A maze of death
A Maze of Death is a 1970 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Like many of Dick's novels, it portrays what appears to be a drab and harsh off-world human colony and explores the difference between reality and perception. It is, however, one of his few to examine the human death instinct and capacity for murder and is one of his darkest novels.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
4people
2020–2023years
60% recommend20% neutral20% critical
Mentions per year
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- To save you some scripting:
Alan Moore - dystopian graphic novel V for Vendetta (serialized 1982–1989) Alejandro Jodorowsky Jean Giraud (Moebius) - graphic novel The Incal (1980–1988) Anna Kavan - Ice (1967). Anne McCaffrey - The Ship Who Sang (1969) Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Пикник на обочине (1972; Piknik na obochine; translated as A Roadside Picnic) Barry N. Malzberg - Beyond Apollo (1972) Brian Aldiss - Barefoot in the Head (1969) Brian Aldiss - Greybeard (1964). Chester Anderson - The Butterfly Kid (1967) Christopher Priest - Inverted World (1974) Cordwainer Smith - Norstrilia (1975, in complete form). David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) Frank Herbert - Dune (1965) Frank Miller - graphic novel Rōnin (1983–1984) Gary Panter - comic Jimbo (serialized 1977–present) Gary Panter - comic strip Dal Tokyo (1983–2007) Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972) Harlan Ellison’s (ed.) Dangerous Visions (1967) Jack Kirby - Fourth World comics (1971–1974). Jack Kirby - pre-Fourth World sci-fi comics (1964–1970) James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World (1978) Jane Gaskell - A Sweet, Sweet Summer (1969) J.G. Ballard - Crash (1973) J.G. Ballard - High-Rise (1975) J.G. Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition (written 1967, published 1970) J.G. Ballard - The Burning World (1964) J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World (1966) Joanna Russ - We Who Are About To… (serialized 1976; in book form, 1977) John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (1968). John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up (1972) John Crowley - Engine Summer (1979) John Crowley - The Deep (1975). John Sladek - Roderick at Random (1983) John Sladek’s - The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970) John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977) John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Carlos Ezquerra - Judge Dredd adventures Block Mania (serialized 10/31/1981 to 12/26/81) and The Apocalypse War (1/2/82 to 6/26/82). Josephine Saxton - The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) Katsuhiro Otomo - manga series Akira (1982–1990) Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) Michael Moorcock - The English Assassin (1972) M. John Harrison - The Pastel City (1971) Moebius-s Le Garage Hermétique (The Airtight Garage, 1976–1979) Octavia E. Butler-s Kindred (1979) Octavia E. Butler - Wild Seed (1980) Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death (1970) Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (1977) Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974). Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip (1964) Philip K. Dick - Now Wait for Last Year (1966) Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) Philip K. Dick - The Unteleported Man (1966) Philip K. Dick - Ubik (1969). Philip K. Dick - VALIS (1981) Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar (1968). Robert Heinlein - Friday (1982). Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside (1972) Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light (1967) Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker (1980) Samuel R. Delany - Babel-17 (1966). Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (1975) Samuel R. Delany - Nova (1968) Samuel R. Delany - The Einstein Intersection (1967) Samuel R. Delany - Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (1976) Stanislaw Lem - Ze wspomnien Ijona Tichego Kongres futurologiczny (The Futurological Congress, 1971) Thomas M. Disch - Camp Concentration (1968) Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) Ursula K. Le Guin - Rocannon's World (1966) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed (1974). Ursula K. LeGuin - The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Vladimir Nabokov - Ada, or Ardor (1969) Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake (1978) Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins (1971) William Burroughs - Nova Express (1964) - Many of Philip K. Dick books and short stories, but Ubik and A Maze of Death are my favorites.
William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive)
Douglas N. Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Frank Herbert's Dune books
Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human
Robert A. Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy
Robert Charles Wilson's Spin trilogy
Frederik Pohl's Heechee books
- All good picks! I was thinking of mentioning Ubik myself. I’d add A Maze of Death also.
Thinking about it, yeah, Valis is probably best saved for much later. That’s the same order I read Dick, and knowing a bit of his background and having seen his recurring tropes in fictional form, it added a whole new dimension to see them crop up in... pseudo-autobiographical form? I’m not even sure what to call it!
- I strongly recommend reading Ubik. To me it is his strongest and most consistently good book.
I used to love The Three Stigmata too, but when I tried to read it again recently I couldn't get in to it either. I do think you have to be in the right mood to savor a Dick book, so maybe I was in the wrong mood that time.
The other first-tier PKD book for me is Martian Time-Slip.
Second-tier PKD books for me are VALIS and Galactic Pot Healer.
Third-tier are Maze of Death, Eye in the Sky, and Divine Invasion (the 2nd in the VALIS trilogy.. didn't like the 3rd in the series, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer at all).
Many of his other books, like Lies, Inc, also have great parts in them, but are kind of inconsistent.
Some of his short stories are excellent. My favorites:
- Beyond Lies the Wub
- Roog
- The Father Thing
- Faith of Our Fathers
I didn't really like A Scanner Darkly, nor Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep and would consider them of minor import had not movies been made of them. Other books in this category are Now Wait for Last Year (made in to Total Recall) and Time Out of Joint (made in to The Truman Show.. though the book is much darker). The movie Minority Report was based on another minor short story of his, as The Terminator might have been partially based on his story Second Variety.
Virtually all of the movies made from his work only bear only a very slight resemblance to the originals, which tends to be a lot darker, a lot less action-filled, and much more thought-provoking than the Hollywood adaptations.
- I'd add Ubik to this as well, and would personally rate it higher than the Three Stigmata. For me, Ubik is PKD's greatest and most accessible book.
1st rank - Ubik, The Three Stigmata, A Martian Time Slip, Faith of Our Fathers
2nd rank - (The Divine Invasion or The Galactic Pot Healer ... don't remember which now... it's been a long time), A Maze of Death
3rd rank - VALIS, Eye in the Sky
Honorable mention: the middle of Lies, Inc -- it has a weak start and ending, but the middle is up there with the best PKD has ever written.
I found The Transmigration of Timothy Archer to be pretty boring, but I didn't make it all the way through, and some PKD books (like Lies, Inc) start dull and turn great, so I might give it another go sometime.. but the impression I got when first reading it was that this was a book written around the time PKD was starting to transition to writing more "serious literature" (aka not scifi), and to me PKD is just much stronger at writing scifi, particularly of the really mind-bending, bad acid trip kind, and he just wasn't cut out to write "serious literature"... so yeah, right now I'd pass on The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
I'm also kind of sick of his obsession with his pink light mystical experience.. I wish he'd just gotten over it already and moved on to something else. Writing about it once was more than enough.
