The Maze Runner Files

Mini-Review: I don't listen to many "novellas", but this was a nice little refresher before The Fever Code is released in two days. This one-hour short story was enough to remind me of why I was so enamored with this series 2 years ago. The formatting of The Maze Runner Files is very similar to that of Illuminae. I don't think anything in it is absolutely essential to the overarching story, but information in novellas rarely is. It's more about furthering the world-building and character development, which The Maze Runner Files definitely does. If you're a big fan of the series (like I am) or want to ready yourself for the next installment, I definitely think The Maze Runner Files is worth a listen. C'mon, it's only one-hour long.

Mark Deakins was one of the very first narrators I fell in love with (in a professional sense, of course). This is definitely a series I recommend listening to on audio. Deakins gives many of the characters distinct voices/accents, which adds to the experience tremendously. His narration makes the story incredibly easy to follow along with. Listening to The Maze Runner Files has gotten me sufficiently excited to be returned to this world and to hear Deakins' expert narration again.

The Maze Runner Files is a short, novelette-length ebook of about 56 pages by my e-reader’s count that provides supplemental material to the Maze Runner series. It mostly consists of internal memos and emails exchanged by the powers that be at WICKED regarding the Flare virus. I would say that these things only offered some mild insights into certain events in the story. There are also three short scenes involving the memories of three different characters, Thomas, Frypan, and Minho. “Thomas’s First Memory of the Flare” can be downloaded for free online, so this wasn’t even new, original content. The other two characters’ memories were somewhat interesting. Frypan’s added a few tidbits of info to his background. However, with Minho’s scene, while well-written and engaging, I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on or how it fit into the greater story-arc. The only other thing included was a graphics-based image of a PSA flyer about the Flare virus, which unfortunately my e-reader wouldn’t allow me enlarge, so I couldn’t really read it. I would imagine that other black and white e-readers with smaller screens similar to mine may also have issues with it. More than half the “book” consisted of excerpts from James Dashner’s other books, The Fever Code and The Eye of Minds.I picked up The Maze Runner Files, partly for the sake of completeness and also thinking it would offer more insights into the world of the Maze Runner. Because I love the series and the new-to-me parts were somewhat interesting, I gave it three stars, but ultimately I felt rather let down by it. IMHO, there isn’t enough original material in it to justify the $1.99 price tag. I think it would have been better served to be released as free bonus content for loyal fans, or at the very least, it shouldn’t have been priced above $0.99.

[Spoilers for the Maze Runner Trilogy] The Maze Runner Files was a great quick read and offered insight into some of the characters as well as WICKED itself. I especially enjoyed the sections of correspondence discussing the Flare/Purge and the Suppressed Memories of the Gladers. My only problem with the book was that it was too short: the last half of this book contains an excerpt of Dashner's latest novel. I would have enjoyed more actual Maze Runner Content. Still, I'm glad to have it as part of my Maze Runner Collection.

This is a collection of bits and pieces that may or may not fill in some of the blanks after having read the entire series. It was a short, quick read that I breezed through in one sitting. It was well edited and decently organized. However, I found it a little frustrating that some of the tidbits actually left me with more questions that will continue to go unanswered, since Mr. Dashner is not writing any more books to go along with this series, at least as far as I am aware.

While I enjoyed reading what was there, I found it marginally frustrating that nearly half of the pages included was a sneak peak for Eye of Minds, which I found to be a bit of a tease and somewhat misleading. I wish there had been more accompanying materials for The Maze Runner.