Maze of Death

The format is the usual Dickian reality-shift, in this case a virtual, cybernetically engineered construct above a target generation starship. The illusion all the crew undertake is that they're colonists on the planet of Delmak O which is the story for most of the novel, until the big reveal in the last two chapters.There are fourteen of them, and in best Agatha Christie fashion, Dick kills them off relentlessly, the thanatopic principle as a code of life. When I first read this- back in the distant 70s, I surmised that there was an elaborate reality play concealed, but I thought they were in a clinic, as in "Clans of the Alphane Moon." The big reveal was mind-bending all those years ago, and once you've read it there can never be the same effect. The novel pre-dates the Valis incident by four years; but it's full of theological and metaphysical trappings with the Holy Trinity reconstructed as Jungian archetypes, all devised by the ship's computer. There's even an impressive forecast of "The Lord of the Rings" movie, way before anybody thought of transferring it to screen. "Maze" gets downgraded by most of the Dick community, but it stands as one of the best of his early 70 novels. Some SF writer suggested that Dick was killing off his stock characters as an announcement of the next literary period which would see religious God-inspired masterpieces like "Valis" and "Timothy Archer." My favourite character was Wade the psychologist who informs the contingent that he has performed TATs on them all on arrival. He easily becomes the most hated person among the umbracious group.