Gunner Skale: An Eye of Minds Story: The Mortality Doctrine

Gunner Skale is a short story that introduces us to "super gamer" Gunner Skale and the birth of the mortality doctrine. Gunner is the best gamer around. However, he regrets publicizing this. He is mobbed whenever he goes out in public. He also feels he can't game with his significant other because it will district from his prestige. In spite of this, he is fairly content with his life. He spends his non-gaming hours working with sponsors and others who desire his name for their cause. One group he encounters has created the "mortality doctrine". They are old school and use VR goggles instead of immersive "coffins" to show the experience. He feels misgivings upon meeting them, however, he becomes enthralled with it and really want to meet in the "coffin" virtual world. He goes there and lose their life and the mortality doctrine to rouge AIs.
This story opens up more questions than it answers. Who were these people that created the "mortality doctrine"? How did the virtual world know that it was something valuable that could be taken? How could virtual creations so easily "kill" real world creations? You wonder if the author had some ideas for the background but just couldn't quite flush them out.

The Game of Lives (The Mortality Doctrine, Book Three)

In the third mortality doctrine book, the good guys become bad guys, then good guys, then who knows what. The bad guy loses control, then saves the good guys, only to be upset and try to thwart their plan. It gets confusing. It is also unclear what the motives are of some of the characters.
The mortality doctrine provides "immortality" by allowing people to live some of their lives in the real world and some in the virtual world. It would seem to have a bunch of holes in it. What would happen if the real world population spiraled beyond carrying capacity? Or what if the "tangent" population got so great that there not enough bodies to inhabit? Or what if some of the "real" people decided to just pull the plug on the virtual world? And what if people just decide they don't like this immortality thing? Lots of things to explore. But, most of the time is just spent with people fighting and getting saved at the last minute. In the end, the real world is saved from the virtual and makes a quick trip back to normalcy. (Really? Wouldn't there be a call to ban the virtual world after all that had happened?) Could artificial intelligence one day decide it did not want to be subservient and take over our world? Alas, this was a thriller, leaving the metaphysical as a backdrop. The action is nonstop, even as the character development is lacking. (The character of Gabby seems especially undeveloped.)

The Rule of Thoughts (The Mortality Doctrine, Book Two)

"Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?"
The opening to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody pops in my head as I read Rule of Thoughts. The three kids love playing in a virtual reality world. However, a artificially intelligent "tangent" has implemented the "mortality doctrine" to allow virtual beings to inhabit the bodies of real people. The "virtual" has spilled over to the "real".
The kids see parents kidnapped and try to hook up with a "VirtNet Agent" to try to stop the destruction in the real world. However, when they thought they were destroying it in the virtual world, they were actually in the real world.
This feels like a rehash of the Maze Runner series. The kids are part of some elaborate game controlled by adults. They are trying to figure it out and "solve" it in order to save the world. However, they have trouble figuring out what is real and what is not. They almost always feel some sort of "unease" when going down a path that seems right at the time, but ends up being bad in the long run. There are also a few deaths on the way.
There is a tingling of romantic tension in the story, with Michael and Sarah seemingly on the verge of a relationship, but never quite expressing their feelings. (Though that does leave the other boy as a third wheel.) There is also the interesting tension of Gabby, the "real" girlfriend of Michael's adopted body. She traces him down and makes a few appearances. It feels like she should be more important than she is.

A Mutiny in Time: Infinity Ring, Book 1

Three kids must try to fight "Bad guys" to fix broken history. They live in an alternate world where Columbus was overthrown by a mutiny and a two brothers discovered America. There are also many other parts that are just a little bit different from our current world. One of the kids helps complete work on a ring that allows them to travel in time. They go back and try to fix problems in history. There are both "good guys" that help them as well as "bad guys" that are trying to take their advantage. It is a fun story with an interesting take on alternative history.

The Eye of Minds: Mortality Doctrine, Book One

In a near future world, a "Vritual world" is extremely popular. People enter "coffins" that stimulate there nerves and provide a full immersive experience. As part of it, they have a special "core" that prevents them from receiving lasting harm from the virtual experience. People play the games, while advanced users hack the system to get special abilities. Alas, there is something gone awry in the system that is resulting in people being harmed in the real world. Kaine seems to be "powerful gamer" that is leading to problems in the system. Not only is he creating issues in the virtual world, he is leading to deaths and potential destruction of the actual world. Three kids were tasked with undergoing a quest to find Kaine. They needed to complete many "video game" activities to eventually find Kaine and discover the "mortality doctrine" that enables Artificial Intelligent "tangents" to take over the body of a real human. The book ends up with an unexpected twist that sets it up for a sequel.

The Fever Code: Maze Runner, Book Five; Prequel

Fever Code, the final book in the Maze Runner series, takes place immediately before the first book. We see the story of Thomas as he is taken in by Wicked from a young age. He is isolated and forced to change his name from Steven. He gradually learns of other kids, but still gets special privileges. He, along with a select few others get to help design the mazes. As part of it, he is able to view what happens. He is shocked to see that the monsters inflict real harm and that boys kill each other. That is not the only blood he has on his hands. The new chancellor tasks him and other immune kids with giving lethal injections to Wicked staff members that have contracted the virus. We learn that this new chancellor was treacherous, and had in fact spread the virus, and was later spreading false emails from others to explain it. Thomas thought he was going into the maze with his memories intact, but had them wiped at the last minute. He is regularly double-crossed.
Wicked is portrayed as a stereotypical government agency that exists so that it can exist. It's predecessor had initially launched the virus to help control the human population after sun flares wrecked havoc on the environment. After the virus spun out of control, they were tasked with finding a cure. They would adopt any means to justify the ends, including ripping children from homes and killing their parents. They employed gruesome means of controlling the children in their justification.
This book continues on the theme of "beware unintended consequences". Is it worth it to throw away human civility in the quest for a miracle? It seems easy to justify. If the miracle does materialize, everyone would be saved. If it doesn't, then everyone would be dead. Though the mortgage of morality in quest of the miracle may be the very thing that keeps society from the peace it needs.

The Death Cure (Maze Runner, Book Three)

Each book in the Maze Runner series ends with the kids "escaping" the fake world to get into the real world. Then the next book picks up with a new level of "fakeness". In this third book, we think they are really in the real world. Is this actually the real world? Or is this another level of fakeness? We learn more about the "flare". Most of our characters are immune to it. They are studied to help find a cure. Their immunity lets them do things others can't. However, they are also heavily discriminated against by other people in the world. They hook up with another group that somewhat seems to be their allies, but has different goals. They are in Denver, which seems to be a fairly modern city. There are officers around that try to get rid of all the sick people so as not to contaminate the healthy. The sick are sent to a special "community" where they can live the rest of their life in happiness. However, with people going mad and having little to live for, it had devolved into squalor. These "cranks" decide they will break out and take over the city. Meanwhile, those with immunity had been rounded up and sent into to the "wicked" maze. Our heroes rescue them just in time and then go through a teleportation-like thing to a pastoral field where they can live happily ever after as the saviors of the human race. (However, in the process, many people die.) Our hero, Thomas, shoots and kills one of his friends who has the flare. He later kills a Wicked leader with his bare hands. He is no longer innocent of death. It could be argued that these both were near death anyway, but he still killed them. There is plenty of other violence and narrow escapes from catastrophe. (Things do seem to be just a little too close to be believable.)
Wicked had been tasked with finding a cure for what was apparently a biological weapon. People put their hope in this cure, and assumed that any ends would justify the means. People were lax on containing the outbreak because they though a cure was imminent. Alas, even with great effort, they were not able to find the cure. One leader with foresight had also set out a "plan b" that would put a bunch of immune people in a remote area. They would build up their own society and continue the human race after the rest of the world had fallen apart.
This "plan b" seems to be a wishful-thinking cop out. Could an area really be so remote that nobody else would discover it? Would society really disintegrate so fast that everybody would be cannibalized? There is potential for a couple more series exploring the "immune" society and the "collapse" of primary society. Would some of those immune be able to survive in the primary society? Would the isolated immunes turn on themselves? Could a society whose leaders killed in cold blood really continue peaceably? Is this saying something about some of our current problems, like climate change? IS it best just to find those that can deal with it, and let other parts of the world flood away? And we still have many open questions about why there is such a need to control the minds of people, and why they felt it good not to get memories back. And why was so much violence necessary? Many questions are left unanswered at the "end" of the series. IT seems obvious that additional books are needed.

Scorch Trials: Maze Runner, Book 2

The second Maze Runner book does not feel quite as dark as the first, thought it is very violent. It is also confusing. What is real? What is imagined? Did they escape the "Wicked" world, or are they just participating in yet another trial of that world? Are they really part of something that will help save the world? Or are they part of an cruel scientific experiment? Are the people that die really dying? And how did all these other people get there? There seem to be more questions than answers.
The book starts out where they left off in the first Maze Runner. However, things get weird. The girl disappears and is replaced by a boy. He had lived in an alternate experiment where he was the only boy among girls. He could also telepathically communicate with a girl. However, that girl was shot at the end. They see new things tattooed on their skin. Their lodging seems to do weird things. One day a man appears and gives them their "quest".

They go on the quest. They discover the alternate "girl group". They also run into some other "normal" people. In one case, Thomas is shot by somebody with an old gun. He finds himself whisked out of the world and operated on. Having people die seems fine, but it must be in the way expected.

In the end, Thomas is betrayed only to find that is the way out. We are told this is the end of the trial and now they will be in the real world. But do we believe it? The book goes overboard playing with "reality" that it is difficult to care. Is this the real world? Or is it fantasy? Does it matter? Is the real world one we would care about? That is the important lesson for a reader. The world is very different, yet it is set in the values of today. Would that realistically happen?

Maze Runner

A boy wakes up in a world with no memories in a world he does not understand. He discovers that it is a world with just boys. A new one comes every month. They get electricity and other basics provided for them. However, they have to work to provide food and solve a maze. They hope to sometime escape and get out. However, many of the boys get attacked by monsters and die. Some get stung, but get an anti-venom that causes them to undergo a changing. They get some of their thoughts back.
One day a girl appears, bringing on the beginning of the end. They finally make their way out of the maze, only to find it was part of a horrible experiment. The earth has been smitten by a plague. The maze was set up by a company in hopes of breeding special humans that can help come up with a solution. Other humans help rescue them. (This all seems to coincidentally come at the same time.)
The novel is very dark. These kids are locked in a fake world with real monsters with real death. Is this justified if it can bring about a cure for humanity? Ironically, the kids justify much to save a single boy, but find it abhorrent that they may all be sacrificed to save the human race. Does justification simply depend on free choice?