The Eye of Minds

The Eye of Minds

Cover Art
Author	James Smith Dashner
Cover artist	Stephanie Moss
Country	United States
Language	American English
Series	The Mortality Doctrine
Genre	Young-adult, science fiction
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback), ebook
Pages	308

The Eye of Minds is a 2013 teenage science fiction novel by James Dashner, and the first book in The Mortality Doctrine series. ^[1] The book was first published on October 8, 2013 by Delacorte Press and is set in a futuristic world where a young gamer must help stop a rogue hacker intent on causing mass destruction.

Of the novel, Dashner has stated that he did not view it as a "dystopian or post-apocalyptic tale" akin to his Maze Runner series, but he did view it as having "similarities in tone and feel and spirit to The Maze Runner".^[2]

Plot

In the future, (probably in the 2120s or 2130s) mankind has developed a new interpretation of gaming set in a virtual reality known as the VirtNet. Michael and his two friends Bryson and Sarah are employed by VNS, VirtNet Security, to track down a cyber-terrorist known as Kaine who has been trapping people inside the VirtNet, thus the gamers who are trapped commit suicide in real life by ripping out their Cores, the objects that are the layer between their virtual and their real life bodies. Using information from Cutter, a barber in the game Lifeblood Deep, Michael and his friends hack their way into Black and Blue club. They meet Ronika the witch, who tells them that to get to Kaine's supposed base in Hallowed Ravine, they must walk on the Path, which can be accessed through the game Devils of Destruction. However, creatures controlled by Kaine known as KillSims, which disintegrate VirtNet players and leave their real life bodies brain-dead, attack and disintegrate Ronika, and leave Michael with serious but occasional headaches. Michael and his friends then manage to gain access to the Path, which they find very difficult to beat. Along the way, they meet Gunner Skale, a formerly legendary gamer, who helps them realize that Kaine is actually a Rogue Tangent, Tangent being the slang term used for an AI in the VirtNet. After escaping from Skale after he tries to kill them, Michael and his friends continue on the Path, but Bryson and Sarah's VirtNet bodies are killed in the process, leaving Michael alone to keep going. Eventually, he reaches a crossroads, but a silver robot rips out his Core, so that if he dies, he dies in real life. After reaching Hallowed Ravine and discovering a Tangent meeting, the VNS sends agents to his location to attack. However, in the ensuing battle, with the KillSims attacking, a large number of VNS agents die. Kaine manages to bring Michael into a room, where Michael ends up blacking out. Michael wakes up in a Coffin, the devices used to play on the VirtNet, but realizes his body is somehow unfamiliar. He finds that Kaine left him a message saying that Michael is a Tangent and that he is the first successful subject of the Mortality Doctrine, which implants Tangent intelligence inside the humans, whose intelligence are stored in a quantum computer known as "The Hive". He also says that since he is now human, he won't receive headaches anymore, which were actually caused by Michael's Tangent intelligence decaying. Michael then realizes that he had lived in the game Lifeblood Deep and when he entered his Coffin, he entered the network used by real humans. He opens the door and meets Agent Weber, the VNS agent who contracted him to stop Kaine, who informs him that Bryson and Sarah are real, and also tells him to try to impersonate the human whose body he is in.

Development

While developing The Eye of Minds, Dashner wanted to avoid creating a world that was too similar to his earlier work, the Maze Runner series.^[3] Dashner enjoyed employing the virtual reality setting, as it allowed him an "endless" amount of worlds and settings for the novel.^[3] He drew inspiration for the book from multiple book and film sources, particularly The Matrix and Inception.^[3] Dashner has stated that he plans for the series' story arc to only span three books, as he felt that it "really [works] out well for what I want to happen overall" but that he does view the series as being more open to sequels than his earlier work Maze Runner.^[3]

Reception

Critical reception has been mostly positive.^[4][5] The School Library Journal and Booklist both gave The Eye of Minds a positive review, as both compared it positively to Dashner's Maze Runner series,^[6] with the School Library Journal stating that it "delivers an adrenaline rush."^[7] The Christian Science Monitor remarked that while they occasionally grew frustrated with "Dashner’s love affair with his own slang", they enjoyed the book greatly and thought that it would have a wide appeal.^[8] The Deseret News cautioned that The Eye of Minds had "relentless violence, blood, injury and mayhem", but that it was also "constant tension for a debatable end reward."^[9]

Sequel

Two sequels to The Eye of Minds have been published. The first, The Rule of Thoughts, was published on August 4, 2014. The Game of Lives was published on November 17, 2015.

Inspiration

After James Dashner published his last series "The Maze Runner", he went around the world to sign books. Arriving in Japan, he became fascinated by "Anime". He then took some time watching some of them, but one caught his attention the most was "SAO" (Sword Art Online). His main ideas were based on that story.

References

External links

• Official website
• Official author website
• www.goodreads.com/book/show/17700320-the-rule-of-thoughts