Armada is the highly anticipated second novel from Ernest Cline. Since its release on July 14, 2015 by Crown Publishers, the novel has soared up The New York Times Best Sellers list. Cline first hit the list in 2011 with his debut, Ready Player One.
The first novel’s sci-fi adventure was set in a dystopian future in which people escape their lives by connecting into a virtual reality universe. The world was created by a programmer who obsessed over 1980s nerd culture and built an elaborate treasure hunt into the game. The player who decoded the most 1980s pop culture references was promised special abilities. Cline framed nostalgia as the path to happiness, redemption, and a means to gain power.
Armada attempts to pick up where Ready Player One left off. Unfortunately, Armada is neither as compelling nor as engaging as its predecessor. It replicates the theme of nostalgia worship found in Ready Player One but lacks the intensity. However, as a summer read it suffices.
This time, our hero is Zack Lightman, a high school student and one of the best gamers in the world. He excels at the fictional space shooting game, Armada. After nearly 100 pages of expository details and exhaustive descriptions of Zack's gaming battles, everything changes. An alien ship ripped from the game lands on the school lawn. In the vein of the classic video game film The Last Star Fighter and more recently Ender’s Game, Zack is recruited to save the world with his expert video gaming skills.
The story began to feel secondary to the discovery and recognition of pop culture and sci-fi trivia references. Barely a page is turned without a reference to Star Wars, Flight of the Navigator, Transformers, Space Invaders, Star Trek, and so on. Armada is structured entirely around getting the references. Those who don’t get the references are left standing outside the circle of understanding for much of the read.
The novel tracks Zack’s accelerated ascension into the role of the chosen one. While dealing with the revelation of a government conspiracy Zack overcomes his self doubt to save the world. In a particularly cheesy moment, Zack calls his mom in the heat of battle during the alien invasion and says, “All those years I spent playing video games weren't wasted after all, eh?”
Armada is a mildly disappointing novel, but it is worth a read if you have some time to kill and want to entertain yourself with an overdose of 1980s pop culture.