OK it's not like I actually hate the book, it's that I expected more. I really liked Ready Player One and I guess I expected something of that caliber; unfortunately Armada doesn't quite live up.
The premise of the book is pretty simple. The world is about to be invaded and the government has secretly been preparing us for it through the propaganda hidden in movies, TV shows and video games. The hero, Zack, discovers this by accident and then is rushed off to join a secret elite unit fighting the aliens in a war that the world at large knows nothing about.
So about 70 tropes right there and they just keep coming, along with forced references to every 80s video game, science fiction movie, and tv show ever made.
None of this in and of itself is horrible but together it is overwhelming and if I wasn't kind of in to all the trivia I don't think I could finish the book. As is I probably will and I will like it well enough that I won't be pissed about it but it also (unless there is a huge change in the second half) won't rate a reread at any time.
Cline you could have done so much better if you hadn't tried to force everything in and try an match every thing to some old TV show. Matching it to the video game was enough we don't need to know that the toilets flush just like they were described in some forgotten Star Trek technical manual or whatever. That detracted from the story, it didn't add to it. Sometimes less is more. Hopefully the second half of the book will have that touch of less.
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