The Maze Runner
Review of the novel The Maze Runner by James Dashner.
Published by Delacorte Press on 6th October 2009.
Cost: £7.99
ISBN 978-1-908435-13-2 (Paperback Edition - 371 pages)
Having seen the recent film of this book my son suggested I read the series of the books. As you can imagine, the film is slightly different from the book.
The lead character is a teenage boy called Thomas, we join him waking up in a lift with no memory of his past. When the lift doors open, he is pulled into a glade by a group of boys who also have no memories other than their names.
Thomas gradually discovers that the Glade is run by two boys, Alby and Newt, who maintain order by enforcing strict rules. Outside the Glade is the Maze; a labyrinth of high walls covered in ivy that house strange, lethal creatures they call the Grievers. For two years the boys have been trying to stay alive as well as "solving" the Maze, by running through it as fast as they can while tracking movements of the walls and trying to find an exit. Thomas suggests that the walls of the Maze are not random, but that their movements are actually a code, leading to the discovery that the Maze is spelling out words.
After Thomas's arrival, a girl is delivered through the lift into the Glade and subsequently lapses into a coma. To make matters worse, her arrival triggers everything in the Glade to change: the sun disappears, the deliveries of supplies stop coming, and the doors of the Maze stay open at night which allows the Grievers to enter the Glade to hunt the children.
In an act of desperation to get his memory back, Thomas gets himself stung by a Griever and discovers the Griever home is indeed an exit. Furthermore, the code that the Maze has been spelling out is the clue to their escape.
A large group of the teenagers led by Thomas, decide to make a run for it through the maze, feeling what could be worse than being stuck in the Glade. They succeed, only to find out that they've been involved in an experiment being conducted by the Creators, a group called WICKED, who may or may not be evil.
After exiting the maze the boys and Teresa then get "rescued" by rebels and taken to a safe haven while being told about "the Flare" - an apocalyptic occurrence that killed off half of the world's population. The epilogue reveals that the "rebel group" may just be another variable in the experiment, and they weren't the only group being evaluated.
This book is for the younger reader, it lets them escape into a world of mystery, with hints of danger, but mostly excitement. There is tension between the boys and the world they find themselves in. Living in the Glade the boys have developed their own language, which is not always easy to follow and I’m not sure the boys use it in the same way. The story finishes with a cliff-hanger at the end, and made me want to read the other two in the series. In this book particularly there are a lot of questions left unanswered, and only a little more is revealed in book two and three, however, a prequel book four does explain a lot of the mystery. Certainly a good read. Rating: 4 stars
Dr James Sheppard
30th June 2015
