From the author of Ready Player One, a rollicking alien invasion thriller that embraces and subverts science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline can.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness.

Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator callled Armada--in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders.

As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revlations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's life in the balance.

But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like...well...fiction?

At once reinventing and paying homage to science-fiction classics, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a coming-of-age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before.

Item Information Item Information

Format: TradePaperback
Author: Cline, Ernest
ISBN: 9780804137270
Condition: Used
Dimensions: 7.90 x 1.10
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Year: 2016

Customer Reviews

Rating Snapshot

5 ★ 40%

4 ★ 60%

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4.4

5 Ratings

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Sci-Fi Action Adventure for Nerds of All Ages

Sherrita H. - 8 months ago

Zack Lightman lives to game, and his favorite is an MMORPG named Armada. What happens when the game becomes a reality? Follow Zack as he finds that the government has been using video games, television, and movies to prepare us for our "worst nightmare"... an alien invasion. Can the gamers of the world unite to save us from our ultimate destruction?
HPB Staff Review
Independence Day on a Xbox!

Esta T. - 1 year 5 months ago

Armada, Ernest Cline's follow-up to Ready Player One, is instantly familiar. The reader is once again plunged into a sci-fi world that relies heavily on pop-culture references and influences. Our hero is Zack Lightman, a high school gamer who dreams of a day when something exciting will come along to shake him out of his humdrum existence while worshipping a father who died too young. Soon enough, just such an event does occur, and all of Zack's gaming prowess suddenly proves to be much more important than a simple video game. The book is saturated in pop-culture and draws heavily from sci-fi classics of film, literature, and video games. There is a lot of action, humor, and even a smattering of love! Rabid fans of Ready Player One looking for a second act that goes toe to toe with Cline's debut may be a little disappointed, but they shouldn't be. Armada is a fun read in the same geeky vein and anyone who ever played Space Invaders will love it.
HPB Staff Review
Get ready to walk down a very nerdy memory lane

Thomas S. - 1 year 6 months ago

Ernest Cline has once again brought me to the future and at the same time dipped down into the near past of the eighties. If you read his first book "Ready Player One" you will not be disappointed by the eighties references. You will also find the same loveable and intricate characters. Ernest Cline's second book may not be as good as his breakout first novel, but it certainly does him justice. He creates an intricate and interesting world laden with all the eighties pop culture references you can shake a stick at. But he also gives us another protagonist that is believable and real, who experiences that world in the way you might. I always find myself genuinely rooting for Cline's characters because they the people I would want to be or know if I lived in that world, even the bad guys.
HPB Staff Review
Just have fun!

Kristen B. - 2 years ago

16 year old Zack Lightman lives in a world that he thinks is completely normal, until one day he discovers that the video game he's been playing has been training him to fight real live aliens. He finds all this out through a UFO that just randomly shows up at his school to take him away to defend the earth against the aliens. Every time I talk about "Ready Player One", Ernest Cline's first book, I always tell everyone to just have fun. If at any point while reading you think, "wait! That would never happen! This is a load of" stop reading. Put the book down and walk away. When you're ready to have fun again, pick it back up. The same is true of "Armada". It's just a really fun read that's great for men and women alike. Just have fun!
HPB Staff Review
Saving the World, One Game, One Book, One Author at a Time!!

Stephanie H. - 7 years 1 month ago

Are you like me? Are you geeky? Or have you lived through the 80s, playing videos games, zoning out to 80s music, etc... If you're a gamer, nerd, a child of the 80s, or you just like a good space opera, then this is an excellent book for you to check out. Armada is a crazy mashup all things "Nerdom/Geekdom". My inner geek loved this story with all its quirky gizmos, sci-fi nostalgia, pop culture references, and space adventures. It makes you want to be in the game, have the adventure, be the hero and save the world. If I had to put this into one word... I would say... Nerd-gasmic!
HPB Staff Review

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Sci-Fi Action Adventure for Nerds of All Ages

Independence Day on a Xbox!

Get ready to walk down a very nerdy memory lane

Just have fun!

Saving the World, One Game, One Book, One Author at a Time!!