Then we waited. And waited and waited and waited and waited…sigh.

We had to wait three more years until Cline wrote a follow-up to his best seller. But have no fear my friends. It’s finally here!

In his smashing new novel, Ernest Cline brings you…THE END OF THE WORLD!!!! (Insert cymbal crash)

Wait. What? Well, imagine that all the video games that you’ve played and movies that you’ve watched about aliens invading Earth, weren’t just Science Fiction. That’s right, Star Wars, Independence Day, Contact, Space Invaders, and the fictional game (I think) called Armada are all actually training simulations designed to educate humans and train them to defeat the aliens in the coming invasion. Zack Lightman, aka Iron Beagle, is ranked sixth in the world of Armada fighter pilots. One day he is sitting is class and when he sees the alien warships from his game hovering over his town. Is he hallucinating? Is he going crazy, just like his dad?

The next day, Lightman is recruited to join to Earth Defense Alliance and the adventure begins. Will they be successful? Will they pull a Will Smith and totally save the day?

You’ll have to read it to find out. In comparison to Ready Player One, this one doesn’t quite beat it. BUT, since I think that RPO was just about the best book written since Gone with the Wind or Harry Potter, that still means that Armada is a pretty decent book. (If you’ve not read any of these books, I still love you, but you need to come into my office for a little chat.) Also, I’ve never been the biggest fan of aliens, so that might be part of the reason that I didn’t super love it. At this point, though, I’ll pretty much read anything Ernest Cline will write, and this will make a great movie someday (hopefully…hint hint).

Speaking of movies, it looks like Steven Spielberg will be directing the big screen version of Ready Player One which is set to come out sometime in 2017. And if you’ll excuse me, I now need to go get in line at the movie theater…

Happy gaming…