June 22, 2015
What if the X-Files were a “fictional alien cover-up created to conceal real one”? Cline (Ready Player One) makes this kind of paranoia intriguing in an SF novel whose strong opening compensates for a less gripping ending. After Zack Lightman’s father died in an accident, the teen distracted himself with gaming, achieving one of the world’s top scores in a human vs. alien invaders game called Armada. To Zack’s astonishment, one morning he looks out of his classroom window in Beaverton, Wash., and sees a Sobrukai Glaive, one of the enemy ships from that game. Skeptical of his own senses, Zack flees school to take a more careful look at his father’s writings, only to find an unsettling level of conspiracy thinking. Zack soon finds the connection between his vision and his father’s theories, at which point the story becomes more conventional and less imaginative. The plot holes get harder to ignore as the conclusion approaches, but the book’s beginning offers glimpses of Cline’s significant potential.
August 31, 2015
When Zack Lightman sees aliens in the sky, he thinks he is going crazy like his conspiracy-theory-prone father, who died in a mysterious accident when Zack was a kid. Growing up, Zack distracted himself with gaming, achieving one of the world’s top scores in a humans vs. aliens video game called Armada. Now 18, he finds himself on the frontline of Earth’s defense against an overwhelming alien invasion as a result of his gaming ability. Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame reads the audio edition. He easily expresses Lightman’s point of view with his own naturally young-sounding voice and does especially well with the more emotional parts of the novel, when Zack crumbles into tears. The overall delivery is steady and straightforward, keeping listeners engaged throughout. Wheaton’s one shortcoming is that some of his voices for other characters feel a bit caricatured rather than fully developed. A Crown hardcover.