Any time something occurred to me, like Battlestar Galactica or Space 1999 or the old Buck Rogers or Firefly, I'd weave it into the story. Once I had that idea, I just went back and looked at history and cherry-picked the things I wanted. So it was fun to make everything from Star Wars and Space Invaders on seem like part of this conspiracy. Plus that's my whole childhood and what I'd grown up loving. Also, as a student of science fiction and fantasy tropes, I always really wanted to tell a genre-aware alien-invasion story where all the characters had seen all the alien-invasion movies and television shows that I'd seen- Alien, War of the Worlds, Starship Troopers, Independence Day, V, etc.-and would have all these expectations based on them. What was your inspiration for this?Įrnest Cline: It was always an idea I'd had, and it just seemed very timely, dealing with drone technology and quantum communication. Goodreads: In Armada, sci-fi classics such as Star Wars and Star Trek are part of a decades-long government plot to prepare civilians for an alien invasion, while video games are secretly training them to pilot drones. Cline tells Goodreads about his new book, working with Steven Spielberg, and spills the sequel news fans have been clamoring for-yes, the T word: Both Ready Player One and Armada could be trilogies! Again it's steeped in references to all that Cline loves, from Admiral Ackbar to ZZ Top. This month the 43-year-old releases his hugely anticipated second novel, Armada, a space opera-meets-thriller in which a hotshot gamer is enlisted to help save the Earth from extraterrestrials.

Cline felt as if his head were exploding he's still piecing it back together.

bought the film rights before it even came out, and earlier this year Steven Spielberg signed on to direct. Cline's 2011 debut-a dystopian coming-of-age virtual-reality quest brimming with '80s pop culture trivia, computer games, sci-fi references, and flying DeLoreans-struck an instant nerve with readers, gamers, geeks, and John Hughes fans everywhere. Today, of course, he's the bestselling author of the megahit Ready Player One, having parlayed those childhood passions into an adventure that would have blown his 12-year-old mind. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Ernest Cline was a nerdy kid 'daydreaming of adventure' and geeking out to video games, science fiction, and films like Star Wars, E.T., and Back to the Future.

Armada by Ernest Cline