Status Updates From Armada

It's just a really boring book. That's the really damning thing. It's also just lazily written with undeveloped side characters and painfully cheesy dialogue, but that would all be forgivable with actual pacing -- more action and tension, and about a thousand times less exposition.

All in all, an underwhelming second outing with none of the fun and heart of Ready Player One.

What's most surprising -- and disappointing -- about this book is how little it utilizes its premise. If I pick up a book about gamers waging space battles, I at least expect to get some fucking space battles. After nearly 300 pages there's only been one -- two if you count the Icebreaker mission. The rest of it? Exposition, exposition, exposition. I have little confidence that all this laborious setup will pay off.