Now, four years later, Cline’s cult following is clamoring for his next book: Armada. It was good stuff and, despite the novel being one ginormous mash-up, it was original and it was entertaining. Readers who loved Star Wars, read William Gibson or Douglas Adams, listened to Rush, or quoted lines from The Breakfast Club fell under Cline’s spell. It wasn’t just the 20-sided dice rollers and the joystick jockeys – no. Yes, Ready Player One was some uber-geekery, but in finding an audience Cline cast a large net. Once inside the party, he orders a pan-galactic gargle blaster ( Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and dances to 1980s grooves mixed by the DJ, R2-D2. The DeLorean sports an onboard computer named KITT ( Knight Rider) and Ghostbuster stickers on its gullwing doors. In a single scene, the main character shows up at a (virtual) party in a tricked-out DeLorean he won in a Back to the Future quest on the planet Zemeckis.

No planned release date has been set by Universal.Crown, 2015Ernest Cline’s debut novel, Ready Player One, was a kaleidoscopic smorgasbord of 1980s pop culture slammed into the virtual world of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that existed in Cline’s nightmarish, post-apocalyptic vision of the 21st century. It's uncertain whether he'll keep his writing credit for Armada as Mazeau boards the project.ĭan Farah ( Ready Player One) and Dylan Clark ( Planet of the Apes) are producing Armada. Cline co-wrote the Steven Spielberg-directed blockbuster with Zak Penn. How fortunate, then, that Universal is bringing Armada to the medium to which it possibly belongs.Ĭline is enjoying the box office run of Ready Player One, which just crossed the $200 million threshold worldwide. AV Club called it 'a pale imitation of' Cline's own work,' while The Washington Post said Armada was an exercise in 'nostalgic narcissism.' However, many reviewers noted how cinematic the story is, observing that while it may be a poor novel, Armada would make for a great movie. Like Ready Player One, Armada is also filled to the brim with Easter eggs and and references to '80s and '90s pop culture.Īrmada wasn't quite as well-received as Ready Player One, though it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks.

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