Name: rex chekal's review of Armada by Ernest Cline
Item: Armada
Rating: 3
Author: rex chekal

Ernest Cline

PRE-ORDER NOW - READY PLAYER TWO: THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SEQUEL TO READY PLAYER ONE _______________________ '[A] masterful tale of Earth's desperate struggle against a powerful alien foe.' - Andy Weir, bestselling author of The Martian _______________________ It's just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom-if he can make it that long without getting suspended again. Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer. At first, Zack thinks he's going crazy. A minute later, he's sure of it. Because the UFO he's staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada-in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. But what Zack's seeing is all too real. And his skills-as well as those of millions of gamers across the world-are going to be needed to save the earth from what's about to befall it. Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack can't help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching, and wonder: Doesn't something about this scenario seem a little too... familiar? Armada is at once a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien-invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before-one whose every page is infused with author Ernest Cline's trademark pop-culture savvy. _______________________ Here's what everyone's saying about this epic masterpiece: 'a modern classic' - R.M. Rangeley on Amazon, 5 stars 'A modern masterpiece full of a new style of literary magic' - Spiros Kagadis on Amazon, 5 stars 'Excellent. Even better than Ready Player One.' - David Hay on Amazon, 5 stars 'One of my favourite books of all time. Incredibly well written' - Erin Coppin on Amazon, 5 stars 'Awesome! If you liked Ready Player One, would be very surprised if you don't like this' - T. Llewellyn-Sanders on Amazon, 5 stars 'Absolutely awesome!!! Read in less than 24 hours, hooked on every page' - R. Nicholson on Amazon, 5 stars 'Amazing and a great follow up read to Ready Player One!' - Chris on Amazon, 5 stars 'an incredible story which had me on the edge of my seat the whole time... a joy to read' - Helen Ratcliffe on Amazon, 5 stars 'Cline brings you back to all those amazing, unbelievable things you imagined could happen as a kid and makes them real' - Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'Absolutely brilliant! Couldn't put it down, a must read' - Sam Bean on Amazon, 5 stars 'a love letter to old school alien invasion sci-fi... Highly, HIGHLY recommended for all fans of Cline's previous novel, Ready Player One, as well as any classic science fiction fan' - Izzy on Amazon, 5 stars 'Ernest Cline is celebrating this culture in a way that's not just adding another book to the genre, but actually truly celebrating it, the possibilities, wonders and madness of it all' - Heather on Amazon, 5 stars 'majorly, fantastically geeky... Armada just ticked all my boxes' - H. Ross on Amazon, 5 stars This book has been published with two different covers and may be delivered with either cover. Please rest assured that regardless of the cover, the content of the book is the same.

From the author of READY PLAYER ONE

Armada

rex chekal

THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF READY PLAYER ONE It's just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom—if he can make it that long without getting suspended again. Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer. At first, Zack thinks he's going crazy. A minute later, he's sure of it. Because the UFO he's staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator calledArmada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. But what Zack's seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what's about to befall it. Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack can't help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching, and wonder: Doesn't something about this scenario seem a little too… familiar? Armada is at once a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien-invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before—one whose every page is infused with author Ernest Cline's trademark pop-culture savvy.

A Novel

Jackie Cunningham

Ready Player One is possibly one of my favourite scifi novels of all time. So I was both thrilled and terrified to read Ernest Cline's second book. It does not disappoint! Fans of his first book, fans of scifi and everyone else will LOVE this book. I'm amazed at how such an insightful social commentary could be interwoven with such a kick ass, classic science fiction tale. I'll be reading this one again!

Aidan Dysart

Was hoping for something better, but I felt this was pretty juvenile. Maybe it's the sophomore slump for Ernest Cline

Kyle Curry

Ernest Cline frustrates me. So many spoilers, so just be aware.

Ready Player One was a super fun concept, told with a unique voice. I had some quibbles with Cline's style, but overall, for a beach read, I can see why they want to make it a movie.

I came into Armada hoping that with a book under his belt, some of Cline's worse writer quirks would be ironed out. Thus, his unique voice and creative stories would continue to shine as a new (and mainstream popular!) voice in Sci Fi. I mostly found the opposite to be true. For me, his voice went from unique to forced, his quirks consumed the novel, and his story was mostly a rehash of all the stories he continually makes reference to in the book.
Cline's writing reminds me mostly of the fantasies I had as a teenage boy sitting in school after I had seen a particularly good movie- and not in a good way. We are the main character- who has his faults, but they're all forgivable, if not necessary. We know just what to do in any given situation. Real life problem like money- that's all sorted out, don't worry it's explained away in some clunky exposition delivered via inner monologue. We're not good with the ladies- except for whatever attractive quirky love interest we meet, in which case, we're amazing. The world we live in is one in which only the coolest possible outcome happens (as Cline might write- Morgan Freeman would be narrating this review), the bad guys lose, and we are the center of attention no matter how insignificant we may seem- because we just have unappreciated talents that will come in handy to save the world. 

These tropes are nothing new to escapist fiction, nor always used so poorly. I think my frustration with Cline is he just unabashedly squishes them all in the way any teenager having a fantasy would. They're clunky. He draws attention to them unironically. And there is never any danger that his character won't win everything. No one has a fantasy about themselves not saving the world- the same immediatly feels true here. In a book like Ender's Game (which is heavily borrowed from and referenced) we experience Ender's isolation. We struggle with his tough choices. We are shocked by the reveal of the horrible truth. We are worried about Ender not making it (even though we probably know he will). I never felt those things with Cline's characters. 

As noted he borrow heavily from other great fiction pieces of this genre, but I think in a reductive and redundant way. Don't tell me how this is just like Ender's Game or Last Star Ship, and then proceed to tell me the exact same story as Ender's Game but more poorly written. Do something with the material! Take a look at Grossman with his Magician's trilogy. Lots of reference to genre based stories and heavy borrowing from Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia. But then Grossman, tells a new story. He informs his story by conjuring the tales we know, then showing us how this one is different- before plunging into the very tropes and nature of those stories and pulling them apart to spin something new. 

On top of all this is the fact that he actually writes interesting stories!!! I read this book in about 2 days, easy. It's easy to read, just frustratingly poorly written. 

If this is the High School Musical of SciFi books, I can only hope it will do what that musical did for theare. I hope it inspires people to delve deeper into the genre. I hope it inspires young writers to create something newer and better. So tell your "I don't like scifi" friends to read this, the mike's hard lemonade of books; and then get them to start drinkin the good stuff.

Astor Reinhardt

** spoiler alert **
           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.

Audrey Lord

Simply amazing writing. 

A slow start but God when it finally picked I couldn't stop reading. When I wasn't reading I was thinking about the book

Cindy McKee

Ernest Cline writes with his heart on his sleeve, and we all benefit for it. Not quite as amazing as Ready Player One, (but maybe it's because I'm not that into video games) however, still highly entertaining and clever. What if all the movies and video games about aliens were the governments subversive way to train you for a coming invasion? That is the premise of this new tale by Cline. But at it's heart, there's a story about a father and son, about friendship, and once again, the eighties. Best of all, Mr.Cline leaves the door wide open for a sequel. Love it!

Tylar M

I hate everything this book chose to be. Maybe I'll right more later, but it must be said this book is one of the worst things I've read in quite awhile!

Ryan LaFerney

DNF.

This was seriously a horrible book. Derivative. Boring. And lacking imagination.

Jamal Jones 

A fun fast paced coming of age tale. I found this extremely funny hitting all the conspiracy theories dead on.

Nelson Zagalo

For the complete review, in portuguese, read at IGN Portugal: http://pt.ign.com/behind-media/20496/...

Fantasy and entertainment in its purest state, plenty of adrenaline and nostalgy. Cline has no depth to offer, but knows how to drive our attention and keep our interest fulfilled like few others. "Armada" is his latest written adventure, made of settings designed from memories of film and videogames of the 1980s and 1990s...

Dee B. 

There are a few things you can be certain of with an Ernest Cline novel: heavy on 80's pop culture, pro-gamer slangs and a plot that grips you from page one. Anyone who was disappointed by this book was, imo, looking for an exact replica of Ready Player One and that isn't a fair or realistic expectation. This book was exactly what I hoped it would be. Awesome! ( www.ithinkihaveaproblem.webs.com )

jess

I didn't like this as much as I liked Ready Player One, but it was still an immensely enjoyable read and a twist on the alien invasion trope. The one thing is, I feel that the secondary characters weren't as developed as the ones in Ready Player One. Still good! Still really cool. Nice.

Cindy Lieberman

This sophomore outing from the author of Ready Player One seems to be for a younger audience, but can be enjoyed by anyone who has ever played a video or arcade game. It doesn't get as high a rating as RP1 because I found it to be a slower read (until the end) and a bit predictable.

GokhanCa

Bol referanslı, gençler ve oyunlarla dolu, aksiyonlu bir macera kitabı... Klasik bir Ernest Cline kitabı yani :)
Çok basit bir genelleme ile: Leeroy Jenkins kimdir, "korkmamalıyım, korku akıl katilidir" cümlesi neredendir bilmiyorsanız bence bu kitaptan önce daha klasik şeyler okuyun...

THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF READY PLAYER ONE Itâe(tm)s just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedomâe"if he can make it that long without getting suspended again. Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer. At first, Zack thinks heâe(tm)s going crazy. A minute later, heâe(tm)s sure of it. Because the UFO heâe(tm)s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armadaâe"in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. But what Zackâe(tm)s seeing is all too real. And his skillsâe"as well as those of millions of gamers across the worldâe"are going to be needed to save the earth from whatâe(tm)s about to befall it. Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack canâe(tm)t help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching, and wonder: Doesnâe(tm)t something about this scenario seem a little tooâe¦ familiar? Armada is at once a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien-invasion tale like nothing youâe(tm)ve ever read beforeâe"one whose every page is infused with author Ernest Clineâe(tm)s trademark pop-culture savvy.

Ramona Crumlish

The plot was kinda fun but someone has to tell Ernest Cline that listing pop culture doesn't count as writing

Becky

Surprisingly, I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. I was unsure because sci-fi is not a usual genre for me and this one sounded a bit crazy, to be honest. 

It wasn't perfect but it was pretty good (and quite funny).

Nat Welch

Solid young adult fiction which uses sci-fi tropes in an interesting way. You'll probably feel like the first half of the book is too predictable... but the second half makes up for it. I'd be surprised if they didn't make a film out of this.

Kate Gravelle

Wow - this book went downhill fast and managed to pick up speed on the way down.

Mica

“Esta historia no tiene sentido”.

Same, Zack, Same. Finalmente me decidí en dejar el puntaje en 2. 

Me costó bastante empezar a leer este libro, sobre todo porque ya lo había intentado antes, pero nunca pude pasar del primer capítulo. Pero como en verdad tenía ganas de leerlo, me esforcé un poco y logré ir avanzando de a poco. Al principio tardé un poco en agarrarle la mano a todo lo relacionado con el juego, que por momentos se me hacía interesante y por momentos me aburría completamente. 

A pesar de todo, seguí con la lectura porque estaba esperando lo que me prometía la sinopsis, la batalla contra los aliens, pero resulto ser todo un fiasco. No voy a profundizar mucho en esto, pero la verdad que me esperaba mucho más. Tampoco me gustó cómo se resolvieron las cosas, me pareció que estuvo todo muy flojo, y el final no me gustó para nada. 

Con respecto a los personajes, me parecieron demasiado planos, el protagonista se me hacía bastante insoportable y ¿era necesario ese instalove? Yo me esperaba una batalla épica contra los aliens para salvar la tierra, pero lo único épico que tiene este libro es que fue épicamente aburrido. Definitivamente este libro no era para mí.

Christina M Masters

3.5 actually. I sort of agonized a bit on how to rate this book. Ready Player One is by far one of my favorite books of all time. I have reread that book 3 times already, which is not something I do very often, and the only book that ever beat that record was the Return of the Jedi picture book I had when I was little that I reread every day when I came home from school. But, I figured going in this was not going to love this book as much as RPO, so I tried to lower my expectations so I wouldn't be too disappointed. 

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! I still enjoyed it. I liked the main character (view spoiler)[(although I felt he could have been a tad more developed. I couldn't rightly understand where his anger issues stemmed from. Was it just because his dad died? Or was it hereditary? His mom a pretty cool, lenient mom and it sounded like he actually had a pretty good life, so I wasn't buying the excessive anger) (hide spoiler)]. I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to get into the story because, while I am a gamer, I am not much for flight sims. I didn't want to feel like a lot of the story was going over my head, but I didn't find this to be the case, and while it did drag in certain places for me, those areas weren't so drawn out that it took me out of the story. 

Beyond that, the story is a bit predictable. It plays out a bit as expected. But, again, still enjoyable and an interesting concept to think about. I like Ernest Cline's writing style and I, for one, love his pop culture references. Can't wait until we see what he will give us next (hopefully Ready Player Two!).

damla

I liked this book,but I was expecting something better.

Joseph

Pretty good. Not nearly on the level of RPO, but a fun read. A bit predictable and cheesy, but it was still a lot of fun. I can see this being a trilogy that gets better.

Ashley Cameron

I loved "Ready Player One" and thought I would really enjoy "Armada" as well. Although it was entertaining, it seemed that the plot was underdeveloped and a little anticlimactic. I felt as if the story also ended too abruptly. I would recommend to anyone who is looking for an easy and mildly entertaining read, or I would say to just pick up "Ready Player One".

Lance Willett

A near-future fun ride, I enjoyed the nostalgic references to life and culture in the 1980s. The action doesn't stop so it's a sit-down-and-read kind of book with a few twists and turns towards the end.

rex chekal &
Armada by Ernest Cline

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