It has been a few years, but I am finally back to my adventure with the Pendragon series. It's never fun to forget key plot points when you leave a series for too long, but luckily, jumping back in is easy. There's not too many characters involved, and the plot is straightforward enough to recall without much effort. Honestly, if you need help remembering, a quick internet search will get you back on track in no time.
A quick overview, Pendragon: The Reality Bug is the fourth book in the Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space series. Written by D. J. MacHale, the story follows Bobby Pendragon as he travels through different dimensions to prevent local calamities and ultimately defeat the main villain, Saint Dane.
There will be spoilers as I continue my review below, so click away now if you want to avoid them!
Now let's dive a little bit into the story. In this fourth installment, Bobby travels to Veelox, a dimension where almost all of the citizens have abandoned the physical world in favour of Lifelight, a technology that allows them to create a perfect reality inside their own dream worlds. Aja Killian, the Traveler from Veelox, thought she had everything under control. Little did she know, Saint Dane is sneakier than she ever could have imagined.
Everyone is enjoying their own virtual realities so the physical world is desolate without people to run and manage it. To fix this, Aja decides to introduce a virus called the "Reality Bug" to hijack the system, making the experiences the people are having less than perfect and hopes that would force the people back to the real world. Unfortunately, her plan backfires. The Reality Bug goes wild, corrupting everyone's virtual worlds and turning them into dangerous, potentially fatal nightmares. Now, Bobby and Aja must track down Dr. Zetlin, the creator of Lifelight who is also currently living his best life inside his own perfect illusion, for help.
This was actually a very fun read for me. I've always enjoyed reading children's and young-adult books because their word choice is usually much easier to understand and digest for a reader like me, who speaks English as a second language. Nothing too complicated, and of course, the stories are just fun to read.
The setting of this book is especially interesting. Although we're still a few steps away from the high-concept technology of Lifelight, the concept of virtual reality taking over people's lives feels highly relatable. Honestly, I feel like we're moving toward that exact future if we're not careful. I wish the author had explored the world of Veelox a bit more - specifically the physical world outside of Lifelight. It would have been fascinating to learn how society functions when most of its citizens are living online instead of offline.
I've grown to love Bobby even more with this book. He was already great in the previous installments, but he matures a bit more here and is beginning to become the leader of the Travelers that he was always meant to be. Aja Killian was great too - she's smart but a bit snarky, which is a lethal combination if you ask me. As for Saint Dane, he still feels a bit of a mystery. Once again, he is not in the book much, and we still have no idea what motivates him to bring these dimensions down. Since this is already the fourth book, I wish we had learned more about him by now. Last but not least is Dr. Zetlin, whom I found quite interesting. He seems like someone who hates being around real people, yet he turns out to be quite resourceful during their escape from Lifelight. Other characters from previous books, like Loor, Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde, also appear in this installment.
While I found the story quite entertaining and well-paced overall, the later part of the book felt a bit repetitive, specifically the part where Bobby, Loor and Dr. Zetlin are running away from a "monster" that is chasing them. It felt like they were running back and forth through similar locations multiple times, making me feel like the author just wanted to pad the page count instead of actually progressing the plot. Aside from that small portion, the rest of the book was an enjoyable read.
And that brings a close to my review! The book series so far has been quite amazing, and it seems like Bobby is heading to an even crazier dimension in the next installment. I hope to continue my journey with Bobby soon and tell you all about it in my next review. Until then, take care!
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