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The Maze Runner

Author	James Dashner
Cover artist	Philip Straub
Language	American English
Genre	Young-adult, dystopian future, science fiction, post-apocalyptic
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Publication date	October 2009
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	374
ISBN	978-0-385-73794-4
LC Class	PZ7.D2587Maz 2009
Preceded by	The Kill Order
Followed by	The Scorch Trials

The Maze Runner is the first book in a young-adult dystopian science fiction trilogy of the same name by James Dashner. The novel was published October 2009 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House. The book was shopped around and is currently in production for a major motion picture by 20th Century Fox. James Dashner announced in November 2011 that he was writing a prequel to The Maze Runner titled The Kill Order, which was released August 14, 2012.

Summary

Thomas, the main character, wakes up in a elevator without the memory of his past life. He is welcomed into a large area called the Glade, populated by a group of sixty or so teenage boys called "Gladers". The Glade is surrounded by massive concrete walls, beyond which lie an enormous maze. All Gladers have arrived the same way as Thomas: one every month, with memories wiped. The first Glader arrived approximately two years before. Every week, essential supplies are delivered to the Glade. Thomas meets several Gladers including Alby (leader), Newt (second-in-command), Minho (head of Runners), Gally (Thomas's rival), and Chuck (Thomas's good friend). Newt explains to Thomas that the large openings into the Maze on each wall close at night and the walls to the Maze shift during that time. If a Runner is trapped in there, they are most likely to be stung by Grievers, the Maze's half-animal, half-machine inhabitants. If a Runner is found stung, they must be injected with a serum that causes them to go through an extremely painful process called the Changing, where you temporarily regain memories of your past life. Those stung and injected by the Serum are still uncertain to survive. Victims of the Changing including Gally and a boy called Ben, both of whom they claim to have seen Thomas in their memory as someone "bad". Despite the horrors of the Maze, Thomas feels a strange urge to be a Runner.

The day after Thomas' arrival, a girl is delivered to the Glade in the Box, arriving with a message that says that she is the last one, but then falls into a deep coma. Soon after, in the forest section of the Glade, Ben attacks Thomas and Alby comes to his rescue, firing an arrow at Ben's cheek and banishing him into the Maze at night after he survives the arrow.

While inspecting a "dead" Griever, Alby gets stung by a Griever in the Maze, and he and Minho cannot make it back to the Glade in time. Thomas impetuously breaks a rule and bolts out in the Maze just before the Doors close. Miraculously, he and Minho survive the night and figure out where the Grievers come from - a seemingly empty space off the edge of a cliff. They return with Alby the following morning, who is immediately taken in by Med-jacks - the closest things the Gladers have to doctors. However, since Thomas broke the Number One Rule and deliberately trapped himself in the Maze during night, The Glade leaders/Keepers have a meeting regarding Thomas's possible punishment or praise, Newt replacing Alby as leader since Alby is being treated by the Med-jacks. During the meeting, Newt points out that Thomas has been involved with many recent strange events. Gally thinks that he is a spy from the Creators and he should hold a severe punishment. Minho surprises Thomas, nominating him to replace him as Keeper of the Runners. Minho and Gally get into an argument where Minho physically and verbally torments Gally, resulting in Gally storming out of the meeting and his thoughts of Thomas's wickedness resulting in him disappearing from the Glade.

The leaders/Keepers come to the conclusion that Thomas should spend one day in the Slammer, their makeshift prison, but Thomas will begin his training as a Runner after his day in the Slammer. After the meeting, Thomas is called to speak to a sick Alby, who wishes to see him. Alby also claims he saw Thomas during the Changing, before going into a physical spasm. Afterwards, Thomas is asked by Newt to sit down next the girl, who is still in a coma, and see if he feels any memories regarding her lingering. The girl, revealing her name to be Teresa, speaks to him through telepathy and briefly explains that she and Thomas are the last Gladers and that they have to pass the Trials. She also says that "they" sent her as a trigger and that everything's going to change. Thomas panics and bolts out of the room and into the Maze, eventually coming to his senses and re-entering the Glade.

After his day in the Slammer, Thomas begins to be trained by Minho to become a Runner. He is given a digital watch and a pair of running shoes and Minho shows him around to various rooms that hold objects essential to the Maze. First Thomas is shown a secret room where all weapons are kept. He is then shown the Map Room, where Runners keep maps of each section of the Maze to keep track of patterns. There are eight sections with a Runner to explore each section. After Thomas learns the basics, he and Minho venture out into the Maze for Minho to demonstrate a daily exploration. While they are out in the Maze, Thomas notices a sign that reads “World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department”. This is later revealed to be an organization that monitors the Glade through small insect-like robots called "beetle-blades." Thomas observes that each beetle-blade had "WICKED" stamped on their torso. The pair continue running all day and Thomas hears Teresa say telepathically to Tom, "I just triggered the Ending". The following morning, the Gladers wake up to find the sky is a dull grey, sunless and unchanging. They also discover that there are no weekly supplies from the Box and that Teresa is fully awake. She sends Thomas a telepathic message simply saying that the Maze is a code.

A short while later, Teresa meets Thomas in the forest section of the Glade and explains what little she remembers from her coma. She shows him some writing that she jotted down on her arm that says "WICKED is good". This was one of her memories that she was afraid she might lose, therefore she jotted it down on her arm.

That night, the Maze Doors don't close at night and Alby has Teresa dumped in the Slammer because they are all at risk of being attacked by Grievers in the night. Everyone boards up the doors and windows of the Homestead - the wooden living building in a top corner of the Glade - and Thomas has the Runners go to the Map Room to study the maps before nightfall. The Grievers then attack in the night and Gally makes an abrupt return, saying that the Grievers will take the life of one person each night until they all die. Gally then throws himself to a Griever, the monsters then retreating back into the Maze. It is later discovered that in the night all of the maps were burned.

In the morning it is revealed that the maps that were burned were decoys, and they still have the original maps in place. Thomas then decodes the maze by tracing maps of each section of the Maze onto wax paper and layering the shapes on top of each other to form six words: FLOAT, CATCH, BLEED, DEATH, STIFF, and PUSH. The six words make no sense to anyone, so Thomas deliberately gets stung by a Griever the following night in order to regain his memory.

After Thomas has recovered from the Changing, Thomas calls a Gathering and explains to the leaders/Keepers that they are supposedly more intelligent than most human beings and were given random nicknames to outline this (e.g. Thomas = Thomas Edison; Alby = Albert Einstein; Newt = Isaac Newton; Chuck = Charles Darwin and Ben = Benjamin Franklin). He explains that WICKED placed them in the Maze to study their brain patterns and that he, Teresa, and two others were forced to help build the Maze and that the only way out is through the Griever Hole. Beyond the Griever hole lies a computer where they must type in the six code words, shutting down the Grievers and uncovering an exit out of the Maze.

The majority of the Gladers agree to the plan and they head out into the Maze. Alby, however, decides he does not want to return to the world outside because he has memories of a disease called the Flare and a place that is far worse than the Glade. Alby then sacrifices himself to the Grievers, not only because he didn't want to return to the outside world but to give the others a chance to escape from the Grievers patrolling the area. When they reach the Cliff, Thomas, Teresa, and Chuck fight their way through a group of waiting Grievers, jump into the Griever hole, and type in the passwords. Minho enters afterwards and tells them that about half of the Gladers died fighting. When all the survivors come into the Hole, they head down a hallway, down a slide and find the Creators - the people who monitored them in the Maze - standing behind a glass wall in a lab. A lady then walks in with Gally, who actually survived, and was taken away to perform a final experiment. Gally tries to tell Thomas that they are controlling him before hurling a dagger at Thomas. Chuck leaps in front of Thomas to take the dagger and dies in his hands. Thomas then attacks Gally, but is quickly pulled away. After this, a group of civilians enter, shoot down the woman and the Creators with guns and take the surviving Gladers to a bus where they explain why all these events have been occurring.

Not long ago, massive sun flares hit earth, which burned satellites and killed millions instantly, starting the terrible disease Alby called the Flare. The ecosystems on Earth fell apart and vast expanses became wastelands. The woman explaining the events tells them their rescuers are part of a group fighting against WICKED. Two hours later, the bus stops and they enter a large safe house in the form of a dormitory. The surviving Gladers, which now include Newt, Minho, Thomas, Frypan (the Gladers' previous cook), and Teresa all settle down into bed and Thomas has a casual telepathic discussion with Teresa (as she is placed in a different room).

The epilogue is a memo from a WICKED worker revealing that the rescue was staged and that another Maze exists. There is also another group, which is group B.

Characters

Thomas: The main character of the book. He is the newest boy at the Glade. He tries to solve the maze and later begins a very close friendship with Teresa.
Gally: A boy who went through the Changing and who doesn't trust Thomas. Also Keeper of the Builders.
Minho: Keeper of the Runners (the people who explore the maze that surrounds the Glade), he helps Thomas.
Chuck: A younger boy, the last "newbie" until Thomas shows up, befriends Thomas when showing him The Glade.
Teresa: The first girl to show up in the Glade, she and Thomas have telepathic powers, and later in the book they develop a very close friendship.
Alby: The "leader" of the Gladers, later becomes friends with Thomas.
Newt: Second in command as leader, later on a friend to Thomas.
Other characters: Frypan, Ben, Zart, several other keepers, or people who are in charge. At the end of the book, some of the mysterious "Creators" are revealed, though none by name.

Development

In the fall of 2005, Dashner had published four books to complete The Jimmy Fincher Saga, which had been with a small regional publisher. His publisher wanted him to write another book, but he decided he would try for a national book market instead. In November of that year he had an idea when going to bed about, "a bunch of teenagers living inside an unsolvable Maze full of hideous creatures, in the future, in a dark, dystopian world. It would be an experiment, to study their minds. Terrible things would be done to them. Awful things. Completely hopeless. Until the victims turn everything on its head." Dashner wrote the book from December 2005 to March 2006.

Reception

Book retailer Barnes & Noble included the book as part of its showcasing of new writers for the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010. Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Hard to put down, this is clearly just a first installment, and it will leave readers dying to find out what comes next".

Jessica Harrison of the Deseret Morning News labeled The Maze Runner as "a thrilling adventurous book for kids ages 13+ that will get readers' hearts pumping and leave them asking for more." She noted that it "starts out a bit slow" but as it matched Thomas's confusion and picked up pace as he became more accustomed, she wrote that "it's almost as if Dashner is easing the reader into what becomes a fast-paced, nonstop action." However, she thought the "only drawback" was the "fictionalized slang" that although it "feels realistic and fits with his characters, it gets old pretty fast. On the plus side, however, it's used so often that the reader almost becomes desensitized and learns to ignore it."

Film adaptation

A film version of The Maze Runner from Fox was announced, with Catherine Hardwicke signed on as director and Noah Oppenheim hired as screenwriter. Dylan O'Brien will play the lead role of Thomas.

Wes Ball was later named to direct, with a script by Noah Oppenheim. Wayne Haag is to serve as an artist on the film and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lindsay Williams and Lee Stollman as producers.

A release date of February 14, 2014 has been announced.

Creature designer Ken Barthelmey has created concept designs for the film.

Filming is scheduled to begin in May 2013.

References

^ "The Kill Order to be published in August 2012" (Press release). New York: Delacorte Press. November 21, 2011. Retrieved November 24, 2011.
^ Shill, Aaron (November 25, 2009). "'Maze Runner' on 'right track'". Deseret Morning News. Archived from the original on December 19, 2009. Retrieved December 19, 2009.
Deahl, Rachel (May 30, 2009). "BookExpo America 2009: Parsing the Good 'WTF' Literary Moments from the Bad at First YA Buzz Panel". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved December 19, 2009.
^ Dashner, James (July 16, 2008). "The Tale of The Maze Runner". The Dashner Dude. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
"The Maze Runner". Kirkus Reviews. September 15, 2009. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
Harrison, Jessica (October 3, 2009). "'Maze Runner' provides a thrilling adventure". Deseret Morning News. Archived from the original on December 19, 2009. Retrieved December 19, 2009.
Zeitchik, Steven (January 4, 2011). "Young-adult sensation 'The Maze Runner' gets ready to run the movie gantlet (Updated)". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
http://hollywoodcrush.mtv.com/2013/04/18/the-maze-runner-dylan-obrien
Hopson, Travis (August 24, 2012). "Wes Ball to direct 'The Maze Runner'". Punch Drunk Critics. Retrieved August 24, 2012.
"We have @jamesdashner The Dashner Dude, then we got @wesball Mr Director Dude and now we have @ankaris Mr Designer Dude!! Good that". Twitter. December 7, 2011. Retrieved December 22, 2012.
Chitwood, Adam (February 7, 2013). "Shawn Levy Returns to Direct NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 3 for December 25, 2014 Release; THE MAZE RUNNER Set to Open February 14, 2014". Collider. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
http://theartofken.com/viewblog.php?blogID=the-maze-runner-news-80
Dashner, James (March 29, 2013). "Much more casting news should be coming very soon. They start filming in May. Release date of Feb 14th 2014 #dashnerchat". Twitter. Retrieved March 30, 2013.

External links

Random House The Maze Runner site (official)
The Maze Runner spanish site
James Dashner (author) site (official)

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