Series: Book 2 in the The Maze Runner series
Rating: ****
Tags: Children's Books, Action & Adventure, Growing Up & Facts of Life, Friendship; Social Skills & School Life, Friendship, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Science; Nature & How It Works, Nature, Environment, Lang:en
Summary
Read the second book in the
New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series,
perfect for fans of
The Hunger Games and
Divergent. The first book,
The Maze Runner, is soon to be a major motion
picture featuring the star of MTV's
Teen Wolf, Dylan O’Brien; Kaya Scodelario; Aml
Ameen; Will Poulter; and Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and hits
theaters September 19, 2014! Also look for James
Dashner’s newest book
The Eye of Minds, book one in the Mortality Doctrine
series.
From the Hardcover edition.
Questions for James Dashner
Q: Where was the worst place you’ve
ever been lost or trapped? Did you use Thomas-like ingenuity
to figure out the problem?
Q:
The Maze Runner has been compared to other popular
YA series like
The Hunger Games and
The Uglies. What do you think of those series? (And
what do you think the draw is to post-apocalyptic societies
for YA readers?)
Seriously, though, there’s so much that teens today
have to deal with. Life isn’t as simple as it used to
be with media everywhere at all times. And our country has
been at war for a huge part of most teenagers’ lives.
It’s a reality that kids face these days, and to see
that life could go on could be almost reassuring.
Q: How did you come up with the
shuckin’ Gladers’ slang? And have you ever
accidentally used it in real life?
And on a more realistic note, an unsupervised group of
boys would definitely be using language that could begin to
take over the story itself. I wanted it to be realistic, but
not a glossary of bad language. It would have become limiting
for the book in terms of readership and, well, I’m a
parent!
Q: What made you decide on a solar flare as
a catastrophe (vs. all the other apocalyptic scenarios)?
I also didn't want it to be a nuclear holocaust because I
think that's overdone. And it doesn’t seem like
we’ll need something that violent anymore to cause our
own end. We’ve done a great job of making Mother Nature
pretty angry!
Q: One thing that always bugged me: Why
couldn’t the Gladers climb up and run around on top of
the walls? (At least during the day.)
Q: I’ve heard that
The Maze Runner might be made into a movie. If it
is, what would you like fans of the book to see up there on
the screen? Sometimes literary elements can be lost in
translation to film--what’s important for you to remain
unchanged?
Q: There are a lot of scenes in the first
two books with very graphic violence and death both against
and initiated by teenagers--why did you choose to make the
brutality so prevalent in a YA series?
Really, though--I wanted to show what a brutal world it
has become, and what a desperate situation the Gladers’
are in, so the reader can understand the stakes. If
everything is safe, why would the boys want to leave? I also
wanted to blur the lines of what is acceptable to survive in
such an environment. We’ve been interested in the idea
of survival for as long as we’ve been telling stories.
And in modern culture, we’ve gone from
Swiss Family Robinson, to
Lord of the Flies, to
Lost...if there’s no law anymore, who’s
to say what’s right and wrong?
Q: You ended
The Scorch Trials with a cliffhanger to rival the
ending of
The Empire Strikes Back. What sorts of things can
your readers look forward to in
The Death Cure?
Gr 7 Up–This dystopian novel begins where The Maze
Runner (Delacorte, 2009) ends. Thomas and the rest of the
group's escape from the Maze and the horrifying creatures
called Grievers has proven to be short-lived because WICKED,
the group behind it all, has another trial in store for them.
Sun flares have destroyed most of the Earth, and a virus
called the Flare has ravaged its population. Infected people
turn into zombies called Cranks that attack and eat one
other. The kids are told that they have the Flare but if they
succeed in surviving the second trial, they will be cured.
With few supplies, they must travel across 100 miles of hot
and scorched land within two weeks to reach a safe house to
receive the cure. When Teresa, Thomas's best friend and the
only girl in the group, disappears, and he loses the ability
to communicate telepathically with her, he and the other guys
determine to find her. As they trek across the barren desert
encountering crazed Cranks, the teens' loyalty to one another
and the group is tested. The fast-paced narrative and
survival-of-the-fittest scenario is reminiscent of Suzanne
Collins's The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008). Although these
characters aren't quite as compelling and their made-up slang
takes a little getting used to, each character's personality
is distinct. The unresolved ending will leave readers
impatiently waiting for the conclusion to the
trilogy.–Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library,
Trenton. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end.
Thomas was sure that escape from the Maze would mean
freedom for him and the Gladers. But WICKED isn’t done
yet. Phase Two has just begun. The Scorch.
There are no rules. There is no help. You either make it
or you die.
The Gladers have two weeks to cross through the
Scorch—the most burned-out section of the world. And
WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the
odds against them.
Friendships will be tested. Loyalties will be broken. All
bets are off.
There are others now. Their survival depends on the
Gladers’ destruction—and they’re determined
to survive.
Praise for the Maze Runner series:
"[A] mysterious survival saga that passionate fans
describe as a fusion of
Lord of the Flies,
The Hunger Games, and
Lost."—
EW.com
“Wonderful action writing
—fast-paced…but smart and well
observed.”
—*Newsday
“[A] nail-biting must-read.”
—Seventeen.com
“Breathless, cinematic action.”
*—Publishers Weekly
“Heart-pounding to the very last moment.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Exclamation-worthy.”
*—Romantic Times
[
STAR] “James Dashner’s
illuminating prequel [The Kill Order*] will thrill fans of
this Maze Runner [series] and prove just as exciting for
readers new to the series.”—
Shelf Awareness, Starred
Amazon.com Review
A: Interesting you should ask that, because
The Maze Runner saved my life last Halloween! Ok,
not really, but close. My son and I went to a corn maze, and
we got lost and stuck. It made me realize how mean I am to my
characters! I hadn’t been thinking when we entered and
I have to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention. I
didn’t think I’d get lost in a Halloween corn
maze! But as soon as we realized that we had no idea how to
get out I used the trick Thomas learned in the first
book--turning right no matter what--and sure enough, we got
out. I have a lot more respect for corn mazes now!
A: First, let me start by saying that I love
both of those series a lot! I think everyone is attracted to
the idea of a post-apocalyptic society because it’s
fascinating to imagine what the future could hold, and scary
to know that maybe, just maybe, it could really happen.
Although we hope not. Or do we?
A: The slang had several purposes, but
mainly it was to give the Gladers' language a different
flavor. To show how a community can evolve. Not only is it in
the future, but they've been isolated as well.
A: I have to admit, I’m somewhat of an
apocalypse buff. When I first started working on
The Maze Runner I read an article somewhere about
solar flares and I was fascinated. Not only were they a
unique idea back then, but it seems completely plausible.
Solar flares are natural occurrences, and the cycle for
larger flares is again approaching. We’ll be seeing
larger flares that really do affect things like communication
and space travel. I just took things a little farther.
A: There's a part where Thomas asks Minho
about that actually. Minho answers that they've tried it and
can't get up that far. The maze has a lot of illusion and
technology to make it seem bigger than it is. And I wanted
the reader to imagine a maze with walls so high that you
could never get to the top.
A: I would love to see a movie made! My
biggest hope would be that they cast it well, write it well,
and really transfer the mystery of it to the big screen, not
just the action. Not much to ask, right?
A: There is a lot of violence, yes. Next
question?
A: I just turned in the third book, and I'm
very proud of it and excited about it. Every last question is
resolved, you see much more of the real world, and the ending
is not what people may expect but I'm confident they'll be
satisfied with the resolution. And lots of twists and action
of course!
From School Library Journal