The Man in the Maze [Paperback]

Robert Silverberg (Author), Neil Gaiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 2002

Continuing the third in a series of authoritative new editions of the novels of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Robert Silverberg. During his heroic first encounter with an alien race, Dick Muller was permanently altered, hideously transformed in a way that left him repulsive to the entire human race. Alone and embittered, he exiled himself to Lemnos, an abandoned planet famed for its labyrinthine horrors, both real and imagined. But now, Earth trembles on the brink of extinction, threatened by another alien species, and only Muller can rescue the planet. Men must enter the murderous maze of Lemnos, find Muller, and convince him to come back. But will the homeless alien, alone in the universe, risk his life to save his race, the race that has utterly rejected him?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In his illustrious forty-five-year career as a novelist and author of short fiction, Robert Silverberg has belonged in the company of the best writers of the 20th century. His writing has been compared to Conrad, Huxley and Orwell.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: I Books (November 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743452747
• ISBN-13: 978-0743452748
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,491,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragic Tale of Self Induced Exile, October 16, 2003

By 

happilyoblivious (Simi Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man in the Maze (Paperback)

Dick Muller was a hero... that is, until an encounter with an alien race left him unable to be tolerated in a human's prescence. When the human race rejected him, he left...to a planet with a giant maze on it. No one has ever reached the center of the maze. Now the human race needs Dick Muller to save the planet but first they must find him and convince him to come back and save the race that sent him into exile.
This book is great. My favorite book of all time. I highly recommend it to everyone!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sophocles Redux, April 30, 2003

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man in the Maze (Paperback)

Mankind is threatened by an alien that strips us of our free will. We can't communicate with these aliens, so we can't fight or appease them. Our only hope is Dick Muller, who, in mankind's first contact with an alien race, was permanently maimed and cannot live with humans anymore. However, it is precisely this injury that gives him the opportunity to let the aliens know we are a thinking race. The only question is-will he reject the human race that previously rejected him?

This modern retelling of the myth of Philoctetes is short, sweet, and to the point. It doesn't pause for discursive considerations of the maning of life or the nature of the human beast; that would belabor a subtle point and lose the larger meaning. The whole piece is a careful consideration of the limits of the human animal, and what makes it possible to live with one another.

This silver-age SF gem presaged such Silverberg classics as Dying Inside, a more careful meditation on the same themes. It also dovetails neatly into the New Wave of science fiction, in which the great source of speculation isn't scientific advancement, but the limits of the human being. All in all, it becomes a forward-thinking insight using a framework as old as time. Though imperfect, it belongs to a class of book that just doesn't get written anymore.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A complex and fascinating epistemological web, October 18, 2002

By 

"mythologue" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Man in the Maze (Paperback)

After an encounter with an alien race that leaves him with a strange `disease', Richard Muller exiles himself to Lemnos, a place famous for a vast, deadly maze that was built there long ago. He alone succeeded in getting to its center; now, veteran Charles Boardman, the one who convinced Muller to go on that ill-fated mission, and the young Ned Rawlins, whose late father was Muller's friend, must get Muller out of the maze and back to Earth for one last, heroic task (to do so, they, too, must master the maze). Getting through the maze won't be as difficult as it will be to actually convince Muller to follow them; thus, a psychological battle plays out during most of the book. In my mind, this isn't as fascinating as are all the different paths leading to different sorts of knowledge: in the first third of the work, Boardman's crew uses robots programmed to replicate the information that was saved during earlier, unsuccessful tries to get through the maze - that way, human lives are saved while the crew can afford to lose dozens of robots; some of the maze's sections are easier for the robots to go through, because they can more easily doubt their sense perception, whereas humans must close their eyes so that they won't be confused by appearances; meanwhile, Muller, having lived nine years in the maze and thus knowing it better than anyone, is still speculating about its possible origin, hidden secrets and traps. The only limitation to the various speculations is, plainly... death.