Off the Bookshelf: THE EYE OF MINDS by James Dashner

This was a featured book on Nook a few weeks ago. It caught my attention because it's the first in a new series by the author of the Maze Runner book and its sequels. A chance to see what all the fuss is about!

Okay .... this one is a mind-bender. Fun, but kind of gritty.

Essentially, everybody is into playing in a virtual reality world of multiple games. Kind of telling that the box you get into to enter the VR world is referred to as a coffin. Full immersion, senses and mind, and you feel what happens to you in the VR world. Including hunger, bruises, torture ... Fortunately, when you "die" in VR, you just re-set.

At least, until a guy called Kaine shows up and starts taking over, and people deliberately suicide, destroying their own safeguards as a last resort to escape.

Our hero, Michael, is a high school kid who is a pretty talented gamer. A government agency recruits him and his two very talented friends to investigate, figure out what Kaine is doing, where he is, and try to open up a doorway so the authorities can get in there and stop him. This is a government you can't say no to -- because they'll stop all your access to the VR world if you don't cooperate. So what else can Michael and his friends do? They put their virtual lives on the line, and things get pretty grim by the time Michael makes it to the end of the trail -- and then the answers turn his entire world upside down. Didn't see it coming -- and yet the clues were all there.

Doggone it, I'm gonna have to read the rest of the books! Hooked. Even if you're not into VR-type stories and the computer world and programming and evil sentient programs and such ... you'll enjoy this.