I’ll admit it. I'm a fan girl. I was more than ecstatic
that
Ernie Cline’s long-awaited book
Armada was finally released. His
previous book,
Ready Player One, was such a fun
adventure – nostalgic about the past, but set in a dire and ugly future landscape
that everyone escapes by going to a virtual reality called “OASIS” to live
their lives. Cline has such an extensive vocabulary of 1980s
popular culture, that it permeates the whole book. In
Armada, Cline takes us through similar tropes – video
games, nostalgia for the 1980s popular culture, adventure, and a very important
quest.
Zach Lightman is 18 years old and he has spent his childhood
angry at the death of his father when he was only a baby. He lives with his
widowed mother (who sadly never found love again) and spends many hours going
through boxes of his father’s old belongings. His father was killed during the
1980s and most of his belongings portray a life deeply immersed in video games,
popular science fiction films and space-themed paraphernalia. Zach takes on
these interests, becoming an expert in his own right. He gets a job at a local arcade
and becomes one of the best ranked Armada
video game players in the world. Armada
is a flight simulation game – the plot of which imagines a war between the
people on earth and alien invaders called Sobrukai. Armada players fly unmanned
drones that shoot down the alien spaceships.
Life changes for Zach when he looks out of his classroom window
and sees one of the alien spaceships hovering in the air above his town. A
Sobrukai craft. The same spacecraft he knows so well from his video game Armada. Zach
soon discovers that his talents as a gamer (indeed the talents of all Armada gamers the world over) are needed to help save the universe
from alien invaders. What follows is a whirlwind of flight simulation,
discoveries about the universe, and betrayals and secrets that challenge everything
Zach knows about his life, his history and his father.
This book felt heavier than Ready Player One - it doesn't
have the sense of lightness that RPO had, even though RPO was set in a much bleaker
landscape. The 1980s references and knowledge the main character had in RPO
helped him through the story. In Armada, having the knowledge of his father’s
past feels like a burden to Zach and one that holds darker implications. Also,
unfortunately, it seems that the references don't actually move the story
forward, nor do they play much of a role in the plot. They seem to be there just as
gratuitous elbow nudges.
This book is very similar to existing stories - like
The Last Starfighter and
Ender's Game. This is freely acknowledged in the book and I think this book was meant as a nod/tribute to these stories. The numerous acronyms, combined with flight simulator equipment, functions
and warfare strategies, were a bit heavy handed for me and I felt a bit lost at
times. It took me out of the story. I was spending too much time trying to
imagine just exactly what flight maneuvers he was doing, rather than focusing on
where the story was going.
Zach’s general smart-assery betrays
his absolute terror of what is happening to the world around him. One feels for
Zach as he tries to handle all that is heaped upon his plate, but we don't quite know if he realizes it or if he is just in shock. His
sarcastic and witty remarks do tend to ring a little desperate and look like a
defense mechanism against the chaos. We don't get into Zach's head enough and so he fell a bit flat for me.
My conclusion: I think expecting Armada to be RPO all over again, though, was going to
be a letdown no matter what. And it is not exactly fair to compare them, but of course that is what readers do. But I would definitely give this
author another chance. I do think he is an inspired writer and I love the blending of "popular culture as character" into his works. Plus, Cline owns and
drives a DeLorean. Come on now. I’d give Armada
a C+ for effort.
~ Angie, Adult Services
