Armada: A novel by the author of Ready Player One

most of them from scenes that depicted all of humanity uniting as one species, to save itself and its home from

One of the few perks of driving an ancient, rusted-out shit wagon was that it took real effort to make it look any less aesthetically pleasing than it already was.

it. “These images, and the way in which they’re

Maybe that was part of their test—to find out if humans are willing to make a heroic sacrifice to save their comrades? To see if our species actually behaves the way we portray ourselves in our books and movies and games?” He stood back up and began to pace, faster and faster. “They could be testing us to see if humanity lacks the courage of its co

“Yeah, I wish we could skip this storyline crap,” Cruz said. “Bor-ing.” “See, this is exactly why you two always get killed within the first two minutes,” I said. “You never pay attention during the admiral’s briefing.” “No, we always get killed because of you, Leeroy Jenkins!” “I’ve asked you repeatedly to stop calling me that.”

If these were real alien attack drones, under the control of sentient beings living in the subsurface oceans of Europa, half a billion kilometers away, why would they fly and fight exactly like their videogame counterparts?

“The Test reveals things about a species that cannot be ascertained any other way—what your Earth scientists refer to as an ‘emergent property.’ ”

“I built the Armada,” it said. “And this entire time you were fighting against yourselves.

Once he told me all of that, I suddenly began to see evidence of sci-fi design theft everywhere I looked inside the base.