The Maze Runner is a Young Adult dystopian sci-fi novel written by James Dashner, who also wrote The Jimmy Fitcher Series, The 13th Reality Series, The Infinity Ring Series, and The Eye of Minds.
Thomas is a teenage boy who wakes up in a metal box with no memories except his name. The box turns out to be an elevator that delivers him to, “the glade”. There he finds more teenage boys and learns that they are in a prison of sorts. The glade is hidden within a vast, ever changing, mechanical maze. The elevator brings food and supplies once a week and a new boy each month. Some boys have been there for two years.
At dawn, huge steel doors open, and the best and brightest of the boys, “run”, the maze, trying to map it and find a way out. They must return before nightfall when the doors close. Being trapped in the maze overnight means certain death; large, mechanical creatures, the boys call grievers, patrol the maze at night.
Despite his lack of memory, Thomas feels an overwhelming sense of familiarity about the glade and the maze. He quickly proves his metal and becomes a maze runner.
A short time after Thomas arrives, the elevator brings something unprecedented: a girl. She seems hurt or sick and says that she will be the last one ever, then lapses into a coma. Her ominous statement, along with some mechanical abnormalities they observe with the glade and maze, convince the boys that time is running out. Now, they are infused with a sense of urgency to quickly solve the mystery of the maze and get out.
I find myself coming down neutral on his book. It manged to meet my minimum requirements; I cared enough about Thomas and his companions to keep turning pages, and I was intrigued enough about the story and its mysteries to finish the book, but only just. Nothing in this book – characters, story, world, or action – really revved the needle of my cool-ometer. I kept wanting more to come at them from the maze.
This is meant to be a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel with a bit of sci-fi mixed in. In this, it succeeded. If you’re really into this sub-genre, give it a read. Still, for me, it lacked a certain level of depth and detail, and I found myself unsatisfied with the ending. I felt that Mr. Dashner left too many unanswered questions for a proper, stand alone, book, even for a series. I suspect that more layers are revealed and more mysteries explained in the subsequent books, but I lost interest somewhere in chapter one of book two, The Scorch Trials.
A note on age category – I’d put this book squarely in the Young Adult category. The main characters are teenagers and the story and feel is on the darker side. I wouldn’t recommend it for the 12 and under crowd.
Scott Kirkman Books 