- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition (3 Jun 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679752986
- ISBN-13: 978-0679752981
- Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 1.4 x 20.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,745,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
A Maze Of Death (S.F. Masterworks)
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Product Description
Product Description
Fourteen strangers came to Delmak-O. Thirteen of them were transferred by the usual authorities. One got there by praying. But once they arrived on that planet whose very atmosphere seemed to induce paranoia and psychosis, the newcomers found that even prayer was useless. For on Delmak-O, God is either absent or intent on destroying His creations.
From the Back Cover
LIFE AND DEATH IN THE NEW WORLD
Fourteen people arrive on the strange planet of Delmak-O, each looking forward to a new life in a new world. But what is the huge forbidding building near their settlement that plays on each individual’s fears and superstitions? And what are the tiny artificial insects which observe the colonists with minute TV cameras?
Without warning, the murders begin …
“The fact that what Dick is writing about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation – this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own home-grown borges, and had him for thirty years”
URSULA K. LEGUIN
“My literary hero”
FAY WELDON
“One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction”
SUNDAY TIMES
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Possibly Dick's bleakest book. As has been stated elsewhere, this novel begins very much as a murder mystery, but rapidly mutates into something much more frightening. Essentially, what Dick is giving us is a vision of Hell - not the Hell of popular mythology, but the far worse hell of the human spirit trapped forever in an endless cycle of unfulfilled potential, lost hope, suspicion, distrust and fear, and there is little here of the love and empathy that one usually finds in a Dick novel. Even the one brief glimpse of redemption that we get at the end of the novel is clouded in ambiguity. And speaking of the ending, I suspect that many modern readers may find the 'explanation' for what has been going on something of a science-fiction cliche; but without giving anything away it's worth remembering that Dick was one of the first SF writers to take the idea and really run with it. No one before or since has taken it to quite the extremes that he did. 'A Maze of Death' is undoubtedly a dark and disturbing book - you can almost smell the paranoia seeping from the page - but it's one of Dick's most honest and unsparing works and I for one believe it deserves a much higher place in his canon than it currently occupies.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book has just be reissued as part of the SF Masterworks series, and is not among his most well-known works (such as "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep", "A Scanner Darkly","The Man in the High Castle" and "Ubik"). It was written in 1970 when Dick was undergoing a sort of religious conversion and much of the ideas expresed in the book are as a result of his relationship and discussions with Bishop James Pike.
The book contains the usual Dickisms such as paranoia, hallucination, distintegration of society/environment, heroes in low-grade maintance roles and the recurring one-dimensional portraits of female characters as either selfish, controlling or oversexed.
The book is far from perfect, but, as anyone who loves this author knows, that isn't the point. The point is to enjoy the warped ideas, lunacy and sheer strangeness.
The plot starts off as a murder mystery (one of the lead characters is suprising offed early on) and reads a bit like a SF version of "And Then There Were None" on drugs. It does move into more usual Dick narrative territory as the story proceeds. Not wishing to give away the ending, lets just say that it has overtones of a recent SF blockbuster film. (Even films not based on his books owe a large debt to him)
Enjoy another great addition to the SF Masterworks collection...!
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A Maze of Death is quite a typical Philip K. Dick novel and is actually an OK introduction to his canon. It might not be one of his best but it is definitely written in his own unique style and is worth a look.
The plot revolves around a group of strangers who are transferred from their respective home planets to a new planet to begin new lives. From here on in it is about how this group of apparent introverts get along with each other and try and work out what to do once they’ve arrived. I won’t say anymore, as anyone familiar with PKD can more or less assume nothing is what it seems.
Criticisms might be that the characters are a little two-dimensional or the archaic opinion of women. Obviously I don’t think this really belongs in the Masterworks and am a bit unsure why there is so much of PKD in this series but I was glad to be introduced to it nonetheless. I wasn’t expecting great things but I was pleasantly surprised. Short and sweet!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A good book but don't buy on kindle.
This book is very interesting and dark, the problem is that on kindle it is formatted so that there is a large space between every paragraph. Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. J. Owens
Classic Philip K Dick
" When fourteen people arrive to colonize the otherwise uninhabited planet of Delmark-O, they quickly discover that their bizarre new world is more dangerous - and much, much... Read more
Published 14 months ago by M. D. Jenkins
A transmission from the future
If you like sci fi or you like Philip K Dick this book.
A beautiful/sad story stayed with me ever since I read it all those years ago........
A beautiful/sad story stayed with me ever since I read it all those years ago........
Published 16 months ago by G. Atwal
good, but not his best
ok, this is a PK Dick novel, so it's good, but not his best. Try 'A Scanner Darkly' if you are new to him. Read more
Published on 1 April 2008 by Johnny London
Far from my favourite PKD book
I really do love more or less every PKD story I have read, and looking over my collection I have realised I have quite a bit of his work. Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2006 by J. R. "Bob" Dobbs #99
unusual but interesting
I was really looking forward to reading this book, it being my first Philip Dick novel, but, I must admit, I was quite disappointed at first. I found it dragged. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2006 by dandicoot
A Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Metaphysical melting pot
This tells the story of a group of people who for various reasons travel to another planet to make a new start. Soon after their arrival, however, they find themselves stranded. Read more
Published on 26 Jan 1999
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