Armada by Ernest Cline

I love Ready Player One, Ernest Cline's first novel, so I was looking forward to the release of his new book so very much.

And I was let down.

(Dr. BB and I have a frequent "debate." I get really pumped up for things and part of the excitement for me is the buildup to the event.  He just calmly accepts that things will probably suck and then is pleasantly surprised when they don't.  If I'm looking forward to something and it's awesome, it's even doubly awesomer for me, but all he gets is "pleasant surprise." I think I'm winning, although, sometimes, like with this book, I am disappointed.  But I still had my buildup excitement, which is NOT nothing. But I digress.  Just curious where you all stand on this - expect suck or build it up?)

The book took the least interesting part of RP1 (the final "battle") and basically made it the whole book. The perfect girl trope and the interminable name dropping of video games

(Tangent #2: Videogame or video game? That's ten minutes I spent with a search engine that I'll never get back)

I've never heard of before exhausted me.  The whole government conspiracy plot line made me roll my eyes. The nerdy boy who plays video games (or videogames) all day long and then manages to save the fucking world with his skills made me sad for all the young people who play video games all day who think they might save the world one day.  The endless descriptions of warships and armament defy good sense and my ability to pay attention. 

It's essentially the exact same plot as RP1, right down to the big discovery made at school, but it's just not done well at all.

So you probably shouldn't read this book, but you should read Ready Player One.