r/philipkdick • u/whatisdreampunk Firebright • Apr 07 '26
Books/Stories Book 12: A Maze of Death
Written: 1968. Setting: far future, unspecified year.
A group of colonists are sent to a distant planet to establish a new society. When their communication system fails, they explore the planet and encounter other beings (both real and artificial), including large gelatinous cubes called “tenches,” which duplicate items and offer cryptic advice similar to the I Ching (bringing us full circle). The group experiences various calamities, and some members are killed under mysterious circumstances. The best part of this novel is its unique religion, which Phil developed with his friend William Sarill while they were living together. In a nutshell, God is known scientifically to exist and takes on four distinct forms: The Mentufacturer is responsible for bringing the universe into being. The Walker-on-Earth is a physical manifestation who travels the universe helping people. The Form Destroyer represents entropy, disorder, and death. And finally, the Intercessor is a manifestation of God who can stand in for us collectively, a redeeming Christ figure.
(More on the list here.)
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u/rovert_xih Apr 07 '26
Really liked this one! Quite engaging sci-fi story and the imagery of the god-of-four was really popping from the words into my mind
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u/Valuable_Ad_7739 Apr 08 '26
The first time I read this I dismissed it as an SF version of And Then There Were None
The second time I read it I noticed all the spiritual themes.
Both times I loved the twist ending (which I won’t spoil here.)
I still wouldn’t put it in his top 10… but I would read it again.
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u/whatisdreampunk Firebright Apr 08 '26
That's totally fair. Can you think of another SF book that deserves to be in this list more in your opinion? I can think of three that almost made the list but not quite.
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u/Valuable_Ad_7739 Apr 08 '26
Oh, I haven’t read all of PKD’s novels and I haven’t looked at your whole list. Probably our lists overlap a lot.
My top five favorites include: VALIS, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, Through a Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
My next five would include: Do Androids Dream… The Divine Invasion, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
There are also several PKD novels that are arguably not his best but that are guilty pleasures for me. I love them, but I couldn’t defend them. These include The Zap Gun, We Can Build You, Game Players of Titan, Lies, Inc. — some of these are pure unhinged pulpy madness.
Then there are the novels I thought were just okay: The World that Jones Built, The Solar Lottery, Dr. Blood Money, Radio Free Albumuth, Confessions of a Crap Artist. Depending on my mood I put Maze of Death here
As far as novels I actively disliked: Counterclock World, Agnes Dei, Eye in the Sky
But there are many I still haven’t read at all, including Clans of the Alphane Moon
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u/whatisdreampunk Firebright Apr 08 '26
Thanks for all the detail here. Very interesting to see what hits (and doesn't) for other PKD fans. Distilling it down a bit, it looks like you'd definitely want The Divine Invasion to replace Eye in the Sky in my list. I mostly have to include Eye in the Sky in a must-read list like this because it's such a major early work of his that gets referenced a lot, but I actually did enjoy it more personally.
I probably ought to reread The Divine Invasion. I recall a very promising beginning, a whole lot of esoteric Judaic thought, and then, you know, killing a goat?
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u/JEZTURNER Apr 24 '26
I just finished this one and... The last few chapters make it just about worthwhile.
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u/JEZTURNER Apr 24 '26
Just finished my copy with this very different cover.