Book Probe

Review originally posted at Book Probe Reviews.After I finished reading The Eye of Minds, the first in James Dashner's new YA sci-fi series The Mortality Doctrine, all I basically did was:1. eat in my sleep....2. run in my sleep...... then wake up in shock horror.3. play the guitar, pretending I'm a rock god in my own VirtNet......while really feeling considerably itchy.Basically The Eye of Minds will mess with your mind.Even Sassy attempted to access the VirtNet again........but she ended up on the floor because I attempted to as well.Sorry. Too many dogs. 'Twas the only way that I could illustrate without being a pervert and filming myself - when asleep .Dashner's new offering is what you get when you put Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus (or any Percy Jackson or Kane Chronicle book) and Michael Grant's BZRK in the same room, with a pinch of Inception or The Matrix to spice up the gene. Loved The Maze Runner? Then doubtless you'll love The Eye of Minds, if not more. Dashner presents the reader with a trio of characters to get behind – Michael, Sarah, and Bryson – as they go on a quest inside the VirtNet to find The Mortality Doctrine and bring down the cyberterrorist Kane in the process. Once you enter the VirtNet with the trio, you won't want to leave – even if you become an unresponsive robot by the end, unable to comprehend a life without technology, transformed into a bunch of coloured pixels struggling to hold themselves together. Lost. Defective. Dea---*System Gone Into Hibernation Until Book #2, The Rule of Thoughts*To think I knew everything that hid up Dashner's sleeves. All those plot twists, all those surprises. But I really didn't. Every turning point in The Eye of Minds surprised me, my fingers bled from the razor-edged pages of the ARC, my skin blistered from how tight I held it. The Eye of Minds had a balanced weight of action, adventure, and suspense, with only a page to give those hopeless romantics something "romantic" to look out for. Dashner knows how to write stories for boys, writing more what boys want – the action and the adventure – than what the Young Adult age category usually dictates and the rules/tropes YA books usually follow. I wouldn't even call the "romance" in this book a romance – it's more of a friendly reminder that you can feel attracted to someone, without spending pages and pages explaining how, or even an entire book.I found the plot of The Eye of Minds completely original. I found the characters completely refreshing. I found the world completely addictive. There wasn't anything in The Eye of Minds that I didn't like. And because of that, I couldn't let The Eye of Minds depart my hands.The Eye of Minds is successful at addressing modern issues and future scenarios in a manner that speculates at the rawest level. Would we, in our future, have a Virtual Reality that we can escape to? And what if this perfect escape becomes hell, war-torn, just like the world we had left? The public arena of the internet and media. The identities people hide behind to keep themselves safe – which they never really are. The Eye of Minds is a relevant novel for the technologically advanced – gamers, internet-users, every person that uses technology in this day-and-age. They will find something to relate to in this novel, and with two more books to come in this trilogy there may just be so much more to explore and speculate on than what we were presented with in The Eye of Minds.I don't want to spoil anything, and it's difficult not to when you just want to talk and talk and talk about it, specifically because the last couple of chapters of The Eye of Minds will BLOW YOUR MIND and you'll wonder why you never had thought about it while you read. All I can really say is that I'll be recommending The Eye of Minds to every boy that walks into my bookstore in October when this book comes out, to every gamer, to every The Maze Runner or Rick Riordan fan. Want an epic sci-fi adventure? Go with The Eye of Minds!The Eye of Minds is a fast-moving, mind-altering sci-fi adventure that will leave you wanting to get back into the VirtNet as soon as you can, an addiction unsettled.*Will add more in the coming week*• • •Books in the Mortality Doctrine:1. The Eye of Minds (October, 2013)2. The Rule of Thoughts (2014)3. Untitled (2015)Other books by James Dashner:• The 13th Reality• The Mortality Doctrine• Infinity Ring• The Jimmy Fincher SagaComparable Titles:• BZRK by Michael Grant• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline• The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan