'Armada' by Ernest Cline

Armada, Ernest Cline (3.0)

While not as thoroughly engaging, complex or as pertinent to those of my generation as Mr. Cline’s previous novel, ‘Ready Player One’, I did find some things to like in ‘Armada’. His predilection for video games and science fiction are strong in the story, though the ‘80’s movie and music tie-ins are subtler. The main character, Zack, spends much of his teenage years playing Armada, a multi-player video game involving a war against an invading alien army where our armed force uses unmanned replaceable drones for the majority of the fighting. When he starts realizing that his video world and real world may be combining (uh, steal much from ‘Ender’s Game’?), he believes he is having a mental breakdown a la his father, who died very early in his life. I won’t say more as this book is really quite predictable enough, but I did find it more compelling as he moved out of the video game sphere and into real life. I am a sucker for most types of Sci-Fi, particularly when the invading alien motivation is somewhat cryptic. I think most readers over 40 will read this book and pine for ‘Ready Player One’, but those younger may be happy, as is.