The Scorch Trials
Date
2010
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Delacorte Press
Abstract
The novel follows the narrative of the first book in The Maze Runner series, who introduces Thomas, a sixteen-year-old boy that wakes up in a mysterious labyrinth, in whose enclosed central area – called The Glade – live other boys (the Gladers) who were sent there in unknown circumstances as well. After exploring the maze and finding an exit, it is revealed that the world had been ravaged by a coronal mass ejection and that an organisation called WICKED, comprising a number of scientists, sought to reunite people with a natural resistance to a disease called “the Flare” in the maze, using the boys as test subjects so as to observe their capacity of working together as a society. The ending of the first novel sees Thomas and the Gladers confronting WICKED’S scientists; meanwhile, a rescue team invades the facility and takes the Gladers to another place where they are fed and allowed to rest. The Scorch Trials introduces the “Rat Man”, a scientist who explains the boys that WICKED had been studying them in the hope of finding a cure for the Flare, and that they are all infected with the disease as well, albeit being more resistant to it. Now, in order to find a safe haven and a cure, the Gladers are asked to travel to the Scorch (the must burned-out section of the planet after the solar flares that severely damaged it) via a portal and traverse it. This second novel follows the plot of the first, while giving more information about WICKED’s scientific experiments and technological innovations, the disease that spread uncontrollably through the world, and the destruction of the planet due to a natural catastrophe.
Description
Keywords
disease , apocalypse , scientific experiment , portal
Citation
Dashner, James. The Scorch Trials. Delacorte Press, 2010.