Grade: B+

Science fiction at its best plays with our fears and anxieties and flips them into a plot about robots and space and crazy technology so we can process everything safely. The genre lightens its social commentary into something that, ideally, entertains as well as challenges preconceived norms. The dystopia convention, for instance, works so well because we’re all scared of some “perfect” society where our freedoms and identities are taken away in order to maintain the guise of perfection. The fears are prevalent, just look at the current fears of Obamacare, or the gay marriage issue, or go back a few years and look at the reaction to the Patriot Act. The passionate reaction comes from the idea that the powers that be are setting up their own society and pulling us all with them, while leaving our true selves behind. This dread and distrust of authority is consistent in any good science fiction story. Philip K Dick is often considered one of the masters of the genre, both in terms of talent and output. Even if you’ve never read him, you’ve seen movies based on his writing, either loosely or directly. I am a newcomer to him, and Maze of Death is in fact the first novel by Dick that I’ve read. This particular book sort of ushers in his later years, where he became much more spiritual in his writing. The transition is evident, if crude, as he wrestles with all kinds of questions of god and faith, and the role they play the universe.

The story follows Seth Morley, mainly, and a cast of other characters called to work on Delmak-O for reasons that are not made clear to any of them. Morley is happy though because he prayed for a transfer and is content with the notion that his prayers have been answered. In this reality, deities are accessible via prayer transmitters and are a physical presence in the universe. Once on this seemingly uninhabited planet, the new residents don’t find it too welcoming. In the now familiar trope, they are trapped on an unfamiliar area with a malevolent force killing them off one by one, or at least they assume it’s a malevolent force, the one their beliefs call the form-destroyer. The characters rely on their faith and individual intelligences to attempt to band together and stay alive and hopefully escape the planet. If you know anything about science fiction, you know there’s a twist, and you probably know that the twist somehow involves the twisted nature of man rather than some god-being with a grudge against his creations. The twist is fun, but it’s not really the most important part of the book. The theme that is most significant is the idea that, on this world, for whatever reason, God has abandoned these people, and the truly special part of this book is the wrestling match these characters have with their faith and their loyalty and duty to each other. Dick, in his early spiritual journey, seems to have trouble believing that man, left to his own devices, is capable of surviving. In fact, beyond even that, he seems to suggest that without God, man will resort to murder and abandonment of his humanity.

Dick writes in a simple, but articulate style. Though he seems to have a basic understanding of it, he’s not interested in bogging the reader down with the nature of the technology this universe possesses, just that it works. I find it refreshing that there are no long passages over-explaining the various concepts that might seem foreign to us because we don’t live in a society that has mastered space travel. These people can travel across galaxies, we can’t. Good, got it. What this allows him to do, is to focus on the story and make the action accessible without detracting from the believability. The same logic is followed with the characters. None of them are developed too much, though I’m glad he resisted the urge to paint them as caricatures since he’ll be killing most of them off anyway, and are given just enough personality to move the plot forward. This is not a character study, this is a meditation on man’s relationship with God and needs to keep the action constantly moving in order to achieve its goals. Normally, I would be slightly irritated at the lack of character development but here it feels natural, after all if his thesis is that man is defined by his relationship with the divine, then painting fairly hollow characters makes complete sense.

This being my first Philip K Dick novel, I feel I’ve finally earned the right to stand among the ranks of the nerds. My new plan is to read two of his novels every year for the rest of my life. There’s like 46 of them or something, so assuming I don’t live an annoying long time, this should keep me occupied.

Note: This novel was originally published in 1971 and is currently out of print. It is due to be re-released on April 16. If you want to read it, I recommend you go to your local used bookstore, or preorder it from this website.

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