The Eye of Minds

The Eye of Minds by James Dashner (Doubleday Children's)
PB RRP $19.95
ISBN 9780857533142
Also available as an ebook
ISBN 9781448174195
Reviewed by Marian McGuinness

There’s a blur between virtual reality and reality in James Dashner’s first book in the YA Mortality Doctrine series. It follows on the rather racy heels of his New York Times bestseller, The Maze Runner.

Dashner is an expert. He’s an expert in fast prose, graphic descriptions and the technical world inhabited by gamers. He’s an expert in what a lot of young adults want to read.

I’ve had many experiences in sensory deprivation tanks. Pull the lid down on your coffin-like capsule, hear your heartbeat, hear your blood rushing and let your imagination soar.

Sixteen-year-old Michael is a gamer, coder and hacker; one of the best in the virtual reality world. His wealthy parents spend most of their time overseas, leaving him in the care of a nanny and his highly expensive VirtNet system. He spends a lot of time in his ‘Nervebox’ or ‘Coffin’ where ‘thin icy strands of NerveWire inserted into his skin’ along with the elements of ‘AirPuffs and LiquiGels’ immerse him in the shared virtual world nicknamed ‘the Sleep’. Every physical experience is possible: fighting dragons, flying spaceships.

Michael lives his life in ‘the Sleep’; he finds ‘the Wake’, where real people live, boring.

Gamers are being found brain dead in their ‘Coffins’ accompanied with the coding ‘Kaine was here’. Kaine is a rogue gamer and cyber terrorist who is hiding in ‘the Sleep’. Michael and his closest VirtNet friends Bryson and Sarah are recruited by the VNS –VirtNet’s security to use their coding and hacking skills to track down Kaine. They battle Hot Zones, Weak Spots and antimatter called KillSims as they follow Kaine’s trail to his lair.

Be warned. There is violence. There are issues of suicide. The clever twist at the end comes entirely from left field.

Fans of The Matrix, Inception and Neuromancer will love this thrill seeking, mind-bending techno ride, as along with Michael, Bryson and Sarah, they navigate this most dangerous ‘game that wasn’t a game anymore’.

The Kill Order

The Kill Order by James Dashner (Chicken House)
PB RRP $16.99
ISBN 978-1-908435-59-0
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Mark and Trina are fighting for their lives.

Most of the human race has been wiped out by sun flares and the intense heat, toxic radiation and flooding that followed these. Those surviving, including Mark, Trina and their band of friends, have set up small communities and are concentrating on rebuilding their lives as best they can. But when a Berg (huge airships) arrives bringing darts filled with a virus instead of supplies, Mark finds himself on the run again. As the virus mutates and people get even more desperate, Mark and Trina rely on friends, two ex-soldiers, and their own survival instincts.

The Kill Order is action packed and addictive. As the intensity builds, it becomes impossible to put down and I had to read it in one sitting. The action starts with the survivors. The sun flares and Marks’s subsequent flight to the mountains is told in dreams and this works surprisingly well. Part of the suspense of the story is in the conflict between Mark’s sleep deprived present and his reliving the horror of his past when he does reluctantly succumb to sleep and dreams.

Tagged as a ‘must for fans of The Hunger Games’, the storyline is completely different but the theme and atmosphere is reminiscent - the dystopian setting, the desperation and the bleak disregard - of those in charge - for the general population.

The Kill Order is for teens. There is violence, death, destruction and some disturbing scenes once the virus takes hold and begins to mutate. But like all dystopian and apocalyptic tales, it will question what you would do to survive, how far would you go to save the ones you love. And fans of the genre will be totally engrossed in the story, cheering Mark and Trina on to the sad but inevitable ending.

The Kill Order is the prequel to the popular Maze Runner series by James Dashner. The first in the series The Maze Runner is currently in production and a movie is expected sometime towards the end of 2014.

The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time

A Mutiny in Time (Infinty Ring) by James Dashner (Scholastic Inc)
HB RRP $14.99
ISBN 978-0-545–38696-8
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Dak Smyth and Sera Froste are best friends, thrown into a whirlwind of adventure and time travel. When they discover the powerful Infinity Ring they lose Dak’s parents somewhere in the past and discover the Hystorians a group more mysterious than the SQ. Through the Hystorians the two children learn that the world’s fate is in their hands. They must travel through time to fix all the breaks in history.

The reader experiences a vague sense of unease in Sera and Dak’s world, as if all is not quite as it should be. This feeling increases with each mention of the SQ, with the apparent normality of the children’s intelligence, and with the frequency of natural disasters. But it is not until they go back in time to fix a break in history that the reader begins to discover just how off kilter the world has become. This book is concerned with one history break, the mutiny of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to America, but subtle hints about other breaks left me keenly anticipating the next book in the series, eager to discover where else history may have gone off course. It left me wondering about the what-ifs of historic outcomes such as elections, battles and discoveries. Events which determine who holds the power in the world.

A Mutiny in Time is packed with history, danger and time travelling fantasy. Dak, Sera and Riq are likable characters with recognisable flaws. They struggle to come to terms with (and apply their incredible intellect to) the extraordinary task they have been assigned to. But while they are out there in the world, seeing and smelling the past, they make the most of exploring and enjoying the adventure.

A Mutiny in Time is the first book in the multi-platformed adventure series, The Infinity Ring. Set out in a similar way to the popular 39 Clues series, each book - written by a different author - relates one part of the adventure undertaken by the three children in an effort to save the world. This book comes with a secret Hystorians Guide in a pocket marked Top Secret! Open only after you’ve completed A Mutiny in Time. This map reveals a code that allows access on www.infinityring.com to a new adventure which the reader may embark upon. This adventure picks up directly where the book has left off.

Although it starts off a little slowly, once the story takes off it is hard to put down until the end. This is a thrilling read for eight to fourteen year olds. Come and join the adventure.