Book Review: Armada by Ernest Cline

If, like me, you found your way to Armada after reading Ready Player One, you’ll probably be, like me, both satisfied and disappointed.

At first blush, this tale of gamers battling aliens feels like Ernest Cline’s first book. The concept feels undeveloped and the plot a little thin. However (at second blush), this is actually the American author’s second book and thus, to borrow a musical term, the difficult second album.

Accentuating each sentence and paragraph with more of the pop culture references about movies and music and games which made Ready Player One such a delight, Cline has gone full geek in Armada. Geek hero meets geek girl, falls into geeky love. Meets up with other geeks to save the world whilst thinking of or talking about more geeky things every step of the geeky way; Armada is full of name-dropping, as if that alone would make the concept of this particular Armageddon some how more plausible.

And yet, despite its downsides (it’s also cheesy and with more plotholes than you could stake a lightsaber at), the highs takes, space-y adventure remains quite fun – or as fun as something is as likely to be when it’s a rip off of The Last Starfighter concept. Armada only works with a complete suspension of disbelief. Could it be possible that gamers all around the world could become our last line of defence against the alien hoard? Sure, why not.