A teenage gamer looks out of his classroom window and sees a flying saucer straight from his favourite video game
When the game becomes real
Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming of adventure, mostly through science fiction films and video games. He is one of the best players in the world at Armada, an online flight simulator in which players defend Earth from alien invaders. Then, one ordinary day at his Oregon high school, he looks out of the window and sees a ship from the game, hovering in the sky. Either he is losing his mind, or the game was never just a game.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who enjoy fast, fun science fiction full of video game and film references, especially fans of Ready Player One.
What you will get
A fast, fun alien-invasion adventure about a teenage gamer who discovers his favourite flight simulator is training for a very real war.
Armada Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Science Fiction · Video games · Alien invasion · Coming of age
Length
384 pages · ≈ 11 h
More about this book
If you grew up on Star Wars, arcade games and films where ordinary kids save the world, this book is written for you. Cline takes the old dream that video games might secretly be preparing us for something important and makes it literal. Zack is soon recruited by a secret military alliance, and he learns that the stories he loved were part of a long campaign to prepare humanity for contact with a hostile alien force.
The action scenes, with players piloting drones in vast battles, are exciting and cinematic, and the book moves at high speed. Zack also has a personal mystery to solve: his father, who died when Zack was a baby, left behind notebooks full of theories that suddenly seem less crazy. Cline packs every page with references to classic games and films, which will delight some readers and tire others, and the plot borrows openly from the classics it celebrates.
It is lighter and less original than Ready Player One, but entertaining throughout. Teen readers and nostalgic adults alike will find plenty to enjoy, especially if they have ever spent a night chasing a high score. About 384 pages in the Broadway paperback.
Ready Player One
Ender's Game
Skyward
Red Rising
Double Star
Network Effect
Old Man's War
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Artemis
Caliban’s War
Dark Matter
Jurassic Park