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Mele’s Musings: The worst interview of my life

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Out on a limb: DNA training to take place in Hanover Twp.

<p>What measures a novel&#8217;s success? Great reviews? Popularity? Longevity?</p><p>Some books are timeless and can be read over and over again throughout generations because of their universal appeal. Other books are written with a very specific audience in mind and while popular at their release, will likely not be enjoyed a hundred years from now.</p><p>Such is the case with Ernest Cline&#8217;s novels. If you are a fan of 1980&#8217;s pop culture, online games and dystopia, &#8220;Ready Player One&#8221; probably fell into your top books of all time. It followed a poor kid in the future who entered into a contest for a massive fortune by solving clues in a virtual reality game that was designed by a 1980s loving genius. It was a unique spin on the dystopian novel. And it was awesome, especially if you got the references.</p><p>Much like the author&#8217;s first novel, &#8220;Armada&#8221; speaks to a specific audience. This time around, Cline focuses on alien invaders in sci-fi films and books, and first person shooter video games. I enjoyed many of the references scattered throughout the book, but I don&#8217;t know how much appeal it would have beyond the fanboys and girls the novel was clearly geared to.</p><p>The story follows Zack Lightman, a young man on the verge of graduating high school who feels he is destined for something greater. And yet, he doesn&#8217;t seem to have ambitions beyond working in the video game store that has employed him throughout his school years. He was raised by a single mother after his father died in a work-related accident when he was just a baby.</p><p>Zack spends much of his time in the world of video games, specifically playing a game called Armada. In the game, he plays a high ranking member of the Earth Defense Alliance, a worldwide army dedicated to fighting off alien invaders. Armada focuses on the air battles, using drones to fight enemy ships, while the companion game, Terra Firma, allows players to fight the aliens on land, in mechanized suits.</p><p>Much to Zack&#8217;s shock, he sees a ship looking exactly like one of the game&#8217;s enemy vehicles hovering above his school. Initially he thinks he is losing his mind, but he comes to learn that the Earth Defense Alliance (EDA) is real and that the video games were designed to give people around the world experience fighting off a very real alien enemy.</p><p>Among one of the best players, Zack is recruited to join the EDA in time for the alien invasion. He learns the aliens came from Europa, one of Jupiter&#8217;s moons, and tensions escalated between Europa and Earth not long after Earth attempted contact in the 1970s.</p><p>Initially thrilled by the opportunity to be a hero, he quickly becomes suspicious of some of the aliens. Why wait 40 years to invade? Why allow the EDA to come into contact with alien technology and reverse engineer it? Something about the animosity between Earth and Europa rings false to him.</p><p>The problem with &#8220;Armada&#8221; is it feels like a retread of &#8220;Ready Player One&#8221; &#8212; a coming of age story filled with pop culture references sure to reel in any nerd. The different is that while &#8220;Ready Player One&#8221; was creative and unique, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, Armada is entirely too predictable and clich&#233;d.</p><p>From the moment I read about Zack&#8217;s dead father I thought (SPOILER ALERT), guaranteed he isn&#8217;t really dead and guess what? He wasn&#8217;t. The ending seemed entirely too obvious and rushed.</p><p>Ernest Cline mashed up a lot of sci-fi films and movies. It wasn&#8217;t a unique spin on the genre, but rather a repeat of the same old conventions and tropes of science fiction, which made for a rather disappointing read.</p><p>The early pages were fun with tons of connections to &#8220;Star Wars,&#8221; internet memes like Leeroy Jenkins (YouTube that if you don&#8217;t get the reference) and novels like &#8220;Ender&#8217;s Game.&#8221; Cline capitalizes on the nostalgia his readers feel for their childhoods and geeky tendencies. Unfortunately, a great book can&#8217;t be built on nostalgia.</p><p>Fanboys and girls might embrace this novel as heartily as they did &#8220;Ready Player One,&#8221; but that book was far superior to this one. There&#8217;s a lot about Armada that&#8217;s fun for sci-fi fans but in the end, fun doesn&#8217;t always make for a good book.</p><p>Skip &#8220;Armada&#8221; and grab &#8220;Ready Player One,&#8221; especially since Steven Spielberg is going to be directing the movie, which will hopefully be as entertaining as the novel.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Dorothy Sasso</p><p>On the Books</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p>&#8220;Armada&#8221;</p><p>Author: Ernest Cline</p><p>Page Count:368</p><p>Publisher: Crown</p><p>Rating: &#9830;&#9830;</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Dorothy Sasso is a former Soap Opera Digest writer and a private school teacher. She is busy reading books and raising her daughter.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

On the Books: Skip ‘Armada’ and go right to ‘Ready Player One’