Armada

Zack Lightman has dreamed all of his life. yearning for the actual world to resemble the many science-fiction novels, films, and computer games he has spent his whole life devouring. Hoping that one day a world-changing, fantastical event would break the boredom of his ordinary life and take him on a spectacular intergalactic adventure.

But hey, what's wrong with a little escape from reality? Zack rationalises to himself that he is capable of distinguishing between fact and fiction. He is aware that impulsive, adolescent gamers with anger management problems are not selected to rescue the universe in the real world.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even more bizarrely, the extraterrestrial vessel he is gazing at seems directly from the immensely famous online flight simulator videogame Armada, which he plays every night and in which players accidentally defend Earth against extraterrestrial invasion.

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And to preserve the planet from what is about to happen, he and the millions of other players worldwide will need to pool their expertise.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?

At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.