Armada

Armada is a mash-up of Ready Player One, Ender's Game, and The Last Starfighter. (Cline also wrote Ready Player One.) The book gets its title from the name of a video game. The secret Earth Defense Alliance is using the game to train drone pilots to fight off an alien invasion. The top game scorers are recruited into the EDA on the morning of the invasion. The actual EDA fighters and drones, as well as the alien craft, are exactly like the game. Our hero, a high-school student and the sixth highest scoring player, saves the Earth from annihilation.

There are lots of pop culture references - mostly to science fiction movies. It's a fun, entertaining book to read. And if you are a scienece fiction movie devotee, so much the better. Wil Wheaton does a good job of reading the audiobook. Wheaton also read Ready Player One.