I’ve noticed a bit of an uptick in YA books featuring virtual reality recently. The concept is certainly not new; ever since the idea of virtual reality has existed, writers have been speculating upon how it could go terribly, horribly wrong. In 1991, a year which pre-dates my own teenage years (also a time before most Americans had internet), Monica Hughes wrote Invitation to the Game, a dystopia about a group of teens who are coerced by the government into playing a supposedly innocuous virtual reality “game” that’s revealed to have nefarious purposes. Hughes’ book is certainly not the first to tackle this topic, nor are books the only medium. I remember an episode of Who’s Afraid of the Dark about a group of kids who got caught in a sort of virtual reality game, playing the same level over and over again, never able to escape. It also seems like most long-running science fiction tv shows will have a token virtual reality episode (I’m thinking specifically of a Stargate SG-1 episode called Gamekeeper, but I know I’ve seen similar episodes in other shows).

Virtual reality is tied up very closely with gaming in general. Both gaming and virtual reality deliberately blur the line between reality and fantasy, and books that focus on these topics force us to see how one can bleed into the other. Are we different people when we’re plugged in? How much control can we cede to a game – to a computer – before we cease to be ourselves? In some cases, can the game be preferable to our real lives – can the game be our real lives?

As technology becomes even more integrated into our daily tasks, this is a topic we return to over and over again. M. T. Anderson wrote his modern classic Feed in 2002, before smartphones had conquered teen communication. Recently, Lauren Miller’s Free to Fall explored how an app can consume our lives, dictating all of our decisions if we let it – and even when we try not to let it. These kinds of stories exist both as entertainment and as cautionary tales, a bit of irony in itself.

This booklist features titles that involve gaming or virtual reality in some way. I’ve also thrown in a few books about hacking, since there seems to be a lot of crossover, particularly in theme (think The Matrix movies, which depict a world where our brains are hacked by the machines we created, keeping us in a permanent virtual reality). All descriptions are from Worldcat (aside from the last one, which is Goodreads). Which recent titles have I missed?

Eye of Minds by James Dashner
Michael is a skilled internet gamer in a world of advanced technology.
When a cyber-terrorist begins to threaten players, Michael is called
upon to seek him and his secrets out. (The Worldcat synopsis doesn’t mention it, but the advanced technology referred to is a large-scale virtual reality world called the VirtNet that consumes most people’s lives.)

For the Win by Cory Doctorow
A group of teens from around the world find themselves drawn into an
online revolution arranged by a mysterious young woman known as Big
Sister Nor, who hopes to challenge the status quo and change the world
using her virtual connections.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security
in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco,
California, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a
police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set
things right. | Sequel: Homeland

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner
In a near-future New York City, fourteen-year-old computer genius Sam
Wilson manages to hack into the AT&T network and sets off a chain of
events that have a profound effect on human activity throughout the
world.

Elusion by Claudia Gabel & Cheryl Klam
Teens uncover the dangerous secrets of a virtual reality program that’s taking the country by storm. | Sequel: Etherworld

Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon
After waking up on an operating table with no memory of how she got
there, Noa must team up with computer hacker Peter to stop a corrupt
corporation with a deadly secret. | Sequels: Don’t Look Now, Don’t Let Go | Kimberly’s review

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks
Child prodigy Cadel Piggot, an antisocial computer hacker, discovers his
true identity when he enrolls as a first-year student at an advanced
crime academy. (This also fits in well with the teenage criminals booklist.) | Sequels: Genius Squad, The Genius Wars

Insignia by S. J. Kincaid
Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited
by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as
a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do
the actual fighting off-planet. | Sequels: Vortex, Catalyst | Kimberly’s review

Epic by Conor Kostick
On New Earth, a world based on a video role-playing game,
fourteen-year-old Erik persuades his friends to aid him in some unusual
gambits in order to save Erik’s father from exile and safeguard the
futures of each of their families. | Sequels: Saga, Edda

Rush by Eve Silver
Rochester, New York, high schooler Miki Jones is pulled into a sort of a
game in which she and other teens battle real-life aliens and the
consequences of each battle could be deadly. | Sequels: Push, Crash

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (2002)
While playing a total immersion virtual reality game of kings and
intrigue, fourteen-year-old Giannine learns that demonstrators have
damaged the equipment to which she is connected, and she must win the
game quickly or be damaged herself.

Honorable Mention Adult Crossover: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like
most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending
his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that
lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play
and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.