rmanbooks-blog

[rmanbooks-blog]

The Fever Code by James Dashner

The final prologue installment of Dashner’s series The Maze Runner is filled with action and adventure. The book is written as a moleskine/time-oriented diary of Thomas’s stay and life in WICKED leading up to his transition to the Maze.

It opens with Newt’s prospective on WICKED taking he and his sister Lily. They were going to only take Lily because, if you’ve read the previous books, Newt is not immune (a Munie). However, they decide to use him as a control for their experiments and trials.

Then it switches to Thomas’s point of view. His real name is Stephen, and they punish him when he refuses to accept it. I think WICKED gave the subjects fake names as a way to objectify them, to make them seem less cruel.

The book remains in Thomas’s pov throughout the book, but in third person. We get to see Thomas meeting Theresa for the first time. The two had rooms right next to each other, separated from the others in Group A because they were the “special” test subjects along with Aris and Rachel. When they finally get to meet each other, it’s awkward, like going on your first date or talking to your crush. They soon discover their telepathy link and become close using that for communication.

The pair meet Newt, Minho, and Alby and begin exploring the WICKED facilities. Newt takes them to visit his sister Lizzy in the Group B barracks. It’s an overall emotional meeting. The group (minus Lizzy) explore outside the WICKED facilities and get caught and punished with a walk through their Crankpits (expect Newt of course). Seeing the Cranks absolutely terrifies the kids and they don’t get together for a long time.

When they do meet, Minho brings someone new, Gally, with plans to escape again and for good. Not everyone is okay with this and They get caught before they can make do with their plans. The people who work at WICKED has captured Minho and are torturing him with Grievers, making Thomas and the rest of the crew watch.

A year passed and Thomas has not laid eyes on Minho still. They other members of the crew met once a week. The Griever torture changed Minho mentally, Alby mentions.

Then comes Insertion day. They insert 40 boys form Group A into the Maze, Thomas’ buds amongst them. Thomas and Theresa approach their freinds for one last time, but their friends blame him for their insertion into the Maze, as he and Theresa worked on it. After watching the first subject go into the Maze, Thomas realizes how cruel WICKED is, taking away their memories.

Chuck and Thomas become really close in this installment, as we get to see their roots in their relationship blossom. He even watches his friends in the Maze with Thomas in the observation room. The two were walking outside with Theresa and two guards when someone that worked at WICKED, Randall, approached and was clearly past the Gone. He goes all ballistic on the group, by the guards get the kids inside the WICKED complex just in time. Chuck spends the night in Thomas’ room because of the fright.

That night, Theresa beckons Thomas in her room to go see Dr. Paige. Her mission involves the pair and Aris and Rachel and is to eliminate all the sick people at WICKED, especially the head of the company Chancellor Anderson. She called this mission The Purge. The four entered in Anderson’s room to kill him, and found that he almost sent an email out to everyone that WICKED is not good, instead evil because “the subjects are kids” and “they can’t play God”. Thomas is the one who kills the Chancellor, and the description of his killing and Anderson’s death was very similar to Newt’s death in the Death Cure, which I’m not fond of. The four go on finishing the Purge.

About a month later, Thomas is in the observation room watching Newt. Basically, we get more detail about how and why Newt broke his leg. He’d attempted suicide, but came out with a broke leg. This scene in the book made me cry even more over Newt.

After this, Thomas finds out Dr. Paige sent out a mass memo about how he will “take full responsibility for what we’ve had to do over he last few days” and about welcoming Ava Paige as new Chancellor. Dr. Paige also sent out a mass memo from Chancellor Anderson, reminding his coworkers to keep working toward he cure and welcoming Paige as new Chancellor. When confronting Paige about it, Thomas realizes everyone at WICKED is full of lies.

Then Paige calls in for Thomas, Theresa, Aris, and Rachel to help build a city full of Cranks, revealing to the kids that there’s a phase two. Before they head out, Chuck visits Thomas before his insertion. (If you’ll remember Chuck was the Greenie before Thomas.) They had a heart to heart. When Chuck left, Thomas wondered, “What if I saved my friends?”

While building the City of Cranks, Thomas tells Theresa telepathically, “They’ll never find a cure.” The next day, he tells Theresa his plans of being put into the Maze with his Memories and helping the Gladers escape the Maze. They purposed this plan to Paige and she agreed to it. Rachel would be inserted into Group B’s Maze, Thomas into Group A’s. Aris and Theresa the next day after them.

Thomas had crammed information about Grievers into his brain before the insertion, thinking he would have his memories. Paige betrayed him. She didn’t let Thomas keep his memories, so he had to fight to hang on to the memories of his family, friends, favorite things. He didn’t succeed and soon they were gone, left behind.

In the epilouge, it’s revealed that only Theresa and Aris’s memories would be intact when they were inserted into the Maze. She’s finally living up to that “Betrayer” status.

OVERALL, I really enjoyed this proluge installment of the series and I feel like it completes the Maze Runner cycle. It’s one of my favorites in the series, budding up to Twh Death Cure. I recommend you read this book after you’ve read the main trilogy and The Kill Order because it follows that pattern, you know? However, you can still read it before the main trilogy and The Kill Order, as no harm will come to you and those you love. I’d rate this installment 8.6/10.