Ernie Cline ’s Ready Player One is one of my pet volume . I ’ve read it multiple times and the first prison term I devour it in a undivided sitting . So it goes without saying I was very excited about his follow - up , Armada . regrettably , while I think it ’ll make a great movie , I was at long last leave disappointed .
In Ready Player One , Cline created a cosmos that was both familiar yet wholly unequaled . Every chapter tot to that world in imaginative way and by the end you were gasconade aside by the order of magnitude of what you ’d just read . Armada is kind of the opposite word . It ’s about practiced video gamer Zack Lightman who is recruited to defend Earth from an foreign encroachment based on his video game attainment . conceive The Last Starfighter with some innovative winding ; there ’s more to it but really , if you take that patch to its logical finale , that ’s basically the story .
Even with that simple set - up , Cline takes his fourth dimension developing the plot of Armada . Things do n’t really kick into gear for 85 pages and in that fourth dimension , most of the focus is on setting up a fairly familiar world along with Zack ’s internal struggle . Once Zack begins to unscramble the mysteries , the pace definitely picks up and by the end , the book humming along attractively . But in a story about a cabal where a picture game is being used to recruit people to fight an alien invasion , any methodical pacing at all feels like a detriment to the content .
Along the path , Cline drip in his signature pop culture reference whenever the situation calls for it . Some of them work , but some of them are at once explained as if the reader of an Ernie Cline novel would n’t get an obvious Star Wars or Lord of the Rings reference work . It ’s a diminished thing but when the book is already run tardily , even the smallest bit of patronizing can be very thwarting . This is an ultra nerdy record book but at times , it feels like it does n’t trust the proofreader .
Armada does , however , break from the familiar narration conceitedness of The Last Starfighter . There are lots of twist along the way , both character- and plot - wise . The compass also end up getting much bigger than you initially suspect . Still , many of those twists find slightly wire because you ’re interpret and think “ There has to be more to this . ” And , of path , there is .
Yet despite these shortcomings , Armada ends up being a mostly worthwhile read . Cline does a bully occupation planting seed early making for very satisfying payoffs . There are monolithic military action sequences on demesne , air and in quad . He constantly comes up with clever , credible links between our realness and the world of the Good Book . Plus , Zack is a strong , sympathetic and relatable protagonist with spate of colorful supporting case around him . It just feel , when compared to Cline ’s old work , some of this is a bit derivative . Which is n’t necessarily a uncollectible matter for a summertime book , but Cline himself has made us expect more .
Steven Spielberg is attach to direct a cinema version of Ready Player One and even he , the caption of caption , is going to have a knockout sentence cracking a story and humankind that experience too big for even the braggart screen . Armada , on the other deal , feels perfectly suited for the cinema . The story itself lead position over just a few twenty-four hours , it focuses on just one major character , and all of the action is wholly believable in a sci - fi way . That tick - clock plot , central focus and coolheaded but tangible visuals are all moving-picture show amber .
Still , everything that happens in 345 pages of Armada feels like something that would ’ve take place in three chapter of Ready Player One . The immense particular and explanation adds to your understanding of the themes and eccentric , but they also make an otherwise simple story feel bloated . It may eventually make a dandy motion-picture show but as book , Armada is a effective read that does n’t quite live up to expectation .
book reviewBooksReady Player One
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