I shouldn't - I'm not really his target audience at all. I'm approximately the right age, but my interests are all wrong. I hate video games, I'm not that into sci-fi and I've never been much for 80's nostalgia (the 90s were my decade, thankyouverymuch).
All that said, I love Ernest Cline. He's just a good story-teller. His first book, Ready Player One is one of my all-time favorite books. I've recommended it to more people than I can count and I'm so excited that it finally looks like the movie is really going to happen.
Armada, his second effort, is good, but it's not quite the powerhouse that Ready Player One was. But that's not really a criticism, honestly. It's like saying Pet Sematary wasn't as good as The Stand. Pet Sematary was really good, but The Stand was great. Armada is good, but it doesn't have the depth that Ready Player One did. It's good. Really good. It's just not great.
Armada tells the story of Zach Lightman, a high school senior in Beaverton, Oregon who has always dreamed of adventure. Zach is a gamer - a really good one. He's ranked 6th in the world in his favorite space flight simulation game Armada which means that when aliens attack for real, he's one of the first to be recruited to fight them.
Armada is a fun, fast read. I was totally supposed to be reading a book for review when I picked it up and told myself I was just going to read a chapter or two to get a feel for it. Of course I got 100% sucked in, shoved aside the review book and spent several nights reading Armada way past my bedtime, finally finishing up at around 1:00 this morning.
I recommend this one for anyone who likes sci-fi, 80's pop culture references, thought Ready Player One was genius, or who appreciates well-written, off-beat stories.
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