Tagged: James Dashner
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
As much as I hate to use the expression frequently, my overall observation about The Maze Runner was ‘meh’.
It wasn’t that the premise or the plot was lacking, it was just that I couldn’t be bothered to care about any of the characters. When Thomas was angry or frustrated I didn’t feel any of those emotions because James Dashner was telling me this rather than showing me. Moments (that I can’t reveal without spoiling everything) that were supposed to be poignant and depressing didn’t even provoke emotion in me. Thomas is supposed to become friends with certain members of the Glade and his mysterious past relationship with the girl Teresa was supposed to be touching, but I felt none of that. It was just boring and I couldn’t emotionally identify with those relationships.
The whole premise of a mysterious maze is a good one, I suppose. It could have been done better, though. The air of mystery James Dashner tries to maintain about the maze just ends up being frustrating because Thomas doesn’t know anything and practically none of our questions are answered by the end. Yes, I know it’s a trilogy but there should be some questions answered. Some of the things Dashner did to maintain the air of mystery were just plain dumb: none of the boys answered any of Thomas’s questions. Really, none. At all. That’s ridiculous, in my opinion; they should have at least answered basic questions.
Sometimes the plot moved forward at a very fast pace and other times it just dragged on and on, which isn’t a thing to be praised in a book that’s less than 400 pages long. Sure, Dashner uses mystery to keep up the suspense, but at times his writing was so pared down that I had no idea what was going on. It’s frustrating when you know an author has pictured everything perfectly in their head but thinks it’s so obvious that they don’t describe the setting to readers. That’s basically the entire story of The Maze Runner.
I give this book 2/5 stars.
“The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time” by James Dashner
The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time is the first installment in what appears to be a long-term project by several different authors to provide the next big middle-grade book series. The basic concept being that the world all of the characters are living in is actually an alternate reality brought about by many, many well-known historical events not happening the way we remember them. It’s certainly and interesting twist on the usual approach of alternate realities in books. Usually characters are traveling to the alternate reality, not arriving from the alternate reality. I have to say, I loved it through and through.
Dak and Sera are serviceable enough characters for what the story is trying to accomplish and I can entirely understand why they don’t have the depth I’m used to with characters I read because this is a middle-grade series and with a target audience like that you have to keep things a little more simple. There are a few clichés tossed around as far as character personalities are concerned, but nothing glaring and nothing that bothered me all that much.
In this first book of the series the two friends discover The Infinity Ring, a device capable of traveling them through time. Through a series of somewhat unfortunate events they are forced to aid a group known as the Hystorians who are trying to fix all of the wayward big moments in history. Each event has to be righted in a specific order so as to keep the events closer to modern day as unaffected as possible. The first of which that Dak and Sera have to correct is the fact that Columbus was not credited with discovering America.
Back in time the two friends go and as they are younger than your standard adventurers they have plenty of blundered moments that almost leave them stranded in the past. They figure things out in the end however and the result is a fun, quick, exciting tale that takes and interesting approach to time travel and its effects on space-time and all that.
The second installment of The Infinity Ring series, Divide and Conquer was released earlier this week and I look forward to reading it soon and letting all of you know what I think.
Grade: B
Length: 192 pages