DX Reviews: Maz Runner

[DXmagma]

So having reviewed most of the books I got from the library (I can't review unwind as it would be nothing but praise) I finally got around to reading the maze runner. They say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but so far that strategy seems to work for me. Based solely on covers i've found 2 of the greatest books i've ever read (voyage of the space beagle, Unwind) gotten back into a great series, and read a book that I really, really, hope gets a sequel. (rise of renegade X) so, did this strategy work with the maze runner?

Well first off reading the maze runner was sort of a knee jerk decision. Honestly the only reason I got it was because the cover reminded me of Enslaved: odyssey to the west, a game I have yet to get a hold of. (i'm saving my cash for a trip to New Vegas.) so, I really had no expectations for this, not like wrath of the bloodeye.

At first the Maze Runner is difficult to say the least. The book's protagonist is Thomas (no last name given) as he wakes up in the Glade, which is...i dunno. Describing the Glade in a few words is difficult. It's basically a massive area in the middle of a giant maze. The Glade is where this, for lack of a better term, Tribe of teenage boys live. They come in some sort of dark elevator, have no memory of where they come from, and are forced to live in the Glade.

At night the Glade's doors close to keep the Grievers out, which I imagine are like a cross between the Chu Chus from Zelda and sonic the hedgehog. Getting into the Maze Runner is difficult because the story never describes what exactly the Glade looks like. I mean, never a tone point does the story describe what exactly the Glade looks like.

On top of that the boys in the Glade have their own weird adjectives for things. Klunk, Slint, Shank, it's confusing from the start to try and figure out what these made up words mean. And I know shank is a real word and what it means, but klunk is the sound effect Atomic Robo makes when he trips over a nuclear warhead.

?klunk? is the only word that's actually explained, what is a shank and a slint? You'll have to figure that out yourself. Klunk is suppose to be a synonym for ****. You can't just write ****? Seriously, if your novel is directed toward teenagers I can almost guarantee they are well acquainted wit the word ****. The only reason they wouldn't say **** is if they didn't want to be rude in front of girls, and there aren't any girls in the Glade, (at least not in the beginning) or they didn't want to anger their parents, again not in the Glade. In Hindsight, knowing the purpose of the Glade I guess it makes sense they wouldn't swear and fight non stop, but having known these characters i'm not convinced they would make up their own words at all!

On top of that, the three words mean basically the same thing! The words shank, slint, and klunk, all mean ****. ?little shank?. ?slint head.? ?piece of klunk.? why give different words that mean exactly the same thing!? There are already several words for crap that would work just fine, just use those! And I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the fact that this does make it more difficult to get into the novel.  It makes the whole thing feel alien, and the Glade doesn't hold enough mystery to make me want to read further. But of course I did, I wouldn't review a book if I only read the first 2 chapters. Just like I wouldn't criticize a game I only played 20 minutes of, YAHTZEE.

Anyway Maze Runner never really explains what the Glade is suppose to be. Because of this I didn't know the severity of the situation, so I couldn't feel sympathetic when they talk about leaving the Glade. I mean, what's so bad about it?

Everyone else in the Glade seems to have some concept of why the Glade is so evil, though no one really explains it to Thomas. The Grievers, those sonic chu chu things, are suppose to be what makes the Glade so bad, but the Glade closes off the monsters during the Night, the ONLY time the monsters are out.

However, there is a moment about 60% of the way through the book where Thomas is running through the maze, where he finds a silver plate that says ?WORLD IN CATASROPHY- KILLZONE EXPERIMENT INITIATED.? that intrigued me. What catastrophe is the world in? Where IS the Glade? What's the killzone experiment? Why's it called that? The only other thing  I know with the name killzone is bleak, filled with ash and blood and pelted with machine gun fire.

On top of this while I wasn't genuinely interested in the purpose of the Glade, but I was in the characters. This group of boys have banded together, and worked for two and a half years to try and get out of it.

There's also ?the creators.? whoever they are, there just something menacing about a group of people that have put a group of teenagers into a maze of monsters. Not only that, but there are lizard like robots that crawl along the walls, supposedly spying on the boys for these ?creators.? what makes it more ominous is that WICKED is written on the machines.

I know it sounds like i'm klunking all over the book here, but it genuinely does get really good later on. It's hard to get into the story early on, but as the story moves forward and I stopped obsessing over what the setting looked like and what the difference between a slint and a shank are, it got really good. The character of thomas isn't the standard goody two shoes hero, but he isn't as out landish as Damien in renegade X.

so yeah, as bad as I made the book sound, ti does get really good later on. Unfortunately I can't really tell you what makes it so good without spoiling it. so...yeah the maze runner, if you stick with it passed the first few chapters, is a really good book, and I look forward to the second book. Hopefully it won't take 2 years like this one did.