Onwards! This time around, Pendragon has come to the territory of Veelox, dealing with a virtual reality addiction crisis. It’s a topic that comes up over and over again in science fiction and even in real world media coverage, warning that as virtual reality gets better and better, it will be harder and harder for people to leave, leading to society decaying. Regardless of what you think about the idea of such a thing happening in the real world, it’s an interesting enough take to build the story on.

Characterwise, Aja is actually one of the more interesting travelers we’ve been introduced to. She’s so confident in herself at first that she nearly refuses Bobby’s help, but as could be expected, things go sideways. She seems to learn from her mistakes and finally admits that perhaps she can’t save the world all by herself.

The main problem I had with this story was the final battle with the eponymous Reality Bug when it made it into 'reality' didn’t make any sense. They don’t even try to explain it really or even hang a lampshade on it. Kind of annoying that…

Beyond that, I still don’t really care for Mark and Courtney’s storyline. Oh they’re in High School now. Cool. It’s nice that they’re looking to get more involved by looking into becoming acolytes, but it takes yet another entire book for not much to happen. I’m still not convinced the books wouldn’t be made better just by removing those sections.

It’s fascinating to see Saint Dane actually win one though . He’s been getting closer and closer through the series. Really makes me want to see what the fallout from that is in the next couple books. He’s still not a super interesting villain though. Just evil for the sake of being evil and… that’s about it so far as character goes.

So it goes.

Interesting enough, on to the next one.