Get Lost in the Maze

Being trapped in a never-ending maze sounds like a recurring nightmare people have and J.M. McDermott brings it to life in his book Maze. Maze follows the stories of a handful of people who each find themselves stuck in an endless maze with only one option: survive.

There is a tribe of humans who live in the maze, some who were born within it and only know a life surrounded by stone walls and monsters such as trolls and harpies. The book doesn’t shy away from describing the harsh living conditions, people inevitably losing all of their teeth and almost any injury being serious because of limited means of treatment. Those who arrive in the maze from the outside come from all different places and time periods, and their personal clashes, such as those over their different religions, prove collectively to be a good story element.

Overall, Maze is an interesting book. The characters are compelling and it really makes readers invested in their respective journeys. Focusing the narrative on only a handful of characters and giving each their own section, or “maze,” in the book is a great way of fleshing them out. However the main problem is that not every character receives the same amount of exposition.

The character Joseph not only has his own section but he is a major/supporting character in two other sections of the book. Readers are given an extensive look at his life before he was trapped in the maze through several decades of life inside it. Because Joseph is so heavily featured, he is the character readers are most likely to relate to and want to see survive. Unfortunately, several other characters are featured so briefly in the story it may leave readers wanting more.

Maia Station, the first character introduced, completely disappears about thirty pages into the book. She was a pregnant scientist in a space station who woke up in the maze from hypersleep, now trying her best to keep her daughter, Julie, alive. There is never more than a passing mention of her life in space and, because she vanishes so quickly from the story, her entire role is almost negligible.

Jenny Ghost suffers from a similar problem. She’s set up to be a major element to the story but, as with Maia, is gone before we can learn much about her. Whatever her backstory and motives are, they’re never revisited and she is only briefly mentioned a few times later in the book. It’s frustrating to have such a huge buildup without any kind of payoff.

Despite this, the story is very well written and engaging, the interior of the maze and the harsh conditions described so well that they are quite easy to visualize. The heavy use of internal monologue is a good writing technique because it allows readers to really get inside the heads of the characters. Science fiction fans will definitely enjoy Maze for the rich plot and (mostly) well-rounded characters.

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