Armada: A Novel

Ernest Cline

Jul 2015 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Wil Wheaton

About this audiobook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A rollicking alien invasion thriller that embraces and subverts science-fiction conventions, from the author of the worldwide phenomenon Ready Player One 

“Exciting . . . mixes Star Wars, The Last Starfighter, Independence Day, and a really gnarly round of Space Invaders.”—USA Today • “A thrilling coming of age story.”—Entertainment Weekly

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure. 

So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness. 

Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator callled Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders. 

As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revlations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's life in the balance. 

But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like . . .  well . . . fiction? 

At once reinventing and paying homage to science-fiction classics, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a coming-of-age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before.

Ratings and reviews

It's alright, I loved Ready Player One but this was just pretty average. The references were still fun but half of the time they didn't feel like they had too much meaning, the constant references in Ready Player One fit in more consistently. This book mainly just felt like a mash up of the movies, "The Last Star Fighter", "Independence Day" and "Contact". If you liked Ready Player One and you are prepared for something a 4th as good, I'd still say check it out but wouldn't spend over $10 on this.

Absolute garbage. I doubt I've ever been as disappointed by a novel. The real shame is that I loved Ready Player One. This one, however, was a complete miss. It's cringy in the extreme. I literally winced at every other sentence. The plot is highly derivative of other, more well executed masterpieces such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Ender's Game to name a few. I guess Cline believes if he references these works then it's okay. The ridiculous dialogue and obnoxious level of willingness to self-sacrifice by every character at every instance is so ubiquitous as to become grating. I wonder if Cline has actually met other human beings before. He writes people as cliched and one-dimensional Caricatures of bad archetypes of people. While the ending was somewhat fulfilling it just does not make up for the rest of the novel. Just skip it unless you like terrible writing.

There is something that keeps bringing me back to this book, because I have listened to the audiobook probably half a dozen times. Cline strikes the right balance of nostalgia and adventure, and Wil's narration is pitch perfect. The references are heavy-handed, the characters are pretty thin, but the story just works for me. It's a fun ride chocked full of sci-fi tropes. It's not Asimov and it's not Heinlein or Hebert, but that's okay.

About the author

Ernest Cline is a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.