I’m going to get up off my ass and walk across the room I’m in to pick up Lawrence Sutin’s 1989 biography of PKD, Divine Invasions and crib from the “Chronological Survey and Guide” at its end. But wait, that’s not the plot, that’s like, theme, which is just a way of condensing the plot. (And, like, how does consciousness mediate the ultimate promise of a life-maze that leads to Death, the apparent undoing of consciousness?). What is A Maze of Death about? I mean, that’s what a book review is supposed to do, maybe? Give up some of the plot, the gist, right? The short short answer is Death. Hell, Ubik probably peters out too, but it’s funnier and sharper. Still: A Maze of Death delivers a strong conclusion, a thesis statement that will resonate with anyone who’s ever envied a machine’s “Off” switch.īut book reviews aren’t supposed to start with endings, right? Too, A Maze of Death suffers perhaps in comparison to its twin, Dick’s bouncier 1969 ensemble satire Ubik. Or perhaps it was only an allegory assembled for its author’s sad delight. The thin allegory he’s patched together crumbles. Sad because I didn’t quite expect (hence that adverb unexpectedly) Dick to stick any kind of ending, what, after nearly 200 pages of cardboard characters wandering through a pulp fiction death maze, ventriloquized by the author to perform monologues on consciousness and perception and reality and religion and prayer and faith and afterlife and salvation and so on and so on and so on.Ī Maze of Death has some strong moments and strong images-one-way space shuttles, organic 3-D printers, riffs on a deity that would necessarily absorb the concept of a non-deity, a cosmic recapitulation of Odin, space sex, etc.-but on the whole A Maze of Death peters out towards the end, its energy sapped as Dick tires of revolving through (and killing off) the cast of characters (and consciousnesses) he’s assembled in his Haunted (Space) House. It’s a sad end, profoundly sad in some ways, and the unexpectedness of the sadness, is, like, particularly sad. The end made me tear up a little, unexpectedly. Dick’s 1970 novel A Maze of Death this afternoon. I remember occasions when we were absolutely certain that a visitor was smuggling something into a wing and they would object to the search.īut our security officers would sometimes let the person through without the search because they knew that the consequences for not doing so could lead to them becoming a target.I finished Philip K. They would then negotiate some kind of deal to allow us access and their co-operation - typically the O/C would agree to us searching an area between 9am and noon only.Įven routine searches of visitors caused problems. He would then speak to the Officer Commanding of the paramilitaries in that wing. The search team would contact the principle officer in charge of the wing. Say you had been told to carry out a search of a wing containing a certain paramilitary grouping. We as officers wanted to do our job properly - we weren't there to grind anyone down - but almost every normal prison duty involved an element of negotiation. They would make demands and we would give ground just to keep the peace on that day.īut then you can't take that ground back easily - and if you tried to then you would be putting yourself at personal risk. When officers began working in the Maze they would try and assert some kind of control over the regime.īut it was a war of attrition - and they slowly wore us down. You would change the way you drove to work and would avoid having a regular bar to drink in. That's something you don't see the prison officers doing in England.Īnd even if the threat went away, you'd still avoid creating any patterns by changing the times you came and went from shifts and your home. Sometimes they'd appoint a spokesman from within their own ranks and let the officers know that someone is targeted.Īnd so you would be immediately taken off shift, you'd be offered a degree of police protection in terms of home visits and other advice - and then you'd sit up all night from midnight until five in the morning, sitting with your official weapon in your hands, knowing that if they're going to come, it would be now. Sometimes they would talk within earshot of an officer and reveal details about a colleagues' life - who his wife was, what car he drove, where he went for a drink - and then you'd know that they were really serious. Sometimes you would be told directly by the RUC that they had intelligence. If the prisoners wanted you to know that you were being targeted they had various means of doing it. A good officer wary of his own security would try and avoid doing anything that highlight him to prisoners - something that would lead to him being targeted on the outside.īut the threats were there - and the death lists existed.
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