Hostage Run

Gr 7 Up—Rick Dial continues his quest to bring down the secret government organization behind the Mindwar Realm and save his family, his Realm friends, and now his ex-girlfriend Molly, who has been taken hostage by Miss Ferris and her secret agent lackeys. With the potential to be an action-packed page-turner, this second installment of the "Mindwar" trilogy (Thomas Nelson) unfortunately falls short of expections. Uneven writing filled with unecessarily detailed descriptions and wordy exposition makes this volume a laborious read. The poorly conceived Virtual Reality world, which was introduced in the previous volume, reveals a lack of knowledge of video games and advanced technology. While the addition of a female protagonist, Molly, brings a new element to the story, there is little appeal to her character. Finally, the continued use of a variety of foreigners as the baddies, including Islamist and Russian terrorists, creates an unrealistic and negative global viewpoint.