Author | James Dashner |
---|---|
Cover artist | Philip Straub |
Language | English |
Series | The Maze Runner series |
Genre | Young adult, science fiction, post-apocalyptic |
Published | October 6, 2009 |
Publisher | Delacorte Press |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book |
Pages | 375 pp. [1] |
ISBN | 978-0-385-73794-4 (first edition, hardcover) |
OCLC | 299381315 |
LC Class | PZ7.D2587Maz 2009 [1] |
Preceded by | The Fever Code (in narrative order) |
Followed by | The Scorch Trials [2] |
The Maze Runner is a 2009 dystopian novel by American author James Dashner. It takes place in a world suffering from a coronal mass ejection and whose surviving civilians fight to avoid an apocalyptic illness called the Flare. It is written from the perspective of Thomas, a 16-year-old boy who wakes up with no memories inside an artificially produced maze but who is also the key to his friends’ salvation. An organization called WICKED controls the world politically, seeks a cure to the Flare, and uses the youngest generation of civilians who are immune as test subjects.
The book received critical acclaim from major reviewers and authors. It won the All Library Association Young Adult Library Services Association Best Fiction for Young Adults Book award in 2011, [3] is a #1 NYT Bestselling series and was on the #1 NYT Bestseller list for 148 weeks, [4] and a Kirkus Reviews Teen Book of the Year. Moreover, The Maze Runner is a popular pick of educators teaching middle-age readers in schools.
The novel was published in 2009 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House with cover art by Philip Straub. The Maze Runner is the first novel in The Maze Runner series, followed by The Scorch Trials (2010), and The Death Cure (2011). A film adaptation, directed by Wes Ball, was released in 2014 by 20th Century Fox and stars Dylan O’Brien as Thomas.
Thomas wakes up in a metal elevator that brings him to the Glade. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there, except for his name. He gradually discovers that the Glade is run by two boys: Alby, the leader, and Newt, the second-in-charge, who maintain order by enforcing simple but effective rules. The elevator box surfaces from under the ground once every week and brings supplies of food, tools, clothes, medicine, and sometimes weapons. Every month, a new boy with no memory of anything but his first name also appears in the box.
The Glade is enclosed by a square of concrete walls several hundred feet high. The walls have openings in them, which slide shut every night. Outside the walls is the Maze, a labyrinth of high concrete walls covered in ivy that changes every night. The Maze houses strange, lethal creatures known as Grievers. All that is known about Grievers is that they are a combination of metal and flesh. The Gladers try to stay alive as well as "solve" the Maze by appointing "Runners" to run through it as fast as they can while they track the movements of the walls and try to find an exit to escape.
One day after Thomas' arrival, a girl, Teresa, is delivered through the elevator into the Glade. She is the first girl to arrive at the Glade and has a note clutched in her hand that says, "She's the last one. Ever." She says Thomas' name when she's in a week-long coma. Later that day a boy named Ben, who was stung by a Griever and went through the "Changing," tries to kill Thomas. Alby saves Thomas and Ben is banished that night.
Minho, the Keeper of the Runners, goes into the Maze with Alby to see what they think is the first dead Griever. Alby is stung by the creature, which causes him to attack Minho who knocks Alby out. Minho carries Alby back to the Glade but, by the time they arrive, the doors to the Glade are already closing. Thomas runs into the maze to help without hesitation, becoming stranded with Minho and Alby. When they hear the sounds of Grievers approaching, Minho runs away, knowing they don't have a chance of survival, while Thomas uses ivy on the maze walls to pull Alby up. Thomas does his best to survive on his own and keep Alby alive. Minho later comes back to help Thomas, and by morning they have killed four of the Grievers by leading them off a cliff.
After returning to the Glade the next morning, Newt calls a Gathering of the Keepers to discuss what to do with Thomas. Some of the Keepers vote to relieve him of punishment, but others, especially Gally, vote to lock him up as a punishment. Minho, however, nominates Thomas to become the Keeper of the Runners, to which Gally disagrees. Gally and Minho threaten each other, and the discussion ends with Gally storming off. Newt, as interim head of the Gathering due to Alby going through the Changing, proposes sending Thomas to the Slammer (their version of prison) for a day, and then having him start training to become a Runner. Without an official vote, the Keepers decide to go with Newt's plan.
Alby asks to see Thomas alone, without Newt and tries to tell him something he has seen during the Changing that had to do with Thomas. Before he can give Thomas any real information, Alby starts trying to choke himself. With Newt's help, Thomas manages to stop him. Alby then says it "wasn't really him" and that someone was controlling his actions.
Teresa wakes from her coma, and tells Thomas telepathically that she triggered the Ending. The food is running low, the sky is permanently gray, the box is not coming up, and that same night the maze doors stay open. Alby decides that, to be useful, he'll go into the Map Room and analyze the maps to see if he can find any patterns. Gally comes back that night and says that the Grievers will come every night now, killing them all off one by one. When the Grievers enter the Homestead, where the Gladers had all been hiding, Gally throws himself at them and they leave.
The next morning, they find out that Alby, weighed down by the reality of the world outside the Maze, had burned all the Maps, effectively destroying any possibility of finding a clue. Thomas later discovers that Minho and Newt secured the Maps in the Weapons Room a couple of hours earlier, saving the Maps from Alby. Thomas then gets the idea to compare each Map to the Maps of other sections as opposed to other days, and, after copying a few maps onto wax paper and layering them by day, they find that the first combination spells FLOATCAT. After copying more maps and layering them, they find that the complete code spelled out by the Maze is: "FLOAT CATCH BLEED DEATH STIFF PUSH".
During the following nights, the Grievers come back, and, as Gally had said, they only take one Glader a night.
Realizing that they won't get anywhere without him getting his memories back, Thomas voluntarily gets stung by a Griever and spends a couple of days unconscious as he goes through the Changing to get his memories back. When he wakes up, he knows they have to go down the Griever Hole to escape the Maze and insert the code into a machine they will find. He also remembers part of the world they came from, knowing a bit about WICKED (World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department) and his participation in the creation of the Maze.
Using this new information, most of the Gladers leave to try and jump down the Griever Hole. Almost half of them die in the fight against the Grievers, but Thomas and Teresa manage to insert the code, with last-minute help from Chuck to realize that "PUSH" meant to push a button, and it was not the last word of the code.
After exploring the facility they are now in, the remaining Gladers find themselves in a room with scientists watching them. One of them walks out, Gally walking with her. He throws a knife at Thomas, but Chuck dives in, saving Thomas' life though he loses his own.
A rescue team comes crashing in seconds later, killing all the scientists that were watching the Gladers, and taking them with them to another facility where they have dinner and go to sleep, sure that they are safe now.
The epilogue is written in the voice of Chancellor Ava Paige, a feature of all the trilogy's novels. She reveals that the group that rescued the Gladers is just another variable in the experiment and that the Gladers were not the only group being evaluated. She reveals that the next day, the second phase of their trials will begin. This leads directly to the events of the next book.
In late 2005 mid-June, 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 for a book "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." During his writing process, he envisions his novels as movies interpreting his thoughts into visuals. [5] One of the many influences for the book came from another novel called Lord of the Flies. [6] He says he has taken his own interpretation of the novel and added his own ideas. [6] The book was later published in 2008. [7] Dashner wrote the book from December 2005 to March 2006. [7]
The Maze Runner is critically acclaimed. 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." [8] 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." While she noted that it "starts out a bit slow", she wrote the pace ultimately matches Thomas' confusion, writing that "it's almost as if Dashner is easing the reader into what becomes a fast-paced, nonstop action." However, she thought a "drawback" was the "fictionalized slang", writing, "While 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." [9]
The novel received awards for its excellence in the young adult literature category. It won the 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults Award presented by the Young Adult Library Services Association. [10] It won the Charlotte Award in 2012, an award named after Charlotte in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, that is given to outstanding literature that encourages children to become life-long readers as voted on by students in New York State. [11] It also won the Lincoln Award in 2012, sponsored by the Illinois School Library Educators, and for its notable encouragement of high school readers to read for personal enjoyment. [12] Similarly, The Maze Runner won the Truman Readers Award in 2012 which encourages young readers between the sixth and eighth grades to express their voices through literary genres, collaborate with peers over young adult literature, and celebrates authors writing for young adults. [13] The book received other awards as well, including the Evergreen Teen Book Award in 2012 and Georgia Peach Book Award in 2009. It was also nominated for Utah Book Award for Young Adults in 2009 and Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award in 2011, to name a few. [11]
The Maze Runner is also a popular educational tool in schools. Dr. Christy Goldsmith from the University of Missouri notes that she used The Maze Runner in her secondary classroom to teach independent reading, how to interact with fiction, and that “reading doesn’t have to be painful.” [14] In the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literary Review, Dr. Sara Abrams from Arizona State University recommends The Maze Runner to middle school students, writing, "readers who seek adventure and are curious about living on their own will find The Maze Runner an engaging read” and compares it to Lord of the Flies, writing that it is easier to read but just as entertaining. [15] Sandra Bennet wrote in The School Librarian that the book is "an absorbing and tense novel which mid to older teens will devour". [16]
Fox released a film adaptation of the book, titled The Maze Runner , on September 19, 2014. Wes Ball signed on as director and T.S. Nowlin wrote the screenplay. [17] Dylan O'Brien played the lead role of Thomas, [18] Thomas Brodie-Sangster portrayed Newt [19] and Kaya Scodelario portrayed Teresa. [20] Ki Hong Lee as Minho, Blake Cooper, Will Poulter and Aml Ameen were added to the cast as Chuck, Gally and Alby, respectively. Patricia Clarkson played the role of the main antagonist Ava Paige. Dexter Darden portrayed Frypan, Alexander Flores portrayed Winston, Jacob Latimore played Jeff, Randal Cunningham portrayed Clint, Chris Sheffield portrayed Ben, and Joe Adler played Zart.
Wayne Haag served as an artist on the film, and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lindsay Williams with Lee Stollman as producers. [21]
Creature designer Ken Barthelmey designed the Grievers for the film. [22]
Filming started on May 13, 2013, [23] and ended July 12, 2013.
Following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in March 2019, Disney confirmed in April 2019 at their CinemaCon presentation that new Maze Runner films were in development. [24]
In May 2024, it was announced that a reboot was in development, with Wes Ball returning as a producer and Jack Paglen hired as writer. The new installment was described as "not a redo of the story nor ... a direct sequel to the original trilogy" but "a sort of continuation ... yet also return to the elements that made the first movie connect with its audience". [25]
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 guide book written by British author J. K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. The original version, illustrated by the author herself, purports to be Harry Potter's copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel of the Harry Potter series. It includes several notes inside it supposedly handwritten by Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, detailing their own experiences with some of the beasts described, and including inside jokes relating to the original series.
Skellig is a children's novel by the British author David Almond, published by Hodder in 1998. It was the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and it won the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British author. In the US it was a runner up for the Michael L. Printz Award, which recognises one work of young adult fiction annually. Since publication, it has also been adapted into a play, an opera, and a film. In 2010, a prequel entitled My Name is Mina was published, written by David Almond himself. William Blake poems are also in the book, the play and the film.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster is an English actor. As a child actor, he gained recognition for his roles in the commercially successful films Love Actually (2003) and Nanny McPhee (2005). He voiced Ferb in the first four seasons of Phineas and Ferb (2007–2015), and subsequently gained wider attention with his roles as Jake Murray in Accused (2010–2012), Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones (2013–2014) and Newt in the Maze Runner trilogy (2014–2018). Continued acclaim ensued with the independent films Nowhere Boy (2009), in which he portrayed Paul McCartney, Bright Star (2009), and Death of a Superhero (2011).
The House of the Scorpion is a 2002 science fiction young adult novel by Nancy Farmer. It is set in the future and mostly takes place in Opium, a country which separates Aztlán and the United States. The main character, Matteo Alacrán, or Matt, is a young clone of a drug lord of the same name, usually called "El Patrón". It is a story about the struggle to survive as a free individual and the search for a personal identity.
Dragonkeeper is a fantasy novel written by Australian author Carole Wilkinson, but it has facts in the book. It is one of the first books from the Dragonkeeper series, which consists of six books and a prequel. The second book is called Garden of the Purple Dragon and the third book is called Dragon Moon. In the second trilogy of the series, there is the 4th book which is called Blood Brothers, then Shadow Sister and finally Bronze Bird Tower. There is also a prequel to the original Dragonkeeper novel known as Dragon Dawn.
James Smith Dashner is an American writer known for speculative fiction. Many of his books are primarily aimed at children or young adults. He is best known for The Maze Runner series and the young adult fantasy series The 13th Reality. His 2008 novel The Journal of Curious Letters, first in the series, was one of the annual Borders Original Voices picks.
The Softwire is a series of four young adult science fiction novels by PJ Haarsma. It is set in space, in an original fictional universe of Haarsma's creation. A group of around two hundred children are orphaned in outer space on their journey to the Rings of Orbis: giant, planet-like rings which surround a wormhole. The children's parents are killed during an incident in the "seed-ship" in which they are traveling and the computer controlling the ship has raised the children—the eldest of whom are thirteen-years-old as the ship reaches Orbis.
The Scorch Trials is a 2010 young adult post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction novel written by American author James Dashner and the second book, fourth chronologically, in The Maze Runner series. The novel was published on 18 September 2010 by Delacorte Press. It follows The Maze Runner, and is followed by The Death Cure. A film adaptation was released on 18 September 2015 by 20th Century Fox.
Divergent, the debut novel of American novelist Veronica Roth, was published by HarperCollins Children's Books in 2011. The novel is the first in the Divergent series, a trilogy of young adult dystopian novels set in a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago. The society defines its citizens by their social and personality-related affiliation with one of five factions. This rigid system has removed the threat of anyone exercising independent will and re-threatening the population's safety. In the story, Beatrice Prior joins the ranks of the Dauntless faction and explores her new identity as "Tris". Underlying the action- and dystopian-focused main plot is a romantic subplot between Tris and "Four", one of her instructors in the Dauntless faction.
The Death Cure is a 2011 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American writer James Dashner and the third published in The Maze Runner series. It was published on 11 October 2011 by Delacorte Press and was preceded in publication order by The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials and followed by the series prequels, The Kill Order and The Fever Code.
The Maze Runner is a 2014 American dystopian science fiction film directed by Wes Ball, in his feature directorial debut, based on James Dashner's 2009 novel of the same name. The film is the first installment in The Maze Runner film series and was produced by Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, and Lee Stollman with a screenplay by Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers, and T. S. Nowlin. The film stars Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter and Patricia Clarkson. The story follows sixteen-year-old Thomas, portrayed by O'Brien, who awakens in a rusty elevator with no memory of who he is, only to learn that he has been delivered to the middle of an intricate maze, along with many other boys, who have been trying to find their way out of the ever-changing labyrinth – all while establishing a functioning society in what they call the Glade.
The Kill Order is a 2012 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American author James Dashner and published on August 14, 2012, by Delacorte Press. It is the first prequel book in The Maze Runner series and the fourth installment overall. The book is set prior to the events of The Fever Code and 13 years before The Maze Runner book.
The Eye of Minds is a 2013 young adult science fiction novel written by American author James Dashner, and the first book in The Mortality Doctrine series. The book was first published on October 8, 2013 by Delacorte Press and is set in a futuristic world where a young gamer must help stop a rogue hacker named Kaine intent on causing mass destruction.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is a 2015 American dystopian science fiction film based on James Dashner's 2010 novel The Scorch Trials, the second novel in The Maze Runner book series. The film is a direct sequel to the 2014 film The Maze Runner and the second installment in The Maze Runner film series. It was directed by Wes Ball, with a screenplay by T. S. Nowlin. Adding to the original film's cast of Dylan O'Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Patricia Clarkson, Kaya Scodelario, Dexter Darden and Alexander Flores, the new supporting cast includes Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen, Barry Pepper and Lili Taylor.
Ki Hong Lee is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Minho in the Maze Runner film series and Dong Nguyen in the Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Wes Ball is an American film director and producer. He is best known for directing the Maze Runner film trilogy (2014–2018), based on James Dashner's series of novels of the same name, as well as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024), the fourth installment in the Planet of the Apes reboot series.
The Fever Code is a 2016 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American author James Dashner and published on September 27, 2016, by Delacorte Press. It is the second prequel book in The Maze Runner series and the fifth installment overall. The Fever Code is the second book, chronologically, set in between the events of The Kill Order and The Maze Runner.
The Maze Runner film series consists of American science-fiction dystopian action adventure films based on The Maze Runner novels by the American author James Dashner. Produced by Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the films star Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden, and Patricia Clarkson. Wes Ball directed all three installments.
The Maze Runner is a series of young adult dystopian science fiction novels written by American author James Dashner. The series consists of The Maze Runner (2009), The Scorch Trials (2010) and The Death Cure (2011), as well as two prequel novels, The Kill Order (2012) and The Fever Code (2016), a novella titled Crank Palace (2020), and a companion book titled The Maze Runner Files (2013). The sixth novel, titled The Maze Cutter, set 73 years following the events of The Death Cure, was released on October 4, 2022.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure is a 2018 American dystopian science fiction film directed by Wes Ball and with a screenplay by T. S. Nowlin, based on the 2011 novel The Death Cure written by James Dashner. It is the sequel to the 2015 film Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and the third and final installment in the Maze Runner film series. Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Patricia Clarkson, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen, Barry Pepper, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jacob Lofland, Katherine McNamara, Rosa Salazar, and Will Poulter reprise their roles from the previous films with Walton Goggins joining the cast.