I absolutely loved Ready Player One and was eager to check out this title. While Ernest Cline's obsession with 80s and 90s pop culture paid off in his previous book with its well placed references and quirky dialogue, Armada felt less natural in its requirement to know his many references. His references were so specific that it seemed like this book was written for that audience exclusively. Armada is a very typical hero's tale with Zach Lightman, a video game nerd suddenly finding himself the hero of the planet because he played so much video games and that is the one skill that can help save the world. I am all for suspension of belief, but I had to forcefully suppress it many times to enjoy the book. 
 The premise of alien invasion has been done multiple times and in its way the book offered a sort of meta version of this idea as Zach was skeptical of a lot of circumstances throughout the story. Unfortunately it only served to point out the problems with the book and why the story was as unoriginal as it could be. There was only a light plot twist in the book, but the idea had been hammered into our heads throughout the book making it a very unsurprising idea. 
 As far as characters go, Ernest tried really hard to make Zach an original character, but honestly he could have been Luke Skywalker or Eragon. His story was no different in any way and it was disappointing because I expected a good twist on a classic story structure. The only character that held some promise was Alexis, Zach's love interest, but even she comes across as an obsessive video game player's idealized girl. 
 Nonetheless, the book was easy to read and I love alien invasion stories and that's what this was so if that's what you're looking for, Armada is a worthwhile choice.