Armada

Estimated time to read: 2 minutes

Author : Ernest Cline

This book, the second work that Ernest Cline produced in 2015, "Armada" is at best an average read, if read with regular remembrance that "Ready Player One" was a good book. The story traces the life, well, a few days in the life, of teenager Zack "ZackAttack" Lightman, who likes to play video games and beat up bullies. His father died shortly after he was born, but he left behind his legacy of video games and the same passion for games and everything "pop culture", in Zack. Everything changes for Zack when one day, he's picked up by a giant military flight manned by his third best friend on Earth and owner of local videogame store, Ray and tells him that he's been recruited by an international agency called the "EDA" to save the world from war aliens from the moon Europa. I would go on, but at this point, I feel like spending more time describing the "plot" of the book would be just as much time wasted as it was reading it. But here are a few things wrong with this book and they are primarily and probably due to the expectations stemming from Cline's first work - "Ready Player One" - a) Too much name dropping. The number of pop-culture references are sickening and probably sufficient to cover three chapters worth of content on their own.
b) Unnecessarily detailed and drawn-out explanations of certain events
c) "Plots" drawn here and there from the likes of Deception Point and Ender's Game.
d) Even things that seem like they've been written to evoke surprise fail to impress.

If there's one thing that can be said for the book, it's that it does not glorify the protagonist. No one can claim that Zack is portrayed as a winner through and through. He wins, (this is not a spoiler), but only eventually, after he's had his share of falls.
Oh and the way I read this book was by listening to the audio book read by Wil Wheaton And by reading it on the Kindle when I could. So, if nothing else, Wil Wheaton is amazing as a narrator.
Those are the only two reasons to want to pick up this book.

Otherwise, you should just pick RPO again coz that would frankly be time better spent.

Subjective Rating: : 2.9/5