There is a boy in a white room. When he wakes, he knows nothing and feels nothing until an AI called Alice turns on and lets him surf the internet. Here, he figures out where he's located and, eventually, the few facts of his existence: his name is Manuel, he's the son of a millionaire, and he's in a virtual world because his body has been crushed in the real world. While the virtual world can offer amazing things e first thing his father shows him is a reconstruction of Middle-earth from The Lord of the Rings nuel is still unsure and unhappy. He can explore the outside world as "a human brain trapped in a robot body," and he sets about trying to remember his lie before his accident, wondering if he's being told the whole truth. The title sets the stage for this standalone novel. German author Olsberg's work has only recently begun to be translated into English, and this middle-grade mystery struggles to feel complete.

A science-fiction thriller translated from German about a boy trapped in a virtual world.The teen wakes up locked in a silent, white, square room, devoid of memories. He can't smell anything, has no sense of touch, and when he tries to speak, his robotic voice sounds computer-generated. He eventually learns from a man who introduces himself as his father that he is a 15-year-old named Manuel, lives in Hamburg, and is the survivor of a kidnapping attempt during which his mother was killed and he was left for dead, his body damaged beyond repair. Through new technology, his father was able to rescue his brain, and, after a series of operations, Manuel is now able to survive a primarily virtual existence in a simulation of Middle-earth created especially for him due to his love of Tolkien's books. But the more Manuel interacts with the outside world through the internet (with the help of Alice, his voice-activated virtual assistant), the more he comes to question whether he is being told the truth about what happened and who he really is. Carefully crafted, thought-provoking questions about identity, self, and humanity are interwoven with heavy-handed elements pulled from The Lord of the Rings and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to tell a punchy, fast-paced story that doesn't quite coalesce into a convincing, cohesive whole in its rushed ending. The largely racially ambiguous characters are minimally described.An intriguing if uneven journey of self-discovery. (Science fiction. 13-18)