The Scorch Trials
James Dashner, 2010
Science fiction Young adultFantasyContemporary fiction
The Maze was only the first test. A scorched world, infected strangers and a group of teens who trust almost no one. The voice stays plain and tense, with dread pressing through a fast, grim scramble and only occasional hope.
Feels like dread and hope. About death.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you want a tense YA sci-fi sequel with a plain, dread-filled voice and a scorched-world chase. It is the middle book of a trilogy, though, so starting here means missing the setup from The Maze Runner.
Why read it
It gives you a lean, uneasy middle chapter about trust and survival in a ruined world, without dressing up the fear.
A page from the book
The monsters are gone; the pictures in their heads are not.
Somehow she projected a jab of cynicism into the words. I keep seeing Grievers. Their disgusting skin and blubber bodies, all those metal arms and spikes. It was way too close for comfort, Tom. How’re we gonna get something like that out of our heads? James Dashner.The Scorch Trials was published in 2010, a year after The Maze Runner; Dashner wrote the sequel as the middle act of a trilogy that became a film franchise.
Books that feel like this
More by James Dashner
The Maze Runner
James Dashner, 2009
A boy wakes with no memory in a moving lift, among boys who have built a life beside a shifting maze. The rules are simple; the questions aren't.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Scorch Trials for me?
- You may like it if you want a tense YA sci-fi sequel with a plain, dread-filled voice and a scorched-world chase. It is the middle book of a trilogy, though, so starting here means missing the setup from The Maze Runner.
- What is The Scorch Trials like?
- The voice stays plain and tense, with dread pressing through a fast, grim scramble and only occasional hope. Feels like dread and hope. About death.
- What should I read after The Scorch Trials?
- If you liked The Scorch Trials, try The Long Walk (Richard Bachman), An Ember in the Ashes (Sabaa Tahir) and Doctor Sleep (Stephen King).
A taste of the feed
The seductive idea of death as a silent library where nothing is asked of you.
Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind your gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit. No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth’s wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death. How would that be? Just how would that be?
The Long Walk · Richard Bachman
The difference between guilt that crushes you and guilt that steers you.
There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that’s a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It’s damaged but it’s there. Don’t let them take it from you.
An Ember in the Ashes · Sabaa Tahir
A grand hotel burns, and the year hides in a president.
On the second day of December in a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was doing business in the White House, one of Colorado’s great resort hotels burned to the ground. The Overlook was declared a total loss.
Doctor Sleep · Stephen King
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