You may have heard of James Dashner’s widely acclaimed dystopian Maze Runner series, but have you heard of his other series, The Mortality Doctrine? I didn’t know about it until I decided to randomly browse through some of Dashner’s books on Amazon, and I’m glad to say that Dashner once again does not fail to disappoint. The Eye of Minds, the first book in The Mortality Doctrine series, is centered around 3 equally likable, charismatic characters named Michael, Sarah, and Bryson. Except they’re not your typical teenagers –they’re expert hackers and gamers in the Sleep, a virtual reality simulation that is so realistic that it has essentially become a replacement for real life.
The Eye of Minds has every quality of a well-written dystopian novel: it contains all of the key ingredients for success. One, a well-designed plot. In the book, a Tangent (AI) by the name of Kaine has gone rogue and started to replace human minds with the minds of Tangents who wish to achieve sentience. It is the mission of Michael and his 2 companions to take down Kaine per the instructions –more threats, really– of the VNS (Virtual Net Services), the creators and runners of the Sleep virtual reality world. The second key ingredient is, as mentioned above, likable and relatable characters. The third element is a wildly awesome setting. Without Dashner’s ability to make the setting of The Eye of Minds come alive, the book would have almost certainly been a failure.
If you’ve read any of my reviews for the Ready Player One duology, you may have noticed a lot of parallels between that series and this one. First off, the presence of 3-4 teenage main characters. Second, a world in which people have become entirely dependent upon a virtual reality simulation as a substitute for their normal and less pleasant lives. Third, a plot under which the main characters must stop an antagonist who possesses malicious intentions inside of the virtual reality world. And fourth, there is an AI figure within the virtual reality world that has gone rogue, as seen with Anorak in Ready Player Two and Kaine in this novel. Despite all of these stark similarities, The Eye of Minds is quite unique in its own right and worth reading. At least for me, there’s truly an addictive quality to these types of dystopian novels, no matter how similar the pattern they follow is. Maybe you’ll find this to be true as well, but for the time being, I truly recommend giving the series a shot, and if you end up liking it, there’s a sequel that I know I’ll be checking out: The Rule of Thoughts.
Review By ~ Andrew
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