Our discussion of Armada by Ernest Cline

The group had high hopes for Armada based on our reading of the author’s previous book, Ready Player One in 2012 (average rating 4). Unfortunately, we were not as excited about Armada….

The 1980s

• 80s nostalgia - the references on top of references were too much.
• Some of us felt we were the target audience i.e. got all the 80s references, but we still weren’t happy with the book.
• Cline is a 80s culture superfan. We discussed the Back to the Future Delorean Time Machine Club as an example of a subculture of a subculture and noted that Cline owns a Delorean.
• The plot was very similar to The Last Starfighter which Cline references, but referencing something doesn’t make it okay - especially if he’s not adding something new.
• References replaced human emotions: “I felt like Darth Vader…” In Ready Player One, the references were integral to the plot.

More Impressions

• The book read like a screenplay ready for the movie. Ready Player One did a much better job with world building.
• Zach falls for a slightly older woman in the manic pixie dream girl mold. The book had a lot of stereotypes and it was unfortunate that the gay couple had to sacrifice themselves.
• The story was full of foreshadowing and was sometimes predictable – especially about Zach’s father.
• Ray was Zach’s Obi-Wan.
• Epiphany: If you are good at video games, you are a warrior and you haven’t been wasting time all these years playing video games after all!
• It was clever that drones were controlled by smart phones so that ordinary citizens could join in the battle.
• The QComm was a big leap technologically, but would everyone really use the same brand of device? Other than that, there weren’t too many new ideas.
• It was pointed out that the character Whoadie impressed everyone with her quoting of Shakespeare, but she learned her quotes from movies – not from reading Shakespeare which was kind of similar to Zach learning all about the 80s from his father’s VHS tapes.

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you may have about Armada. We gave this title the codes HRO, MIL, HOME, NFE and ROB with an average rating of 2.6.