A Maze of Death
Encyclopedia
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
. 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
Death instinct
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic: 'the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state'...
and capacity for murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and is one of his darkest novels.
Synopsis
The plot revolves around fourteen colonists of the world Delmak-O. They are: Betty Jo Berm, a linguistLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
; elderly Bert Kostler, settlement custodian
Custodian
The term Custodian may refer to:* Janitor, a person who cleans, maintains, provides security and initiates repairs or makes minor repairs to buildings.* Custodian bank, an organization responsible for safeguarding a firm's or individual's financial assets...
; Maggie Walsh, a theologian; Ignatz Thugg, who oversees thermoplastics; Milton Babble, a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
; Wade Frazer, a psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
; Tony Dunkelwelt, a geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
; Glen Belsnor, who specialises in telecommunications; Susie Smart, a typist; Roberta Rockingham, a sociologist; Ben Tallchief, a naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
; Seth and Mary Morley, a marine biologist couple; and Ned Russell, an economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
. They inhabit a universe in which the deities of their religion can be contacted through a network of prayer amplifiers and transmitters. Tallchief is transferred to Delmak-O as a direct result of his prayer-petition for a change in his intolerable work situation.
Delmak-O is mysterious and largely unexplored world. It seems to be inhabited by both real and artificial beings and enormous cube-shaped, gelatinous objects ("tenches") that duplicate items presented to them and give out advice, in anagrams reminiscent of the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
. In addition, various members of the group report sightings of a large "Building". As various calamities continue to befall each character, part of the group ventures out to find the mysterious structure. Each member of the group perceives the Building's entrance motto, and thus its purpose, differently.
One by one, the characters Tallchief, Smart, Berm, Dunkelwelt, Kostler and Walsh either kill themselves or are killed under mysterious circumstances. During a fight between the remaining colonists Seth Morley is shot through the shoulder causing an artery to be severed. While recovering from an attempt to repair the artery, Morley is abducted by armed men who kill Belsnor. They put Morley aboard a small flying craft but Morley overpowers them and takes control of the craft. With it he discovers that Delmak-O is in fact Earth, and he returns to the group to report this.
The group then comes to the conclusion that they are all criminally insane and part of a psychiatric experiment in rehabilitation. Once they admit to having killed the other members they conclude that the experiment has been a failure. It is at this point that they notice that each of them is tattooed with the phrase, "Persus 9". They decide to ask a tench what this means but doing so causes the tench to explode and the world around them to crumble to pieces.
All of them, including the colonists thought to be dead, awake to find that they are actually the crew of a spaceship that has become stranded in orbit around a dead star with no way of calling for help. Their experience had been a kind of virtual reality—a computer-generated religion that synthesized their beliefs—to help them pass the time. Seth Morley is depressed by this and wonders whether it would be better to let all the air out from the ship and thus kill them all rather than live out the rest of their lives engaging in virtual reality with no hope of rescue. Before he can act, however, an aspect of the deity known as the Intercessor, supposedly existing only in the virtual reality program and not a part of the "real" world, appears before Morley and removes him from the ship. The others, unconcerned with his disappearance, embark on another hallucination which begins in exactly the same way as the previous one, only this time without Seth Morley.
See also
- Faith of our FathersFaith of our Fathers"Faith of Our Fathers" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in the anthology Dangerous Visions . It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1968....