Armada

by Michael Jahn

Nathaniel Broadsword, captain of the space shuttle, and his crew discover a huge spaceship approaching the Earth with apparently hostile intentions

Genres: Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 12, 1982

About the author

I'm a reporter, photographer, and professional novelist. A newspaperman's son, I began my daily newspaper career at The New York Times, where I was hired in 1968 to cover the music beat (folk, blues, and rock), making me the first full-time rock journalist for major media.

That made me well-enough known (or notorious, maybe) so that a few years on I switched to writing fiction, mostly detective novels, and have published 50 books, one of which won the prestigious Edgar Award.

In reviewing "Night Rituals" (1982), the New Yorker wrote that "Jahn writes with a flourish that is entirely his own." And they didn't say "and he can keep it too" so I've been using that quote ever since.

Right now (2012) I'm publishing Kindle editions of my critically acclaimed Bill Donovan Mysteries, which I published from 1982 to 2008. Up so far: "Murder in Coney Island," "Murder in Central Park," "Murder on Theatre Row," "Murder on the Waterfront," and "Murder at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine" (originally published as "City of God"). My Edgar winner, "The Quark Maneuver," also is up in Kindle.

I've begun writing a memoir, not so much of me but of my very unusual ancestors, who had this Forest Gumpian ability to find themselves standing next to fame or infamy. An ancestor on the Spanish side, a sailor, went to Japan with Perry, fought in the Civil War under Farragut (and, I like to think, was the man the Admiral was thinking about when he hollered "Damn the torpedoes ... full speed ahead!"), and later helped rescue a man-eating meteorologist who was frozen in the Arctic ice. My newspaperman dad survived a car chase with Dutch Schultz and drank bourbon on a transcontinental train with Harry Truman.

I'll write about all this stuff. Wouldn't you? The working title is "Told to Me by a Sailor who Died (I'll Never Know if the Bastard Lied)."

I live in New York City.

Reviews

[Benji's Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty hollow sci-fi story about Earth ships vs a gigantic alien Armada, circa 1995 (casual space travel is a thing now in this 1981 novel). The entire time I was reading, I was distracted and was looking forward to better novels ahead. I will say, the dialogue in this book at least seemed organic, for the most part, but in terms of characterization, there was indeed no characterization.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being over 41 years old, Armada is still an exciting and fun ride!

The plot is pretty basic, but where the story really shines is the characters. Broadsword and Baxter are fine, but Chambers is awesome. A mouthy pilot in her thirties, she isn’t afraid to tell it like it is - her reactions to things had me laughing quite a few times. Broadsword is kind of a jerk in how he treats his girlfriend, but it’s great that he’s an Indigenous main character who doesn’t fall under stereotypes. I also liked that Leslie, the girlfriend, has a real job and purpose in the story.

The aliens are very simple and we learn next to nothing about them, but this was the start of the era with the “humanity brought together by an external threat” trope, which we see in Independence Day in the 90s and then parodied in Starship Troopers. Yet, what we get of the aliens is entertaining and pretty fun - especially the ending.

The book is also amusing in its predictions about the future. Space station habitations in 15 years is a pretty lofty goal!

Where the book really excels is pacing and ease of reading. I flew through this book as it was so easy to read, the language was clear and simple but descriptive, and the story moves at a great pace. The action scenes were pretty good, though there are fewer than you’d think. The plausibility of the solution is kind of silly, but oh well.

Overall, a classic sci-fi that deserves the “classic” term, as it’s still an absolute blast to read!

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second time I read this book; the first time was back in high school. It was a bit of a 'nostalgia read' for me, in some respects. I remembered liking it the first time I read it; I remembered being 'horrified' at some parts of the book; I remember the ending being both good and sad. So, since I had lost my copy in the intervening years, I picked this up to reread it. It was a fast read for me; it took me about four hours, max, from start-to-finish. It has a bit of mystery and a bit of horror in it. It has love and hope and despair and explosions and aliens and an unexpected turn of event(s). It was fun to revisit this book.

I thought it was an interesting idea to have the aliens be susceptible to both "low-tech" rockets and missiles as well as micro-waves. The theory is that the aliens are advanced enough to be able to guard against lasers and nuclear explosions; that being the case, they are no longer able to [or have forgotten how to] defend against "lower-tech" weapons. There are some hints dropped throughout the book that point to how the aliens will defeated in the end; I thought it was a pretty good idea and I do not remember seeing it coming until the end the first time I read it.

The lone surviving alien's response to the question, "why did you come here?" was pretty chilling: "We were hungry" (217). I totally understand why Baxter bashed its skull in like he did.

I have to admit, I was hoping that Margot Chambers would survive and even develop more of a relationship with Nathaniel Broadsword as a result. Sadly, this was not to be.

I thought it was interesting that Nathaniel Broadsword was described as being a Native American and the 'first' Native American to be an astronaut. I think it was one of the few books I read where the hero was something other than white of possibly black; most heroes tended to be white, from what I remember [well, other than the protagonists of Starship Troopers and Tunnel in the Sky].

I also thought it was interesting that the story takes place in the mid-1990s. It assumes technology has advanced enough to allow the Moon to have colonies developed on it and a large space station to be put in orbit over the Earth. The "primary" partners in the stellar endeavor are the United States and Russia followed closely behind by Europe. About what one would expect, even with the station falling under the auspices of the United Nations. It does make a person wonder what could have happened had the world been able to focus its efforts on space exploration and colonization as opposed to waging a 'Cold War' for so long.

It is definitely a product of the early 80s [published in 1981], in some respects. There are two male heroes with one being about twenty years older than his younger friend/protege. Each of the male heroes has a super-hot girlfriend; the younger hero has sex with both women [at different times]; the hero is younger than his 'one-time' lover and older than his 'primary' lover. The heroes have plenty of bravado and pluck between them that helps them to face off against the villains of the piece. Some character development actually does occur, as it takes nearly ninety pages before the "villains" enter the piece. I was surprised at how much humor is in the first eighty pages; I did not remember there being much of any humor in the book at all. I was laughing at Nathaniel Broadsword being so bored that he started trying to run an experiment to see if his forcing himself to sneeze would force his body to turn into circles in zero-gravity while he waited for an astronomer to finish taking his measurements about an approaching interstellar object. It was pretty hilarious to me.

One thing that was 'amusing' to me was that they used tape cartridges [like cassette tapes] for programming and inputting data into computers. I mean, here are advanced systems and vehicles using cassette tapes to upload information into their computer systems. No disks, no flash drives, no other advances were thought up in terms of how information might be transmitted, saved, uploaded, or shared. It was pretty funny to me, to read about how cassette tapes had to be utilized to save, update, and download data.

It was a fun book to revisit and read a second time.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is absolutely incredible, unfortunately not in a good way. The only redeeming quality it has going for it is unintentional humor.

The writing and prose is fine, even good. What's IN the story is the problem. So many cliches, so many unintentionally funny stereotypes. So many issues with the "science" (I cannot use that term here without the air quotes.)

I can't even list all the problems, but here are the biggest (and I should note that these are things I thought even back in '82 when I was .... well, much younger.) The main characters name is BROADSWORD. Space shuttles don't work (or didn't) ANYthing like that. The aliens are killed by microwaves? Really? But not in a "they get cancer" way, but a catastrophic death. And not just the creatures, but their ships also? How the hell did they evolve, let alone fly through space? Ham-fisted "romance" consummated at the end (literally) and she 'keeps him captive' afterward. That must have been a LOT of kegels!

So, yeah. The good thing is that I have kept the book ever since because I could not let the gem of schlock go.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't exactly a novel idea. A giant battleship comes hurtling toward earth from an alien civilization. But it was pretty well done. Jahn is certainly a professional level writer.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an original idea but enjoyable read