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The Rule of Thoughts (The Mortality Doctrine, Book Two) by [James Dashner]

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James Dashner

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

by James Dashner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

906 ratings

Book 2 of 3: Mortality Doctrine

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Reality just became a virtual nightmare in book two of the bestselling Mortality Doctrine series, the next phenomenon from the author of the Maze Runner series, James Dashner.

Includes a sneak peek of The Fever Code,the highly-anticipated conclusion to the Maze Runner series—the novel that finally reveals how the maze was built!

Michael thought he understood the VirtNet, but the truth he discovered is more terrifying than anyone at VirtNet Security could have anticipated.
The cyber terrorist Kaine isn’t human. It’s a Tangent, a computer program that has become sentient. And Michael just completed the first step in turning Kaine’s master plan, the Mortality Doctrine, into a reality. The Mortality Doctrine will populate Earth entirely with human bodies harboring Tangent minds. The VNS would like to pretend the world is perfectly safe, but Michael and his friends know that the takeover has already begun. And if they don’t stop Kaine soon, it will be game over for humanity.

The author who brought you the #1 New York Times bestselling MAZE RUNNER series and two #1 movies—The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials—now brings you an electrifying cyber-adventure trilogy that takes you into a world of hyperadvanced technology, cyber terrorists, and gaming beyond your wildest dreams . . . and your worst nightmares.

Praise for the Bestselling MORTALITY DOCTRINE series:

“Dashner takes full advantage of the Matrix-esque potential for asking ‘what is real.’” —io9.com

“Set in a world taken over by virtual reality gaming, the series perfectly capture[s] Dashner’s hallmarks for inventiveness, teen dialogue and an ability to add twists and turns like no other author.” —MTV.com

“A brilliant, visceral, gamified mash-up of The Matrix and Inception, guaranteed to thrill even the non-gaming crowd.” —Christian Science Monitor

Reading age

11+ years, from customers
Print length

338 pages
Language

English
Grade level

7 - 9
Lexile measure

750L
Publisher

Delacorte Press
Publication date

August 26, 2014
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ISBN-13

978-0385741415
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the Mortality Doctrine Series:

“Dashner takes full advantage of the Matrix-esque potential for asking ‘what is real.’” —io9.com

“Set in a world taken over by virtual reality gaming, the series perfectly capture[s] Dashner’s hallmarks for inventiveness, teen dialogue and an ability to add twists and turns like no other author.” —MTV.com

“A brilliant, visceral, gamified mash-up of The Matrix and Inception, guaranteed to thrill even the non-gaming crowd.” —Christian Science Monitor

"An exhilarating adventure story with touches of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider books and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game."-Booklist.com

“More realistic and addictive than any video game—The Eye of Minds sucked me in from the very first page. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets The Matrix in a vividly rendered world of gamers, hackers, and cyber-terrorists. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!”—Kami Garcia, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures and author of Unbreakable

“A gripping page-turner, Dashner’s latest is sure to please.”—BookPage

"Dashner's descriptions are screenplay-ready...This book will satisfy the author’s fans...[and readers] in search of an adrenaline rush."-School Library Journal

“Full of action [and] a rather surprising twist that will leave you flipping pages.”—fanboynation.com

“High on concept, this is an intriguing read for the digital generation.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Dashner once again creates a dystopian world in which nothing is what it seems."-VOYA

A Junior Library Guild Selection

A YALSA Teens Top Ten Pick

From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

James Dashner is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series: The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure, and The Kill Order, as well as The Eye of Minds and The Rule of Thoughts, the first two books in the Mortality Doctrine series. Dashner was born and raised in Georgia, but lives and writes in the Rocky Mountains. To learn more about James and his books, visit jamesdashner.com, follow @jamesdashner on Twitter, and find dashnerjames on Instagram.

From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up—Beginning where The Eye of Minds (Delacorte, 2013) left off, The Rule of Thoughts finds Michael reeling from the knowledge that he is—or was—a Tangent: a nonhuman string of code that lived only in the VirtNet. Thanks to Kaine's experiments, Michael now possesses the body and mind of human Jax Porter, and he is doing his best to process what has happened. He realizes that Kaine is out to get him and that Agent Weber, from VirtNet Security, isn't going to protect him as promised. Michael/Jax reunites with Sarah and Bryson and the "Trifecta to Dissect-ya" heads back into the Sleep, to code and hack their way to find answers. As in The Eye of Minds, Dashner's action-packed short chapters are divided into numbered sections. The gamers leap from one dangerous situation to another in the Wake and in the virtual reality of Lifeblood Deep. Dashner's descriptions are screenplay-ready, with Portals in malls, virtual battles, and a giant purple Ray of Power. This book will satisfy the author's fans, reluctant readers, and gamers in search of an adrenaline rush. Suggest to fans of Debra Driza's "Mila 2.0" trilogy (HarperCollins) and William Campbell Powell's stand-alone Expiration Day (Tor, 2014). This title will please older teens comfortable with a slower narrative pace.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Michael was not himself.

He lay on the bed of a stranger, staring up at a ceiling he had seen for the first time just the day before. He’d been disoriented and sick to his stomach all night, catching sleep only in fitful, anxious, nightmare-fueled jags. His life had blown apart; his sanity was slipping away. His very surroundings--the foreign room, the alien bed--were unforgiving reminders of his terrifying new life. Fear sparked through his veins.

And his family. What had happened to his family? He wilted a little more every time he pictured them.

The very first traces of dawn--a gloomy, pale light--made the shuttered blinds of the window glow eerily. The Coffin next to the bed sat silent and dark, as foreboding as a casket dug from a grave. He could almost imagine it: the wood rotting and cracked, human remains spilling out. He didn’t know how to look at the objects around him anymore. Real objects. He didn’t even understand the word real. It was as if all his knowledge of the world had been yanked out from under his feet like a rug.

His brain couldn’t grasp it all.

His . . . brain.

He almost burst out in a laugh, but it died in his chest.

Michael had only had an actual, physical brain for the last twelve hours. Not even a full day, he realized, and that pit in his stomach doubled in size.

Could it really all be true? Really?

Everything he knew was a result of artificial intelligence. Manufactured data and memories. Programmed technology. A created life. He could go on and on, each description somehow worse than the one before it. There was nothing real about him, and yet now here he was, transported through the VirtNet and the Mortality Doctrine program and turned into an actual human being. A living, breathing organism. A life, stolen. So that he could become something he didn’t even understand. His view of the world had been shattered. Utterly.

Especially because he wasn’t sure if he believed it. For all he knew, he could be in another program, another level of Lifeblood Deep. How could he ever again trust what was real and what was not? The uncertainty would drive him mad.

He rolled over and screamed into his pillow. His head--his stolen, unfamiliar head--ached from the thousands of thoughts that pounded through it, each one fighting for attention. Fighting to be processed and understood. And feeling pain here was no different from feeling it as a Tangent. Which only served to confuse him more. He couldn’t accept that before last night he’d just been a program, a long line of code. It didn’t compute. That did make him laugh, and the pain in his head intensified and spread, slicing down his throat and filling his chest.

He yelled again, which didn’t help, then forced himself to swing his legs off the bed and sit up. His feet touched the cool wooden floor, reminding him once again that he was now in a strange land. Lush carpet had blanketed the apartment he’d always known, which seemed homier, warmer, safe. Not cold and hard. He wanted to talk to Helga, his nanny. He wanted his parents.

And those were the thoughts that almost did him in completely. He’d been avoiding them, pressing them back into that pulsing swirl of thousands of other thoughts, but they weren’t going anywhere. They stood out and demanded attention.

Helga. His parents.

If what Kaine had said was true, they were as synthetic as Michael’s programmed fingernails had been. Even his memories. He would never know which ones had been programmed into his artificial intelligence and which ones he’d actually experienced within the code of Lifeblood Deep. He didn’t even know how long he’d existed--his true age. He could be two months old, or three years, or a hundred.

He imagined his parents and Helga as fake, or gone, or dead, maybe never there in the first place. It just didn’t make sense.

The ache that had crept its way into his chest filled his heart, and grief overtook him. He slumped back onto the bed and rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow. For the first time in his existence, Michael cried as an actual human being. But the tears felt no different than they ever had before. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00IBZ3YU4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Delacorte Press (August 26, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 26, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 9238 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #242,407 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
906 ratings

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James Dashner

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James Dashner is the #1 NY Times Bestselling author of over a dozen books, including The Maze Runner series (movies by 20th Century Fox, now owned by Disney). He grew up in Georgia but now lives in the Rocky Mountains with his wife and their four children. For more information on him and his books, events, etc., please visit jamesdashner.com.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

906 global ratings

5 star		77%
4 star		17%
3 star		5%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Kimberly StClair

Entertaining

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 14, 2022

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These should be made into movies. I love the premise and the story. I could really see this happening sometime in the future.

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madelyn

James Dashner I love your book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 3, 2015

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I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I love the idea of the technology world, and I love the plot. I love how everything wasn't obvious. I loved all of it. Almost.

It bothered me that Michael (I think that's how you spell it) and Sarah weren't really a thing. Don't you think you could have lengthened it out a tiny bit and at least end it when they kiss?
And, the cliff hanger bothered me. I absolutely hate them. I understand what they are for, but really?! This is almost as bad as Mark of Athena (percy jackson, written by Rick Riordan. The first book is The Lightning Thief. It's amazing, and If yo love Cliffies he is for you) but did you really have to make it that bad of a Cliffie???

Okay, now that I have that off of my chest, let me go to my next point: some things were confusing at first. I'll admit that. But once I caught on, it was amazing. And let me talk about that ending. That ending was nothing close to what I thought would happen. Heck, I didn't even have a clue what I thoughtless happen! I just know that was not what I was expecting. You explained it perfectly.

I want you to know how amazing this was to me: I finished it in a little over a day. And, I ha a play yesterday. And school. I could not stop reading! It was that good! If you are thinking about reading this book, just know it ripped my heart out, and threw it to the ground. And you know it's a good book when that happens. Oh, the FEELS!

2 people found this helpful

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Nate

Even better then Last one 😀.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 9, 2015

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I am amazed by James Dashner; again. I read The Eye of Minds in 4 days and I read this on e faster. If you thought the first one was good then you'll like this one even more. I like this book because there is a lot of action. No scary nightmares; like Maze Runner. Even though I really enjoyed that series. If you enjoy James Dashner, then you'll love The Rule of Thoughts. I own all of James Dashner's published books (I'm pretty sure) This was my Second Favorite, my first was The 13TH Reality Series. Which is an everybody book. On the other hand, This book isn't all Rainbows and Lollipops the whole way through. Not one part is actually. There is barely any sexual themes involved. Although, as I mentioned, there is a lot of Gore and Action. I recommend this book for preteens and teens, but mature 9 year olds can read.

7 people found this helpful

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D.S. Cahr

Like Robert Ludlum writing for the Disney Channel...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2014

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James Dashner is all about one thing - outlandishly propulsive YA stories focused on boys in danger. He's not interested in realism, emotional resonance, clever characterizations...he wants you to read his books like a runaway train. And he's damn good at it, too - he's like Robert Ludlum writing for the Disney Channel. His newest series, The Mortality Doctrine (Rule of Thoughts is the second book in what looks to be a trilogy) is not as intense as The Maze Runner (and, to be fair, how could it be?) but it is exceptionally entertaining, and includes all of the classic modern YA tropes of networked dystopia (shifting notions of what is real, wildly vivid virtual reality games colliding and eclipsing "normal" life, conspiracies) that can be found in everything from Ready Player One and Feed to ("kicks rock, looking embarrassed") The Secret Root. So for this type of book there is only one test: should you read it? The answer is simple: yes.

5 people found this helpful

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Laura Lee

WOW!! I loved the Maze Runner13th Reality series' but this one is even better.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 25, 2014

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Dashner is an incredible writer with an amazing imagination of coming up with stories that keep you reading when you're way past bedtime, can barely keep your eyes open, but you can't stop wanting to find out what comes next! The cliff hanger ending is killing me, as I now have to wait a year until the next one comes out. But that's ok as long as they continue to be this good, I'll wait (impatiently!). I don't mind rereading the first two again to remember where things left off, because good books are ones you enjoy rereading over and over. Isn't that why you buy them instead of borrowing or renting from the library? Thanks Dashner for all the great fun of this story so far! I can't wait to see where you take us next in the plot.

One person found this helpful

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Kelli

Another middle book to nowhere (AKA trilogy syndrome).

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2016

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I spent a lot of time in this book saying "hunh?" in my head.

The main characters spend a lot of time with someone after them, and it is really confusing about who is actually after them. Even at the end, I still felt much of this had not been completely resolved. To add to this confusion, it wasn't always clear about when the main characters were in the wake or in the sleep. I would have thought that they would have been able to easily discern this because of the coding. Would the real world have the same coding as the virtual world? When the author tries to convince us that they couldn't tell the difference, I was extremely disappointed. Adding to this was when the author decided to change the rules of the virtual world. The purple sea is just code, so they can't actually die in it. Yet, if you jump off a virtual cliff which is just code, you can die in it. (Not to be snarky, but his is also JUST CODE).

We add to this rather confusing middle book with the continual vacillating storyline that Weber is good or she is actually evil. In the end, the book did not progress very far. It was another middle book to nowhere, and only two things have happened that actually add to the story. The kids were fooled into doing a bad thing in the wake, while they believed they were in the sleep. Everyone learns there are tangents that have taken up residence in real people. (So if you decide to not read this book, you won't be missing out on much).

3 people found this helpful

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Carter

Such a great series!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 1, 2016

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The Mortality Doctrine has so far been an amazing journey that I have been taken on along with Michael, Sarah, Bryson, and their whole futuristic world. Dashner truly is an artist among artists, and these books are so detailed. This has an Inception/Matrix vibe to it, but also has a bit of mystery as well. I'm looking forward to reading the final book, and not looking forward to the emptiness of not having a book to read. I recommend this book and the rest of the series. If I could rate ten stars, I would. This was so great.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer

Great book defiantly recommend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 16, 2021

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I liked this book however I don't think it's as good as the first one in the series. I found the plot a bit to hard to follow and I couldn't keep up with the pace of the book. I do, however, think it is worth reading.
I'd recommend this book to people over 12 but if you've already read the first book you should be fine.
Thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful!

Mark Cargill

Just brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 30, 2017

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Amazing book.,, no words do it justice I can't wait to read the next installment in the series keep writing these please!!!

Mr. N. Malik

Great writer, fast paced story lines and strong characters. Read one book and then went on to read many by this author.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 31, 2017

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Great writer, fast paced story lines and strong characters. Read one book and then went on to read many by this author.

Kindle fan

Morality Doctrine

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 4, 2015

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The Morality Doctrine is is one of the best books I've read thanks James dasher before I started reading your books I could never work out what was my favourite book type and you have helped me find it. I would really suggest this book as its one of the best. It has many unsuspected plot twists that really help keep the book interesting.

Du Watson

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 14, 2015

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A great read! There were quite a few parallels with Maze Runner in style, but a clever idea.

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