Catch The Mind Game Executed By Hector Macdonald Visible In Textbook

kind of liked and disliked this novel at the same time, because the plot was strong, twisting and turning and pulling you through to see how things would work out, but the characterisation weak and verging on the immature although perhaps I shouldnt have read the author was twenty eight years old.
When I finished it, I felt there were plenty of loose ends to tie up, plot culdesacs and sweeping closing explanations trying to cover a multitude of these sins.
The massive proposition that papered over many of the cracks was that men will do just about anything, and believe just about anything, as long as its told to them by a stunning bird whos promising you a shag later on.
He was spot on accurate with that! It's been years since I read this but I remember being completely fooled at the end, The story drew me right in, Maybe it was my age being similar to the main character that helped put myself in his shoes,
The guy who gave me the book told me to go back and read the first page after I finish, I'd recommend the same thing to everyone else, One of the best books I have read in the last year as well as the Hummingbird Saint, makes you really think and very paranoid A real pageturner about an Oxford student interested in game theory who takes part in medical research in Kenya.
It soon becomes clear that the whole story is a psychological 'game', but which parts are real, and which are not There are lots of ups and downs that sometimes stretch believability, but it was such a compulsive thriller that I was quite willing to forgive the author for that.
I'd definitely read more by Hector MacDonald, I'd recommend it if you liked The Beach and I'd also say there were shades of Michael Crichton, A university student volunteers in an experiment to have his emotions assessed and measured, but underestimates the post traumatic stress he would suffer afterwards, as well as the extensive layers of secrecy placed on the whole project by his tutor and sponsors.

Based around the fascinating subjects of emotion and game theory, the book starts off strong, but many parts read too much like watching a movie, After the main experiment, layers of deception starts to be revealed, mostly replaced by more deception and plot twists, so much so that I felt a bit frustrated and paranoid at all the characters even to the end.
I can see that the author wanted introduce different talking points of the implications of emotion control on society and how people may react, but this may have been better delivered with a different story structure and some deeper character developments.
The story takes aboutpages to really get going, After that it's preety fast paced, Lots of travel and intrigue, more twists than a Sierra switchback, The Mind Game is likely to appeal to fans of the classic novel by John Fowles, The Magus, Since then, there have been a whole series of books and films dealing with a similar premise: an individual is in a situation where he can't determine what's real while sinister external forces manipulate reality.
Examples of this include The Matrix series, Pleasantville, The Game a movie starring Michael Douglas and The Stunt Man directed by Richard Rush and my favorite movie in this category.
However, it is clearly The Magus that most influences The Mind Game, Both novels take place at least partly in warm beach climates, In both novels, a young and rather naive Englishman is thrown into a world of deceit, romance, and danger,

In The Mind Game, the protagonist, Ben, is manipulated by his tutor, a renowned but controversial researcher named Fielding who's conducting scientific experiments on emotions.
He persuades Ben and his new girlfriend Carisa to travel to Kenya on a paid vacation, The huge catch is that Ben has to wear a hightech device that measures his every emotion, This trip turns out to be anything but a relaxing beach holiday, with Ben experiencing everything from romantic betrayal to serious encounters with the law I don't want to give too much away.


The main theme of the novel is who is pulling the strings and who, if anyone, can Ben trust The novel opens with a game of Truth or Dare, which sets the stage.
Fielding discusses Game Theory with Ben as well, which turns out to be another ongoing theme, Game Theory, of course, takes a very conflictdriven look at life where you see yourself as pitted against other "players, "

The novel raises interesting questions about scientific research, It remains ambiguous until close to the end what exactly the nature of the scientific research is or if the whole thing really is about science at all.
Either way, it opens up the question of what is and isn't justified in service to science,

It's also interesting to read, in, a techoriented novel written around, This

was the early days of the Internet and just before the Dot, com crash. This was before Google, smartphones, and social media, So we have people looking up information online but we have to keep remembering they can't just Google it, Even the premise of a gadget that can read emotions no longer seems nearly as futuristic as it did a mereyears ago,

The Mind Game is by no means the literary masterpiece that The Magus is, It reads more like a Hollywood film and adds all kinds of scientific and technological topics to the mix, The Mind Game is written in a fastpaced style that's popular today, full of twists and turns, As I read it, I could easily visualize it as a film, though, as far as I know, none has been created yet, To me, that's not really a compliment, Many popular authors are clearly thinking of a movie deal as they write their novels, which keeps things moving fast but on a rather superficial level,

While The Mind Game is always engaging, it doesn't have a great deal of emotional impact sort of ironically, considering the subject because the characters are mostly types who fill certain fairly predictable roles.
Ben is the nice guy in over his head, Carisa is the femme fatale whose loyalty is always in question, Fielding is the master manipulator,

As in most twisty novels and films, the plot doesn't necessarily hold up to scrutiny if you really think about it, However, it's interesting and thoughtprovoking as it unfolds, The scientific and philosophical questions raise it above the level of mindless action,

With the references to the Dot, com revolution and people doing their preGoogle searches online, The Mind Game is a bit dated, At the same time, it's not quite deep enough to be a true period piece, Still, it's a worthy addition to the fascinating individualcaughtinavastweb genre, .