entered my head I was carried off and away from the thought quickly. I felt that Zack's character was really well written, and “honest” in his reactions and feelings on most occasions.References. Oh the references... this has got to be what I love about Cline's writing. Star Wars, Ender's Game, Star Trek.... Film, games and songs. Genius. Further thoughts:I was definitely a bit reticent about picking up this after I'd read the blurb, as it felt in someways so similar to Ready Player One, and I loved that book so much i was worried that Armada just wouldn't live up to it. But I'm so glad I did, it's different enough in enough ways that although the similarities in style (and to some extent form) are there, it's still totally enjoyable. I think that the references (of which i probably understood/heard of 80-85% of them) just add a whole extra layer of immersion to the story. When you understand what kind of environment/world/psyche the character lives in it gives you a deeper appreciation and involvement in the story.I added the “Raid the Arcade” playlist to my Spotify, again I know a lot of the songs already. As I was listening in the shower this morning, I was just transported right back into the book. Having a soundtrack, that wasn't just written for the book (/film/game), added yet another level of immersion to the experience. I've been a gamer in my time (having a baby has put that somewhat on hold) and I can just imagine sat there playing a game, having the soundtrack on and being totally in the zone.A book that can immerse me with real life references, music, as well as awesome imagery is certainly a winner in my mind. Looking forward to seeing how the film develops.Also Xavier Ulysses Lightman. What an awesome name!!

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).

Homenaje a los videojuegos y a las películas de CF de nuestra infancia.

Novela que empieza bien, sigue bien y acaba bien.

Creo que en los análisis que puedas leer por ahí pesa mucho la injusta comparativa con “Ready Player One”.

Estamos ante una buena historia, con guiños a infinidad de videojuegos, películas de CF, y buena música.

Totalmente recomendable.

Dont really know what to think about Armada, where Ready player one was innovative, exciting and great fun, Armada is...Great fun? Its a sort of guily pleasure for me. There are more cliches and plotholes in this book than there are pages, but somehow i can swollow that becasue i want to turn page. But is it great? NO NO NO

It reads like an Ender's Game fan fiction. It's one of those books who aren't great books but would make great movies.

After reading the amazing nerdgasim that is Ready Player One, I went into this book thinking I'd be reading nearly the same amazing story...just set in space...and with aliens. That didn't happen.

I'm not huge on space/aliens in general...same with “war” stuff as well. But I figured I could give this a shot given Ready Player One was so god damn mind blowing.

How Cline went from RPO to this...mess, I will never know.

It has ok parts...I like the geek/nerd references, Lex was pretty cool, and I liked Milo and Shin (yay for gay characters).

But it has a lot of bad parts. The main character and nearly every character (ignoring the ones I liked) were boring. The plot was...convoluted. All the EDA terms were just...god a mess. Maybe it's because I'm not into mechs and war games...but I was skipping over whole chunks of the book just to get through all the junk about EDA mechs and drones and blah blah blah. BORING.

And the self sacrifice bit was pretty obvious as soon as they introduced the dad.

I thought the “romance” between Zack and Lex was...shallow and shoved into the story. I get that “omg the world is ending...let's find a corner and $%*^” mindset...but it just wasn't needed. Lex could have stayed a friend to Zack...and just been a cool kickass strong female character. I think she was cheapened by the need to force them together for a romantic angle.

Although I enjoyed this book it tried way to hard in the first half to get all of the geeky references in and despite it calming down in the second half the book still felt a bit too basic and derivative. Saying that, I think it would make a great 80's inspired kids film.

Not sure how Ready Player One was that good and this was so incredibly schlocky.

It was essentially fan fiction. Lots of fandoms mentioned, sometimes that was fun, but other times lazy, cheap, or poorly done.

Sense of time was weird, story was supposed to have happened in one day , except for the campy ending.

Ready Player One was amazing. I just could not get into this book. The beginning was entertaining but it fell flat less than half way through. I didn't even want to finish. Read Ready Player One and leave Armada on the shelf.

An average sci-fi book, enjoyed it but not at the same level of Ready Player One.

A really fun adventure story with a lot of humour and an unexpectedly serious side.

I was doing a lot of travelling and needed something fun to make the 7 hour coach rides go faster. I found I had a copy of this on my ereader and jumped in for a reread.

It was only after the final coach ride that I discovered that my travelling companion had started reading the same book at the same time for the same reasons.

I'm not sure why this is rated so much lower on average than Ready Player One. I thought they were both fun, quick reads, each enjoyable in their own way.

Although this felt like a rehashed version of Ender's game to start with the story progresses and had me captivated with elements of conspiracy. Would recommend a read as I found the same love for Ernest Cline's writing style.

Ok, so it's not as good as Ready Player One, but then again that would be hard to top!

It is still awesome and you should read it!

Massive D20 Alien in the end? Super awesome!

Ok, so it's not as good as Ready Player One, but then again that would be hard to top!

It is still awesome and you should read it!

Massive D20 Alien in the end? Super awesome!

Much like the author's ‘Ready Player One', this felt like a truck had dumped a huge load of 80s/90s pop culture straight into my mind. Barely a page passed without at least one geeky quip mentioned in dialogue or description.

It took several chapters for me to acclimatise to it and was all ready to rant – to pass it off as merely like a lazy 'Family Guy' episode, where flat characters, holes in the story and attempts at humour had been replaced by increasingly tiresome references. A glue to fill the gap where obvious influences ‘Ender's Game' and ‘The Last Starfighter' had been cut and shut together.

However, as the story continued along, I got into the groove and found myself enjoying it and quickly forgave its flaws. It's undoubtedly disposable but a perfect fun holiday read and there's nothing wrong with that. It will interesting to see where Cline goes from here and whether he will evolve his writing style to pastures new. I'll certainly be onboard to find out.

Pretty good book. Not as good as Ready Player One, but still pretty good. I tore through it pretty fast. Probably a 7 out of 10

It was ok.

First bit was actually slow and kinda boring.
Second 2/3 were actually somewhat entertaining.

It read like a 2 hour movie though. Everything felt rushed. Nothing felt super deep. Lots of convenient plot devices (like learning to hack an entire system in less than an hour).

I'd call it good mary sue fanfiction.

Maybe I just had too high of hopes after Ready Player One.