Pines is the first novel in Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines Trilogy. The second book, Wayward, was published a year later, in 2013, with the third and final installment, The Last Town, published in 2014. The trilogy follows Ethan Burke’s journey in the small town of Wayward Pines. In the first book, Ethan discovers the truth about Wayward Pines, eventually getting promoted to sheriff. In the second book, Ethan works to manage the town and its residents and protect them—both from the outside world and from the abbies, genetically evolved humans who threaten the safety of the community. In the third book, The Last Town, Ethan finally discovers the truth about the world around Wayward Pines. This discovery involves Ethan overcoming fierce attacks from the abbies and the Wayward Pines crew’s inability, until this point, to explore the world outside their boundaries.

In 2015, Fox aired a television adaptation of the Wayward Pines trilogy, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Matt Dillon as Ethan Burke. The first season of the show, which covers the plot of the entire trilogy, was intended to be a stand-alone season of 10 episodes. However, after it was renewed for a second season, the show featured new actors, a new showrunner, and a plot that spun off from the original trilogy.