James Dashner’s The Game of Lives Answers Readers’ Most Burning Questions

So the arrival of The Game of Lives, the third and final book in Dashner’s Mortality Doctrine series, is a gift to his fans and to new readers about to discover the series. It answers all of readers’ most burning questions, while serving up new twists, surprises, and an action-packed story.

The Solutions
The Game of Lives picks up right where The Rules of Thoughts left off, with Michael, Bryson, and Sarah in the back seat of a car. Sarah’s parents have just broken Michael out of prison following his strange encounter with an unnamed man and, separately, Agent Weber. Dashner doesn’t waste time throwing Michael and his friends back into the fight against Kaine and his horrific plans for humanity—and he doesn’t hold back in finally revealing the truth behind Kaine’s creation, the Mortality Doctrine itself, and, most shockingly…well, you’ll have to read the book to find out. It’s a fast-paced series of revelations that will leave your head spinning.

The True Death
Stories taking place in a virtual reality setting have to work hard to maintain their stakes—after all, when “reality” is mutable and death just means a reboot, why does anything matter? So Dashner’s inclusion of a “true death” in the world of VirtNet—a death that means the end of a life in both the Wake and the Sleep—is absolutely vital to keep the tension high. Michael and his friends are literally risking their lives by fighting for the truth and the defeat of the Mortality Doctrine. The whole world, in fact, is at risk of actually ending.

Twists and Turns
To say that Dashner makes your head spin with the twists and turns of this concluding story is an understatement. Michael teams up and allies with the one character you won’t believe he ever would, and the true enemy they’re all fighting against shifts and changes as the story unfolds—but it’s all seamlessly done. As everyone’s true agendas are laid bare, there’s a moment when everything that has gone before is turned on its head in the most thrilling way possible.
It All Ends in The Wake
One of the most exciting choices Dashner makes is where he ends his story. Will its final pages play out in The Sleep, the VirtNet worlds where anything is possible and code can be bent to your will in exciting ways? Or will his story conclude in The Wake, the flesh-and-blood world? His choices serves to brilliantly up the stakes, and to answer lingering questions about the mystery man who visited Michael in prison at the end of The Rule of Thoughts, the resolution of which is one of the neatest tricks Dashner pulls off.
That Last Line
After a surprising ending, Dashner gives loyal readers a contemplative epilogue that gives us one last visit with Michael—and also offers a ray of hope, lightening a grueling event that takes place earlier in the book. Without undoing anything or playing any sort of “bait and switch” with his own rules, Dashner ends the story with a killer line that will have fans of the Mortality Doctrine cheering.