DASHNER, James The Eye of Minds Doubleday, 2013 310pp $19.95 pbk +e ISBN 9780857533142 SCIS 1628139
The game is on. This is a several-thrills-a-page adventure book for those who admire cleverness and anything to do with computers, programming, virtual worlds and online gaming. The novel is set in a near future world where most people, it seems, spend most of their lives in a virtual non-reality, playing games. To do this they lie in ‘coffins’, wired up in such a way that they can have all the sensual and sensuous aspects of reality-experience in their virtual-experience. So far so good. Michael, Sarah and Bryson are the three smart youngsters who can give most gamesters a run for their Waking life. Real (virtual) trouble begins when a young woman commits suicide in the VirtNet, right in front of Michael, and it is not just her virtual body that is shattered, but everything about her real self is gone too. Someone is playing a game so deadly that it threatens the viability of the VirtNet and the very lives of the players. This situation will call for agents, spies, hackers, adventurers, warriors, not to mention resourcefulness and good hearts, if the threat, deep somewhere in the unimagined lands of the VirtNet, is to be contacted, identified and nullified. The only real question here is, at what cost will the victory be won? How many times can our heroes fall into other worlds? In fairness to the story I cannot take you any further, but be assured you will be worried, you will be anxious, you will be in awe of Dashner’s imagination, and you won’t put the book down until you know what price the young trio have paid in their pursuit of an evil intelligence, and what truth they have had to face. Be warned, there will be more in this series. Recommended for readers 11 to 14 years old. KB
