- A Maze of Death
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A Maze of Death 
Cover of first edition (hardcover)Author(s) Philip K. Dick Country United States Language English Genre(s) Science fiction novel Publisher Doubleday Publication date 1970 Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) Pages 216 pp ISBN NA 
A Maze of Death 1971 Paperback Library edition.
A Maze of Death is a 1970 science fiction novel by 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.
Synopsis
The plot revolves around fourteen colonists of the world Delmak-O. They are: Betty Jo Berm, a linguist; elderly Bert Kostler, settlement custodian; Maggie Walsh, a theologian; Ignatz Thugg, who oversees thermoplastics; Milton Babble, a physician; Wade Frazer, a psychologist; Tony Dunkelwelt, a geologist; Glen Belsnor, who specialises in telecommunications; Susie Smart, a typist; Roberta Rockingham, a sociologist; Ben Tallchief, a naturalist; Seth and Mary Morley, a marine biologist couple; and Ned Russell, an economist. 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. 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
Works of Philip K. Dick Short story collections 1950sA Handful of Darkness (1955) · The Variable Man (1956)1960sThe Preserving Machine (1969)1970sThe Book of Philip K. Dick (1973) · The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)1980sThe Golden Man (1980) · Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984) · I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985) · The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987) · Beyond Lies the Wub (1988) · The Dark Haired Girl (1989) · The Father-Thing (1989) · Second Variety (1989)1990sThe Days of Perky Pat (1990) · The Little Black Box (1990) · The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990) · We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990) · The Minority Report (1991) · Second Variety (1991) · The Eye of the Sibyl (1992) · The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)2000sMinority Report (2002) · Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002) · Paycheck (2004) · Vintage PKD (2006)Short stories 1950s"Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952) · "The Gun" (1952) · "The Skull" (1952) · "The Little Movement" (1952) · "The Defenders" (1953) · "Mr. Spaceship" (1953) · "Piper in the Woods" (1953) · "Roog" (1953) · "The Infinities" (1953) · "Second Variety" (1953) · "The World She Wanted" (1953) · "Colony" (1953) · "The Cookie Lady" (1953) · "Impostor" (1953) · "Martians Come in Clouds" (1953) · "Paycheck" (1953) · "The Preserving Machine" (1953) · "The Cosmic Poachers" (1953) · "Expendable" (1953) · "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953) · "The Commuter" (1953) · "Out in the Garden" (1953) · "The Great C" (1953) · "The King of the Elves" (1953) · "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953) · "The Variable Man" (1953) · "The Impossible Planet" (1953) · "Planet for Transients" (1953) · "Some Kinds of Life" (1953) · "The Builder" (1953) · "The Hanging Stranger" (1953) · "Project: Earth" (1953) · "The Eyes Have It" (1953) · "Tony and the Beetles" (1953) · "Prize Ship" (1954) · "Beyond the Door" (1954) · "The Crystal Crypt" (1954) · "A Present for Pat" (1954) · "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954) · "The Golden Man" (1954) · "James P. Crow" (1954) · "Prominent Author" (1954) · "Small Town" (1954) · "Survey Team" (1954) · "Sales Pitch" (1954) · "Time Pawn" (1954) · "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954) · "The Crawlers" (1954) · "Of Withered Apples" (1954) · "Exhibit Piece" (1954) · "Adjustment Team" (1954) · "Shell Game" (1954) · "Meddler" (1954) · "Souvenir" (1954) · "A World of Talent" (1954) · "The Last of the Masters" (1954) · "Progeny" (1954) · "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954) · "The Father-thing" (1954) · "Strange Eden" (1954) · "Jon's World" (1954) · "The Turning Wheel" (1954) · "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955) · "Human Is" (1955) · "War Veteran" (1955) · "Captive Market" (1955) · "Nanny" (1955) · "The Hood Maker" (1955) · "The Chromium Fence" (1955) · "Service Call" (1955) · "A Surface Raid" (1955) · "The Mold of Yancy" (1955) · "Autofac" (1955) · "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955) · "The Minority Report" (1956) · "To Serve the Master" (1956) · "Pay for the Printer" (1956) · "A Glass of Darkness" (1956) · "The Unreconstructed M" (1957) · "Misadjustment" (1957) · "Null-O" (1958) · "Explorers We" (1959) · "Recall Mechanism" (1959) · "Fair Game" (1959) · "War Game" (1959)1960s"All We Marsmen" (1963) · "Stand-by" (1963) · "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963) · "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963) · "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963) · "Waterspider" (1964) · "Novelty Act" (1964) · "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964) · "The War with the Fnools" (1964) · "What the Dead Men Say" (1964) · "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964) · "Cantata 140" (1964) · "A Game of Unchance" (1964) · "The Little Black Box" (1964) · "Precious Artifact" (1964) · "The Unteleported Man" (1964) · "Retreat Syndrome" (1965) · "Project Plowshare" (1965) · "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966) · "Holy Quarrel" (1966) · "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday" (1966) · "Return Match" (1967) · "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967) · "Not by Its Cover" (1968) · "The Story to End All Stories" (1968) · "The Electric Ant" (1969) · "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)1970s"The Pre-persons" (1974) · "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974) · "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)1980s"Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr" (1980) · "Rautavaara's Case" (1980) · "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980) · "The Alien Mind" (1981) · "Strange Memories of Death" (1984) · "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked" (1987) · "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree" (1987) · "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987) · "Stability" (1987) · "Goodbye, Vincent" (1988)Film and television adaptations 1980sBlade Runner (1982)1990sTotal Recall (1990) · Confessions d'un Barjo (1992) · Screamers (1995) · Total Recall 2070 (1999 TV series)2000sImpostor (2002) · Minority Report (2002) · Paycheck (2003) · A Scanner Darkly (2006) · Next (2007) · Screamers: The Hunting (2009)2010sRadio Free Albemuth (2011) · The Adjustment Bureau (2011) · Total Recall (2012) · King of the Elves (2013)Categories:- Novels by Philip K. Dick
- 1970 novels
- 1970s science fiction novels
- American science fiction novels
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