The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner (2009) by James Dashner opens with its protagonist Thomas arriving in a metal lift with no memory of his previous life, delivered into the Glade, a roughly two-mile square of grass and stone enclosed by enormous concrete walls. He is the latest in a series of monthly arrivals, all teenage boys who have been deposited here by an organization called WICKED and left to build a functioning community. The Maze surrounds the Glade on all sides, its walls shifting every night, its interior patrolled by mechanical creatures called Grievers. A small group of Runners attempt to map it each day before the walls close at dusk. No one has found a way out.

The novel's central premise, that the teenagers are subjects in a behavioral experiment conducted by WICKED under the premise of saving humanity from a solar flare catastrophe and the viral pandemic it triggered, is revealed gradually. Dashner keeps the mystery tight through the first novel, and the Glade's internal social structure, its hierarchy, its rituals, its language, gives the world enough texture to sustain the pace. The series was one of the commercial anchors of the YA dystopian wave that followed The Hunger Games and remained one of its most successful examples. The first novel was adapted for film in 2014.

Signed copy. Signed by Dashner on the title page.

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009. Florida Teens Read winner (2012). ISBN: 9780385737944. #10725.
Fine in fine dust jacket.