A Maze of Death

 

A Maze of Death
A Maze of Death
by Authors: PHILIP K. DICK
Released: 31 May, 1994
ISBN: 0679752986
Paperback

Sales Rank: 76,777
List price: $12.00
Our price: $9.00 (You save: $3)
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A Maze of Death > Customer Review #1:
This ones good! Short but with amazing insight!

Realistic characters (all human this time), genuine suspense, a strange and oddly familiar view of religion and a really well handled twist at the end - for those reasons A Maze of Death is one of my favorite Philip K. Dick novels. Its a short book, but packs in a lot of insight about perceptions, the shifting nature of reality (of course), human interactions, paranoia and hopeless cases. I notice that the tone here is more dismal than Philip K. Dick usually offers, but (as always with his stories) reading it is an eye-opening and memorable experience.

While many authors have expanded on themes in this story, written in 1970, I dont think that anyones improved on his presentation of them. Read it with your mind open to all possibilities.



A Maze of Death > Customer Review #2:
Excellent page turner, but a book of despair

Maze presents the common PKD theme of one ersatz reality, the one in which we believe we live, giving way to another. Invariably this is traumatic, such as in Ubik. In this case, however, all hope is lost as to a solution. Dicks metaphor of the doomed spaceship (being Earth) is gloomy indeed, and it is no surprise that this book was written at a time in Phils life where he had no hope. The only hope is the mystical removal of Morley at the end, but this could be interpreted as an escape into death. This is not a happy novel.

Nevertheless, as others have said, Maze is possibly the fastest PKD read you will encounter. I have read this book but once, and I was astounded at the time. I rate this extremely highly as a work of fiction, although I suspect that further reading will confirm what others have said - that is that the soul is not there, Dick no longer believes in what he is writing.



A Maze of Death > Customer Review #3:
A MAZE OF DEATH: HAUNTED-HAUNTING

There is a two-fold problem with writing a review of this fabulous novel: first, it is literally impossible to give detailed analysis of it without giving away things that really need to remain unknown for the reader to get the most impact from a first reading; second, I personally have very deep feelings about this book that might be difficult to express coherently without such a detailed analysis. But because of my love for this unjustly lesser known and appreciated Dick novel, I am going to cast some rational caution aside, write what I feel at the risk of some incoherence:
For me A MAZE OF DEATH is both a haunted and haunting novel: the book itself, the very object, seems to hold, or is held by, a mysterious, dizzying depth and it imprints this character deeply onto the reader. Haunted and haunting. You will perhaps understand what I mean when you finish reading the last page.
Its a novel with what we call a surprise or a twist, but it is so much more than merely clever. With its casual, even banal, surface it draws the unknowing reader into a maze
(amazing) that leads to the most deliberately neglected and yet the most fundamental and profound of all human problems: the egos struggle to find a transcending means of overcoming its seemingly endless, insane, fear-rooted conflicts with other egos at the same time that it is trying to find a permanent sense of meaning for itself in the face of its own inevitable death which only increases its fear and tends to induce an excess of fantasy which in turn increases the difficulty of relating to other egos. Existence as a darkly flaming whirligig that can, no matter how many of its own layers it burns away, only trace and retrace its own limited, circular condition. A maze of death called life that the most advanced technology can not essentially change but only turn like a kaleidoscope and create fantastic patterns that still just come back down to the same few tormenting colors and elements. A very dark vision. And yet the novel burns with brilliance and leaves a brilliance in the reader in the very midst of that darkness. Is there not, seriously, a truly positive quality is such clarity and depth of vision however dark its appearance? Another Dick paradox.
This novel is one of the reasons why Philip K. Dick must be considered the most important of all sci-fi writers and more than just a sci-fi writer.
My task here is not to tell you the content of the novel, but to help you decide to read it or not. I sincerely hope that you will. I highly recommend it without hesitation to Dick beginners and journeymen.

 
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