Armada by Ernest Cline

"That was only on good days, of course. On the bad ones, I found myself drawing on equally compelling advice from Lords Vader or Palpatine."

I have been counting down the days for so long until I could read the new book from Ernest Cline. Ready Player One  was just amazing and I wondered whether the next offering would be just as good. My love for Mr Cline continues unabated after having dived in to Armada.

I've read some reviews suggesting that this is really just The Last Starfighter  in movie format. Yes, there are similarities, yes that is one of my guilty favourite films, yes the book references it. As someone that loves science fiction, loves playing computer games and just generally loves a rollicking fish out of water, big guns blazing adventure, this book was almost custom made.So why didn't I score it the full points? I think it suffered by comparison to Ready Player One  and the fact that my expectations had been set so high.

When Space Invaders  comes to life, things sure get hectic on planet Earth and even the moon. It isn't usual that I think a book needs a little more padding, but the imminent attack forces immediate action and perhaps draws away from fully developing some of the other interesting inter personal relationships between the world's best gamers and *spoilers* a long lost relative. I think given a little more exposition I could have felt a more engaged, that being said I do love the way Cline incorporates pop culture references to really set a scene.

So set your phasers to stun, this isn't quite as fun as his first book, but definitely worth exploring.

4 out of 5 space ships are bound to take on the kodan armada.