I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RAID THE ARCADE PLAYLIST (2015).

It should come as no surprise that Cline’s media campaign would include a Spotify “Raid the Arcade” playlist.  A playlist of the mixtape that the protagonist’s father made when he was a teen.

And I can pretty much see how this would have been a very satisfying mixtape for killing aliens and generally rocking out.  Of course, I had to have a listen and add my thoughts.

Side A: Track:

1. One Vision – Queen (I was never a big Queen fan, particularly their later poppier stuff)
2. Crazy Train – Ozzy (A classic, of course)
3. Chase the Ace – AC/DC (I find it odd that the two AC/DC songs are instrumentals from the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack.  It makes sense given the guy who made them, but there’s so many better AC/DC songs)
4. Hair of the Dog – Nazareth (One of my favorite classic rockers)
5. Get it On – Power Station (I really hate Power Station a lot, and this version of an already pretty stupid song song is pretty dreadful)
6. Old Enough to Rock and Roll – Rainey Haynes (I didn’t know this song.  It comes from the Iron Eagle soundtrack.  This song is not on Spotify and I imagine that’s because it’s terrible)
7. Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins (This song is such a punch line that even if I did like it I’m not sure I could take it seriously)
8. Vital Signs – Rush (I was totally psyched that he chose this Rush song)
9. Barracuda – Heart (I’ve mixed feelings about Heart, but I do like this song a lot)
10. T.N.T. – AC/DC (Now this is more like it for AC/DC songs–not an overplayed one either)
11. You Really Got Me – Van Halen (Not my favorite Van Halen song, but a good rocker)
12. Another One Bites the Dust – Queen (I loved this song when it came out.  It holds up pretty well (there’s some interesting sound effects in the background, but it’s nowhere near as good as the songs below)
13. One of These Days – Pink Floyd (I love this song but never would have considered it particularly rocking–in the way these other songs are.  But it does rather work)
14. Top Gun Anthem – Harold Faltermeyer (seriously?  Well, I guess if you like piloting video games, this makes sense.)

Side B: Track:

1. I Hate Myself for Loving You – Joan Jett (I don’t care for this song, although the guitars sound good for the mix)
2. It Takes Two – Rob Base (I’m surprised and pleased that this song made it into what is basically a metal compilation.  I never would have had such diversity at that age.  Although I got really sick of this song in college.)
3. Hammer to Fall – Queen (I don’t really like this era of Queen)
4. Twilight Zone – Golden Earring (I don’t love this song, but it is cool to hear once in a while)
5. We’re Not Going to Take It – Twisted Sister (I loved TS back in the day, although I wince at them now. If this song wasn’t overplayed I could probably really get into it.)
6. Rock You Like A Hurricane – Scorpions (I loved the Scorpions back in the day too. I certainly tapped my foot along to this one.)
7. Black Betty – Ram Jam (This song is in a Rayman video game that Clark plays and while I think the song is really dumb, it certainly rocks.)
8. D.T. – AC/DC (see above for instrumental AC/DC)
9. Delirious – ZZ Top (I never got into ZZ Top, and while I do like some late 70s ZZ, I really don’t like mid 80s ZZ)
10. Iron Eagle – King Kobra (Wow, this was obscure even to me–more pop metal from Iron Eagle)
11. Run’s House – Run-DMC (Whose house?  It’s funny how stripped bare Run-DMC songs sound compared to contemporary rap.)
12. We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions –Queen (overplayed but classic)

Bonus Track: Snoopy versus the Red Baron – The Red Guardsmen (a goof y novelty song that I think overstays its welcome.)

So I guess my verdict is that I really don’t like the Raid the Arcade mix all that much.  That’s kind of a shocker, actually.

[READ: July 31, 2015] Armada

I loved Cline’s first book Ready Player One.  And Sarah and I were understandably excited about his latest book, Armada.  I was surprised about the content of the book which is of similar plot to the new movie Pixels (I say similar based on what little I know of Pixels–that video game characters attack the earth).  This is surprising to me because Cline has already sold the rights of this book to Spielberg–and I have a  hard time believing someone would try to cut Spielberg with an idea.

Of course, Armada is rather different from Pixels in that the characters that attack the earth are not classic 80s video game characters.  Indeed, there is a whole back story that shows how very different these two premises are.

In a recent interview, Cline talked about how you have to include all the pop culture sci-fi and video games in his book because there’s no way you should be able to make a sci-fi book or movie on earth and not reference all of the pop culture that the protagonist grew up with.  So this story is not set in a vacuum.  In fact, it the pop culture establishes the plot.

Zack Lightman is a senior in high school.  He’s had a pretty crappy life.  His father was killed in a sanitation explosion when Zack was just a month old.  The death set him and his mom up for life, but he has spent his whole life immersed in his father’s life (he is close to his father’s age when his father died).  Zack has a lot of his father’s effects.  His dad was a huge gamer, spending a lot of time at the arcade, and loving all things sci-fi and fantasy.  His father would have been born around 1970, making the pop culture references perfect for those of us around the same age.

One day, while looking out the window of school, Zack sees an alien ship.  But not just a generic cigar shaped UFO.  Rather this is a ship directly from his favorite videogame, Armada.  Zack plays this game pretty much every day. In fact, he is ranked sixth in the world as a pilot protecting the earth from alien invaders.  Naturally he assumes he has gone insane–especially since no one else has seen it.

And that’s when he remembers the notebook that his father had kept in the attic.  In it, Zack’s father was trying to make connections between pop culture entertainment and a perceived alien threat.  The notebook lists all kinds of pop culture events.  From Star Trek and 2001 to the release of Star Wars (the highest grossing film in history–which includes the note: “First Wave of brainwashing in prep for invaders arrival?”.  The notes track through to the release of the Atari 2600 and Space Invaders through Battlezone.  And of course the Star Wars sequels and 2010.  And then onto The X Files and Galaxy Quest (until his father’s death in 1999).

But there’s a few things that are not instantly recognizable.  Like Phaëton, a video game which Zack’s father claims to have seen once and never again.

So what’s the point of all of this?  Well, Zack’s father believes (as the note to Star Wars suggests) that the government was getting the citizenry of America ready for an alien invasion of some kind.

Or that perhaps video games are meant to be training exercises for the upcoming invasion.  Which is totally nuts.  When Zack first read these crazy ideas a few years ago he knew it was nuts.  And it is nuts.  Except…

That’s just what happens.  The Earth Defense Alliance, the organization in the video game Armada turns out to be real.  And they are recruiting the top pilots in the world to help defend the earth.  Because, it turns out that everything we know about the Cosmos is wrong (even Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is wrong which we learn when Carl Sagan tells Zack and the other recruits the truth in his training film).  We have made contact with an alien world (during the sixties) and they were nothing but hostile.  The aliens have refused contact in any way and simply began planning to create an invasion fleet. Over the decades, Earth scientists have been able to stop any minor invasions and even reverse engineer a lot of the alien gadgets.  But the alien world (which is based on Europa, a moon of Jupiter) has been building up its arsenal for some forty years, preparing for a huge attack.

And, as it turns out, Armada is based on the very aliens and ships that the government knows exists on Europa.  The glaive fighter in the game is what an actual Europan fighter looks like.  And the Europans are planning on attacking in, oh, about 8 hours.

There is a quick recruiting section, as well as some interesting revelations and a fun group of new friends.  But there’s no time for chuit chat.  They have a  war to fight.

As soon as Zack starts fighting the aliens though, he notices that they seem to be behaving exactly like the do in the video game–too perfectly too… easy.  It seems fishy somehow.  And thus begins an entire subplot about the nature of the aliens (which I can’t say much more about without spoiling, although I found the logic behind one of the character’s explanation of this to be a bit hard to follow in detail but very sensible overall).

After reading the first few chapters I wasn’t sure how Cline could possibly hold up the narrative for as long as he did.  But the book works quite well.  There are introductory chapters, there’s the fun/informative/brilliantly subversive recruitment (and back story) chapters which fill in a lot.  And there’s a lot of new character development once Zack meets the other people on the Top Ten pilots list.  There is plenty of fighting and video gaming.  And then there is some fascinating emotional depth.

I absolutely loved the idea behind this book.  And I also love a lot of the way it was executed.  But I didn’t love this book as much as Ready Player One.  I had a few problems with some of the darker aspects of the story (which I won’t spoil) and since I’m not as much of a gamer as some, the gaming (while exiting) wasn’t quite the rush it could have been.  Having said that, I was totally immersed in Cline;s world and I found much of it quite believable.  And here’s the thing, I didn’t know a single thing about the book going in, I just knew that I liked Cline and wanted to read his second book.  So maybe if I knew a little bit more about the premise I wouldn’t have anticipated it doing things that it had no intention of doing.

I think this book suffered from high expectations, because if Ready Player One wasn’t so awesome, I imagine this would have blown me away.

Because it is really good and really cool.  And the concept and details of the plot are fantastic.

Incidentally, there is an actual Earth Defense Alliance website from which you can download your own copy of the 8-bit game Phaëton.