The Man in the Maze (novel)

The Man in the Maze is a novel written by American writer Robert Silverberg, published in 1969. It tells the tale of a man rendered incapable of interacting normally with other human beings by his uncontrollable psychic abilities. The novel is inspired by Sophocles' play Philoctetes, with the roles of Odysseus, Neoptolemus and Philoctetes played by Boardman, Rawlins, and Muller, respectively.

The novel deals with themes of isolation and social alienation, using psychic powers as an allegory for human interaction. Silverberg employed similar techniques in Dying Inside.

Plot

The action takes place in the future. The main character - Richard Muller, a retired diplomat – finds himself forced to hide from the humasn race on the uninhabited planet Lemnos. He lives there in the center of an ancient city-maze, built by a vanished race. The outer zones of the maze are filled with lethal traps to discourage entrance into the central zone. The maze was considered insuperable until the successful attempt of Muller. In his earlier life he had honestly served humanity, has traveled hundreds of worlds, endured hardship and danger. The career diplomat Charles Boardman invited him to come into contact with the inhabitants of the planet Hydra - the only intelligent alien race yet discovered in the galaxy. In a neighboring galaxy another highly-developed race has been discovered and Mueller must try to enlist the help of the inhabitants of Hydra. Mueller spent five months on Hydra without seeming to establish any meaninglful communication with the natives at all. When he returned he discovered that other human beings cannot bear to be close to him - he seems to emanate an intolerable mental field that overwhelms the others. Earth science cannot understand or trace the origin of these emanations from Muller's brain and Mueller went into voluntary exile. After nine years, however, Boardman invades his self-imposed isolation. The lethal snares of the maze are penetrated, firstly with robot drones and later with human volunteers, many of whom perish. Ned Rawlins, son of a friend of Muller who is now dead, establishes contact with him and, under the instruction of Boardman, promises him a cure as a means of luring him out of the maze. Mueller agrees to go, but his conscience torments Rawlins and he tells Muller the whole truth as far as he knows it: that only Muller has the ability to make contact with the aliens from the other galaxy who are on their way to extinguishing human civilisation. Already six human worlds have been over-run, the people turned into zombie slavbes. The aliens do not seem to realise that the humans are rational beings. They are radically alien, huge in physical size, communicate with each other telepathically, are physically very limited but are able to enslave the inhabitants of entire planets. Only one person - Muller - who can radiate telepathically, might be able to enter in contact with them: yet his experiences have made him potentially furiously hostile to any further contact with aliens, indeed with the human race itself. After a dramatic meeting with Bordman Muller agrees. He flies to the edge of the galaxy, is taken inside an alien ship, and there seems to have his whole psyche read by the aliens. When he returns, Muller meets Rawlins and discovers that his repulsion field has now vanished. To Rawlins' disappointment, however, instead of returning to Earth and its comforts and pleasures, Muller has decided to return to the maze. The worldly-wise Boardman is sure he will come back out in a few years, but Rawlins does not think so. At the end of the story we are left without knowing what resulted from this contact with the alien civilisation, or what ultimately happened to Muller. Rawlins is meanwhile following in Muller's footsteps, and those of the innumerable reckless adventurers before him, from the seamen of old to the space-farers of the remote future century of the novel. The last sentence reads: "He held the girl tightly. But he left before dawn".

External links

• The Man in the Maze publication history