Book Report 52 Project: The Death Cure by James Dashner (Spoilers!)

Endings are hard. Have you really told your story? Have you finished everything you want to say? Are you going to leave the story open or are you going to close everything off with the wave of your hand? I guess that’s why we have so many instances of the “end” of something letting us down. Or in the case of so many superhero stories, not really ending it and rebooting it for another day. In some cases, three times in 10 years.

I’m looking at YOU Batman and Spider-Man.

So, it is with that in mind that read The Death Cure, perhaps the best named but sadly, weakest of the Maze Runner Trilogy books (not counting the prequels. Yes. I’m getting to those. No. Not next week.)

Like it’s predecessor, The Death Cure picks up following the events of The Scorch Trials with Thomas locked up in a windowless white room slowing going mad as he awaits his fate. He’s cut off all telepathic communication with Theresa following the events of the Scorch Trials and her perceived betrayals. He is then removed from the room and is offered a chance to regain his memories but he’ll be cut off telepathically from Theresa and Aris. Also, as a stroke of bad luck, it turns out that as part of the variables not everyone was immune to the Flare, so sadly, poor Newt is now going to die. Then some stuff happens. More stuff happens. Eventually we will find out that there was a resistance to WICKED called the Right Arm (for reasons that are never made clear) and Gally who murdered Chuck in the first book has joined them. Then more stuff happens. Eventually, it’s back into the Maze for a few pages. 

I didn’t dislike this book, I still think the concept is really cool. A Flare pretty much destroys the Earth. A disease is released (spoiler: eventually you find out that it’s released intentionally). People live, stakes are high, testing is done. The problem is that I kind of felt like the conversation between the writer and the publisher went a little like this.

“Hey, love this Maze Runner thing. How much material do you have?”

“I don’t know. Maybe four or five books.”

“Ah.. you see, trilogies are REALLY hot right now.”

“So... you want a trilogy?”

“Bingo! Just cram what you’ve got into the end.”

The Death Cure is more of a mishmash of ideas that, and because I read this on a Kindle I’m not 100% percent certain about, but it felt this way, was way longer than the other books. The pacing clearly starts to break down at the end of The Scorch Trials, and then the rest of this book is just sort of like “the greatest hits of what James Dashner wanted to write, but didn’t.”

There’s the fact that Newt is not immune, and taken away. They spend time In Denver, which supposedly is a clean city, but is slowly succumbing to the Flare. There’s the whole Right Arm and Gally situation, which is VERY interesting, but only takes up a few pages. A group fighting the combined world’s governments? We don’t think this is interesting? There’s the storyline where Theresa escapes with some people, but... to where? She just sort of meanders out of the book so she can (spoiler) make her big sacrifice at the end and redeem herself. There’s the Immunes being slowly kidnapped... then put back into the maze as a way of keeping them safe. 

There’s easily two half books contained within the Death Cure, and I wanted to read them, not have them put off to the special wonderful mini-book that I’m sure may be coming out. James Dashner spends a lot of time coming up with this fantastic dystopian world that has recognizable elements and isn’t left vague... it’s frightening and realistic all at the same time. And there are some great concepts, particularly the revolution, which I talk about more in this review than is mentioned in the book itself. 

The book and the story ends (spoilers again... I can’t talk about this without talking about the ending) the immunes being sent into a new area (a new “Glade” if you will) to rebuild society, and the whole thing turning out to be a setup from WICKED. Which also negates almost the entire need for the Right Arm subplot, since they’re trying to stop - what - them from just giving up?

The best moment of the book is Newt. No longer immune, the once important leader and “glue” of the group is removed, and is slowly succumbing to the effects of the Flare. The stakes are raised further when it is revealed that Thomas, holding the cure to the Flare in his brain, will have to be sacrificed. There’s a tension that I wish could have been explored more, especially with the way that Thomas feels responsible for Newt’s condition, including his limp, when it’s revealed as to why he has that as well. 

The really funny thing is that with all the Young Adult Movie adaptions coming out, the adaptors of this movie have said that they will not be splitting the movie into two parts, such as done with Hunger Games and eventually, Divergent. Which is sad, because this did require some splitting, and expansion of some excellent ideas. I really wish Dashner had gotten the opportunity to finish them. This needed more. Maybe some of my questions will be addressed in the prequels? I hope so. It’s an interesting concept that needed the extra time to be fleshed out.

So, I’m recommending you read this trilogy, but I’m also recommending that someone, somewhere, come up with a good ending at some point to a book series.

Book Report 52: The Scorch Trials By James Dashner (The Maze Runner Book 2)

      Sequels are interesting creatures. On the one hand, they provide a follow up to adventures we’ve already experienced. On the other, they can follow up and tread old ground, rehashing old plots, and in the case of The Hangover part 2, entire movies. But there’s also an odd need for sequels in some cases, a chance to return to visit familiar faces and catch up, see how they are doing.

            Then there’s the damn part two of a trilogy.

            Part two of a trilogy is always a difficult beast to tackle. It’s not really a beginning, but it’s tasked with introducing the reader to new characters. It’s not really an ending, because the ending is coming and it’s just not in this book. So it occupies a weird middle ground where it has to justify it’s own existence: it has to tell a part of a story, make it feel complete, but it’s not really going to answer all your questions  and you have to tune into part 3. Done right, it’s a beautiful addition to a story that advances characters, plots, and developments. Done wrong, and you get The Twelve. (The second book in the Passage Trilogy.)

            I’m happy to report that the Scorch Trials manage to tell a complete story, advance the plot, and doesn’t spend much of it’s read time undoing everything we’ve just in the Maze Runner. Which is good, mostly because I was a little hesitant in going into this one, given the cliffhangery nature of the first book, and the cliffhangery nature of this book as well. Fortunately, it features a lot of running, but very little maze, and much more intrigue. It’s a shame that the movie version is going to blaze “THE MAZE RUNNER PART 2: SCORCH TRIALS” over the title, because it features very little maze running.

            This book picks up almost immediately as the first book ends, with Thomas and the surviving Gladers being taken away by a mysterious group from their even more mysterious group that imprisoned them in a giant maze. Oh, yeah, spoilers I guess. But if there’s a Maze Runner 2, and it doesn’t feature the title “Maze Runner”, you can probably safely assume that they did, in fact, escape the maze at some point. So it’s not really spoilers unless you didn’t pay close attention.

            Moving on.

            Thomas and company spend a few nights in a barrack type place when suddenly, the nature of the Maze becomes clear: It’s a test. It turns out that some flares scorched the Earth, then after all the Earth Scorching a virus was accidentally released, and now the surviving world governments created a group called WICKED in order to try to find a cure for this disease that turns people into zombie like creatures. Or destroys their brains. It’s tough to describe. The virus attacks their brains, so only by putting people in extreme danger are they able to map out a cure.

            Anyway, so Thomas and Company learn that the Maze was just part one, and now they’re being given over to part 2, the Scorch Trials, which involves walking across a desert. (Hence the “scorch” part of it.) They also have to deal with the fact that it turns out there was more than once Maze, and that just across the way was a gender flipped version of events: all girls, save for one boy, with whom Thomas can now share thoughts telepathically with Theresa having been taken away to join the girls group.

            Whew. That’s a lot.

            First the really good: This does not just tread old ground, like I said. There’s a new group dynamic, and new mysteries. For instance, odd tattoos that show up on the back of several of the boys, including pointing out that one is the leader, one is the glue, and one is going to be killed by group B. There’s also a lot of danger, a few of the boys are wiped out in the first few chapters of the book. There’s also a good sense of just how far in the future this is, what with teleporters and invisible forcefields being a normal part of the operating procedure, while at the same time introducing the characters who have no memory and have been living off sticks and mud for several years are now reacting to the technological changes, so it makes the explanation of events seem organic rather than an odd conversation into just why someone who would grow up with the technology need to take time out to explain it to us.

            There’s even a pretty cool moment where a gun is used, and infection spreads because guns have been obsolete for so long that the rust is able to infect someone. Nice little touch.

            The writing style, like the first one is pretty quick paced, descriptive without spending too much on drawn out moments that are padding. A lot of jammed into this book, and that is easily felt looking back at it, but not at the moment.

            The only real downside of this book is some of the melodrama associated with some of the characters. Thomas and Theresa are best friends who can read each other’s minds, even if they can’t remember too much about each other.  They’re on the run from a god-like government entity that literally made one character kill another character in the previous book (also spoilers… I guess) and built a giant maze that kept people trapped inside for years. So… when Theresa is visiting Thomas in his dreams telling him to trust her, maybe he wants to do it instead of spending so much time debating what she wants. These parts of the book drag, which is a shame because it takes away from the sheer awesome of evil corporations, world changing catastrophes, and sun-zombies.

            There’s also the addition of a new character and obvious love interest for Thomas, Brenda. She’s an interesting character in her own right, but she’s constantly framed in her feelings for Thomas. Since the narrative is told strictly through his eyes, how do we KNOW she has feelings for him? Because she spends a large section of the novel throwing herself at him like she had a fatal disease and kissing him was the only cure. (Of course, that’s a bad example, because she may or may not actually have a fatal disease.) But this could have been toned down a little bit because it comes out of nowhere, and again, adds needless melodrama to an already jam packed book.

            Overall, this is a great second entry, but does suffer from what I said in having no real beginning, and then again no real ending because everything is going to be wrapped up in the Maze Runner 3: The Death Cure, which hopefully will feature more Mazes than this one, which was oddly maze free for a Maze Runner book. I am looking forward to reading the next entry, which I guess means that this one did it’s job, but I’m interested in seeing how it fits in with the entire trilogy when the series is done.

            Keep in mind, I’m not including the two prequels when I talk about the trilogy, as I consider them separate from these books. Although I’ll probably be covering this as the year and Book Report 52 continues.

Bad Shakespeare 52 Project: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

           There’s a debate amongst my circle of friends: Should you see the movie first, or read the book first? Personally, I think that a movie and a book should be treated differently. For example, it would be really cool to see Harry Potter blast every Dementor possible while Hermione Granger fights for the rights of house elves, but that would relate to a roughly eight and a half hour movie, would allow for more book splitting, and then we’d end up with things like Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire part 6. Then I would have to quit movies and books altogether and take up a nomadic lifestyle of yelling at people on the Metro.

            Bottom line for me: Book is a book. Movie is a movie. And a roll is a roll. (Robin Hood: Men in Tights Reference for the win!)

            So, it is with this in mind that I ventured into a movie theater late last fall and saw The Maze Runner without having read page one of the book. I vaguely knew that it involved some amount of “maze running” because best books often have their descriptions in the title. I was so amazingly blown away that I had to start devouring the books as much as I possibly could. The movie was THAT good. So, I sort of did it in reverse, where most people think you should read the book first so you can smugly say, “how can you be surprised about the Red Wedding that was like two books ago?”

            Needless to say, this is about the book, not the movie.

            The Maze Runner tells the story of a young man named Thomas who wakes up with no memory except his name in a box in a place called the Glade. He’s quickly welcomed by several other characters, including the injured and extremely British Newt, (all of his dialogue is accented with the word “bloody” in case you forget), Alby, the leader, and the immediately antagonistic Gally. There’s also the lovable Chuck, so lovable that (spoilers for a book that came out three years ago) his death at the end is all at once a surprise and not a surprise.

            Turns out, they all live in this place they’ve named the Glade, they’re given a fresh boy and supplies each month through a box in the ground, and they’re encompassed in a giant maze. Thomas longs to be a maze runner… but he has to go through the rules and regulations of finding his job, until he eventually becomes a maze runner through acts of courage just before the box opens again, well before schedule, and introduces a young woman with whom Thomas can communicate with telepathically. Together they have to battle through the maze, get their memories back, and figure out just why “WICKED is good.”

            This is an interesting book that manages to suck readers in immediately with an interesting premise and interesting “hook”… no one remembers anything about their pasts except a few who had been stabbed by monsters that inhabit the maze, and when they get their memories back they go somewhat crazy. The best thing about this novel is that it keeps ratcheting up the crazy and the sheer insanity… rather than being content to rest on it’s premise, it works to increase the craziness and make it that more insane. There’s the mystery of the maze. When that gets solved, there’s the mystery of why they’re there. Then Theresa shows up, and the mind reading starts… just insane.

            I also liked the characterization of our main character, Thomas. He doesn’t suffer from the “special snowflake role” that a lot of young adult literature sometimes relies on. I mean, obviously he’s a little bit different… there’s a whole genre of story that relies on “stranger comes into town,” and he really hits that. But at the end of the day he’s still a confused guy trying to find his way out of this maze with everyone else.

            The only real weak point of this novel is the main antagonist, Gally. He’s set up as the “bad guy” who doesn’t like the new guy immediately. The problem is that a lot of it is set up as foreshadowing as he has “regained” part of his memories, but can’t articulate them. This novel doesn’t follow the all too typical YA structure of using first person, but rather third person and then limits it by letting us see a lot of the story through only Thomas’ eyes. Yes, it’s his story, but you take one of your more interesting story and manages to sort of push him into a role of a one note bad guy. (I’m currently reading the trilogy, and the third book fixes this. But hey… I’m just doing one at a time.)

            I really did enjoy this book. Like I said, I like the twists. It can be a little difficult to get through from time to time because there’s not a lot that sets it apart from a lot of the Young Adult (spoiler) post-apocalyptic fiction that is running (see what I did there) around out there. But that being said, I’m looking forward to seeing how it all ends.