Thirteen years before the events of The Maze Runner took place, there was simple village of people living in the mountains trying to recover from the massive solar flare that devastated Earth a year prior. The Kill Order follows a group of these villagers as they go from being attacked with mysterious darts to finding the people responsible. On the way, they experience what it’s like to become ground zero for a deadly epidemic.

I was excited to read this book because I was curious about how the world had reacted in the wake the the solar flare as well as how the solution for The Flare came to be a deadly maze. The world of The Maze Runner intrigued me more than the actual plot, so I was hoping this story was an exploration of that world more than anything. It didn’t happen exactly as I would have thought.

The Kill Order is, in my opinion, the best book out of the series. The biggest factor in my coming to this decision was the characters. There was more distinguishing features and personality to them that I was able to empathize with them all much more easily than I was with the characters in the main trilogy. I’ll admit Trina was kind of flat and Deedee’s description probably wasn’t expanded much further than “the four-year-old”. However, on the whole, the characters of this book were more easily separated from one another and we were able to learn more about them through their actions/reactions. This is in contrast to the Gladers, whose actions were all very functional.

The origin of The Flare was my biggest curiosity. Initially, we were told it had escaped a testing facility due to the solar flare damaging the facility’s security system. Then, we’re teased with a half statement about it being intentionally released as a means of population control. Setting a suburb up as ground zero was an interesting decision. When we think of deadly outbreaks, they are often thought of as starting in densely populated areas, so this was a refreshing take on ground zero. We also get to see how rapidly the disease changes over the first two months of it being released. By the end of the novel, we’re still not sure how it has reached its ability to lurk so well, but we are treated to the urgency the problem bring to society.

While I consider this story the best out of the series, it didn’t answer enough questions for me to be fully wowed with it. There were a few inconsistencies with the main trilogy that bothered me. However, the situation was more believable than what we’re exposed to in The Maze, so I wasn’t brought out of the story quite as often. I was glad to end the series with the best one.