Minecraft: The Island

Minecraft: The Island is a novel by American author Max Brooks, which was published by Del Rey Books on July 18, 2017. Two audiobooks were also released on the same day, with narration provided by Jack Black and Samira Wiley, respectively.

Synopsis
It is a castaway story in the vein of Robinson Crusoe - the protagonist waking up alone, off the shores of a strange land, forced into a struggle to understand the rules of the new world, to survive its perils and thrive.

The person wakes up in this world and knows that they are from our world, but doesn’t know who they are in that world. They have no memory. It is a story of survival: waking up at the bottom of the ocean, swimming to an island, and having to survive on that island. And the story is, before this person can answer the really big questions like, “How did I get here? How do I get home?,” they have to solve the basic survival questions of “How do I eat?” and “How am I safe?” and “Where do I sleep at night?”

Chapter 1: Never Give Up
A person is drowning in the ocean when it sees a light from above. Swimming towards it, the person gasps for air as it breaks the surface, and proceeds to swim toward land, suspicious that it’s made of blocks. Upon swimming ashore, the person checks for any injuries, only to find that its hands and body are now shaped like squares and rectangles, and begins to realize that this may be a dream. Shrugging off the thought for a bit, the person begins figuring out how this “world” works in numerous ways.

Chapter 2: Panic Drowns Thought
The person scours the land for food, managing to find a few apples. Upon surveying the land, the person concludes that it’s “stretched out like a claw, two wooded pincers nearly enclosing a round, shallow lagoon.” The person also runs into a cow, two sheep, and a chicken before nightfall. The person then sees a zombie, and attempts to hide underground. Upon doing so, the person begins to imagine the zombie saying to the person that the world that they are in isn’t a dream, so the person now has to figure out how to survive in this world.

Chapter 3: Don’t Assume Anything
Eventually, daybreak arrives, and the person leaves from the underground hideaway to find the zombie has died, leaving behind rotten flesh. The person also makes the word “HELP” out of dirt blocks, and begins to learn crafting, making items such as a button, a chest, a few bowls, and a boat. The person begins sailing away from the patch of land, but then realizes that the decision to do so was a mistake, and eventually makes it back.

Chapter 4: Details Make the Difference
Upon arriving back at the island, the person makes a house out of dirt and wood and proceeds to make numerous tools such as a shovel, an axe, a hoe, and two pickaxes during nightfall.

Chapter 5: Be Careful for What You Have
Daybreak arrives once more, and the person begins making a wheat farm, whilst managing to curb starvation by eating an apple and raw chicken. By nightfall, the person ends up making a furnace, using it to make cooked chicken.