355 pages
English language
Published Feb. 27, 2015
Armada is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline, published on July 14, 2015 by Crown Publishing Group (a division of Penguin Random House). The story follows a teenager who plays an online video game about defending against an alien invasion, only to find out that the game is a simulator to prepare him and people around the world for defending against an actual alien invasion.Wil Wheaton, who narrated the audiobook version of Cline's previous novel, Ready Player One, performs the audiobook of Armada as well. Plans for a film adaptation are also in process.
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.
Not as innovative as his first book, Armada is a great adventure.
Oh, man, I did not like this book. The story was obvious, the prose was clunky, the characters were one-dimensional, and the geekery crammed into every paragraph just made everything worse. It's probably not fair to compare this book to Ready Player One, but you kind of have to because everything that was fun and engaging about that book was just the opposite here.
This was a misfire on just about every level. It is a Not Good Book.
tl;dr version:
1. Some parts borrowed directly
2. Why [spoiler alert] for just 24 hours just to [spoiler alert]?
3. Some things feel like afterthought rather than part of a coherent outline
4. Suicide bombers
5. Treason
this is sadly kind of a Mary Sue festival. After the brilliant fun of ready player one I expected a lot more from the second novel.
Like almost everyone else, I had high expectations after RP1 and this book had a similar idea but just felt like less overall. Less references. Less plot relevance for the references. Less 80s movies ideas combined to make the plot.
Overall it was still enjoyable but didn't quite recapture the unexpected fun of his first book.
This author’s previous book Ready Player One is my all time favorite audio book. I was so excited when I heard that this one was coming out and that Wil Wheaton was doing the narration again. I had a few day delay between the publishing date and when I could start it. In that time I started seeing twitter messages pop up about people who loved Ready Player One abandoning this book. They said it was too geeky for them and they couldn’t get into it. I got scared.
I loved this book! It is a very different book from Ready Player One. Where that book delved deep into 80s pop culture, this one focuses on science fiction movies and video games. I know way more about the 80s than I do about video games but I was able to follow along with Armada just fine.
Full review at www.spiritblog.net/?p=9024
I really enjoyed Cline's follow up to Ready Player One. Some other reviews are right, some of the references to 80s and 90s pop culture do seem a little more forced in this book, but that really doesn't detract from Cline really starting to find his voice and putting together an amazing piece of sci-fi.
The basic premise of the book is that the video game industry has been controlled by a secret multi-national military agency with the goal of training civilians to be able to control defense drones when humanity is attacked by aliens.
Cline takes the ever-familiar trope of aliens attacking Earth and transforms it into something greater. He tells a story of humanity coming together for its finest hour. Plus as a geek, I can't help but enjoy a geeks save the world story.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who might enjoy a great piece …
I really enjoyed Cline's follow up to Ready Player One. Some other reviews are right, some of the references to 80s and 90s pop culture do seem a little more forced in this book, but that really doesn't detract from Cline really starting to find his voice and putting together an amazing piece of sci-fi.
The basic premise of the book is that the video game industry has been controlled by a secret multi-national military agency with the goal of training civilians to be able to control defense drones when humanity is attacked by aliens.
Cline takes the ever-familiar trope of aliens attacking Earth and transforms it into something greater. He tells a story of humanity coming together for its finest hour. Plus as a geek, I can't help but enjoy a geeks save the world story.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who might enjoy a great piece of original sci-fi with just a touch of nostalgia behind it.
Dreadful.
Entirely derivative of the countless references it shoehorns in.
Should have stopped reading after first chapter, but couldn't quite believe that there wasn't more to it. wrong. Zero surprises.
Read Enders Game instead.
Lo primero, la pega más evidente que tiene: Se nota que el libro está hecho para ser película, aún más que con Ready Player One, más que nada porque leer "dogfights" siempre quedará bastante deslucido.
Es un libro corto, en el que pasa todo muy deprisa, por lo que el tratamiento de personajes, las descripciones y todo lo que no sea avance directo de la historia queda en un segundo plano muy marcado. Por lo menos ha evitado la aparición de Deus ex machina sin avisar, aunque aún así hay unos cuantos, pero menos cantosos.
Después de tanta queja, solo me queda decir que con todo, me ha gustado mucho el libro, me ha dejado con muchísimas ganas de que salga la película, y con mucha curiosidad de por donde va a tirar para la secuela. Además, la necesidad de localizar 500€ para poder jugar al Elite Dangerous ha crecido …
Lo primero, la pega más evidente que tiene: Se nota que el libro está hecho para ser película, aún más que con Ready Player One, más que nada porque leer "dogfights" siempre quedará bastante deslucido.
Es un libro corto, en el que pasa todo muy deprisa, por lo que el tratamiento de personajes, las descripciones y todo lo que no sea avance directo de la historia queda en un segundo plano muy marcado. Por lo menos ha evitado la aparición de Deus ex machina sin avisar, aunque aún así hay unos cuantos, pero menos cantosos.
Después de tanta queja, solo me queda decir que con todo, me ha gustado mucho el libro, me ha dejado con muchísimas ganas de que salga la película, y con mucha curiosidad de por donde va a tirar para la secuela. Además, la necesidad de localizar 500€ para poder jugar al Elite Dangerous ha crecido demasiado por su culpa.
Look, I wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. It felt... clichéd.
