By Ernest Cline

Rating: 2/5 stars

Three-Word Summary: Unimaginative alien invasion

This could have been a really cool book.

The premise is decent. The cover illustration is fancy. The title is good. Most everything else was disappointing.

Similar to Ernest Cline’s debut novel, Ready Player One, Armada is essentially about a video game come to life and filled with 1980’s pop culture references.

However, where the first book was original, the second falls flat.

Despite the equally compelling concept of video games being used to train citizens against an impending alien invasion, Armada just isn’t well written.

The characters suffered from little to no character development. In fact, they all seemed to speak with the same tone of voice, regardless of age or gender.

When a story lacks decent characters, even the most interesting plot line crumbles. Not to mention that Armada’s story line was far too convenient and not believable.

It certainly kept a good pace, but too many of the twists were predictable. Except for the one at the end, which was only slightly anti-climactic.

Not to say that the novel didn’t have some entertaining parts or humorous lines, but one the whole, it was an unworthy successor to a delightful debut.

Cline has certainly tapped into a promising genre with video game fiction. But he’ll need to do better than Armada in order for readers to keep coming back.