I wanted to love this book so much. Cline's debut novel, Ready Player One, is my favorite sci-fi book, hands down. I've read it several times. I fangirled so hard when I found out about Armada, and counted down the days til it's release like it was an Assassin's Creed game. Imagine my sheer disappointment in giving this book a measly two stars. 
 The entire review will be full of spoilers. Spoilery spoilers. Spoilers galore. You have been warned. 
 I felt like the main character in Armada was too similar to the MC from Ready Player One. Both are angsty, young white males with a missing father figure. They idealize said figure and learn a bunch of 80s pop culture, which allows Cline to make numerous references to his obviously favorite decade in American history throughout his books. It worked in RPO, as it was integral to the plot for the MC to know these references to achieve his ultimate goal. It wasn't necessary in Armada, and felt stale. Cline's signature writing style will be the death of his writing career if he doesn't change it up, and soon. 
 The entire book was a sci-fi trope, with what felt like rip-offs of Ender's Game and Star Trek glaring at me throughout the story. The characters were shallow and predictable, and at times, downright laughably unrealistic (Lex, the alcohol-swigging, combat boot wearing, Star Wars quoting, genius programmer, anyone? She was basically a dude in a hot girl's body.) 
 The moon base fell waaaaay too quickly, to the point of making me feel like it was a completely useless aspect of the story. It's a good thing the EDA's best pilots were on the moon just to die and abandon ship. Pointless. 
 Something that completely infuriated me was Xavier's death. He did not need to die. The man who finally got the happiness he deserved, who had just returned to his family, just kamikaze-style kills himself to buy our heroes a couple of minutes? There were several other ways he could have delayed the Admiral from his escort. But he decides to blow himself up, giving his life for a couple of minutes? Like the heroes couldn't have put their plan into effect a couple of minutes earlier? What a waste! And if Cline thought that giving Pamela another child of Xavier's was a peace offering to the grieving reader, he was so wrong. Another son she has to raise by herself, who will be forever be haunted by the father he didn't know. That's horrible! 
 The ending was anti-climactic and done before, bringing both Star Trek and Mass Effect to mind. The whole thing was just a crappy situation, with a strange and unsatisfactory resolution. 
 I'm left feeling disappointed and confused by Cline's direction with his sophomore novel. I'll read another book from him with less anticipation, but if it's more of the same, I'll try to forget he wrote anything other than Ready Player One and avoid his future works. 
 I know this review is harsh, perhaps even brutal. If you read this Mr. Cline, I'm truly sorry. It hurt me to write such a negative review as well.