Review: The Eye of Minds by James Dashner - Hackers & Gamers

Title: The Eye of Minds (The Mortality Doctrine, #1)
Author: James Dashner 
Publisher: Random House Canada
Publication date: October 8, 2013

Genre(s): Young Adult (Sci-Fi)

Source: Publisher

Format: Finished Copy

Pages: 323

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Michael is a gamer. And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world. The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it’s addictive. Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends. And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun. Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?

But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before: he’s holding players hostage inside the VirtNet. The effects are horrific—the hostages have all been declared brain-dead. Yet the gamer’s motives are a mystery.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.
And they’ve been watching Michael. They want him on their team.

But the risk is enormous. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid. There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can’t even fathom—and there’s the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.

Short story: The Eye of Minds is my first James Dashner book and I must say that it was a pleasant read. This book in particular is an adventure novel. I honestly felt that I was part of the trio's team in trying to find Kaine, a rogue hacker that is taking players hostage on the virtual net and causing chaos. The VNS, Virtual Net Security, force..err.. ask Michael and his two friends to find that hacker, and off they go. This book is fairly short, at 300 pages, and it was fun to read about but I must say it got repetitive with quest after quest and spending the whole book on that journey. I however really enjoyed the humor and friendship of the characters,

Long story: Michael is a gamer; he spends most of his day either at school or in the virtual world. His one goal is to reach the Lifeblood Deep status, the highest status and exclusive game a gamer can reach. One day the government/VNS contact him and basically threaten him and his friends to either take up the challenge of finding Kaine, the terrorist hacker, or get all their online/virtual access revoked. Of course being teenagers, they take up the challenge and their journey begins. I personally really liked Michael, Bryson, and Sarah, their conversations and them just being teenagers. However I just couldn't really connect with them on a deeper level. As for the journey itself, it was interesting in the beginning, but over time I personally just wanted to reach the end of the journey and find out what's going on. I wished we had more to the plot than what was in it because it just felt like me playing a video game and just moving on from one mission to the other without any substance.. I'm not sure if I'm even making sense to you readers but that's how I felt. 

The ending though… wow.. that was completely unexpected and I seriously applaud Dashner for such a twist. It was original, twisted, shocking, and brilliant! That ending makes me wonder what will be happening next and what will happen to the awesome trio. I definitely recommend The Eye of Minds to fans of sci-fi/virtual world YA readers.