Author:	Jack Williamson
Copyright:	1990
Date Reviewed:	5/2/01
Rating:	6.5

Synopsis: A few years ago Earth was surrounded by the Skyweb, a conglomerate of cities and space factories that created wealth for the Starborn. The Space Seeker came to destroy the Web and throw mankind into another Dark Age. "Mazeway" tells the story of several individuals in the aftermath of that great tragedy, and how they came to play the game of Blade and Stone.

Benn Dain's father killed the Space Seeker and now lives with his family in the Halo, run by the Eldren. Eldren are members of a hundred different races who came together in peace and harmony. Besides their benevolence, they have the ability to move through time and space by directly tapping sub-atomic forces. They treat the few human colonists well but don't consider them much more than pets. Benn wants to play the game to secure human kind's place in the Halo. He is aided by a potato-looking Eldren and brought to the Eldren's home world to begin to learn the Eldren way. Later, the potato's brother is killed by three other aliens who appear to be part of some plot to disrupt the Eldren way. Potato-head goes nearly comatose and Benn must make his way to Blade on his own.

Meanwhile, Roxane Kwan and Don Diego Boliviar eke out a meager existence on the Earth where roaming bands of thugs are a constant threat. They join up with a devil-looking Eldren and are taken to Blade to play the game. If they can win the game, they will somehow be proclaimed rulers of Earth and can then negotiate with the Red Delvers for mining rights.

The three humans, three evil aliens, two game-experienced Eldren and a robot who has gained sentience meet on Blade and play the five levels. At each level, the players are mixed into three teams and when a team wins, all the members gain points. In the end, Benn resigns to save his life and Roxane's life but ends up winning because they alone played the game the Eldren way.

Review: This book sat in my "To Read" pile for almost a decade because I thought it was the second in a series and not until the vast library of Amazon.com became available was I able to acquire the first book. However, that book turned out to be an entirely different story. It seems I had previously read the first book but remember nothing about it. That is one of the reasons I do these reviews.

The "Mazeway" plot jumps around a lot with a lot of different characters on a lot of different worlds so it was difficult to get a handle on it all. We're in space, we on a ruthless Earth, we're with benevolent aliens and we play games. All of the subplots come together at the game but there is little effort to tie things together. It all just seems to happen. The characters are one-dimensional and we don't care very much about them. I did like the concept of the Eldren way and their special powers and would have preferred if the book concentrated on humankind's struggle to become Eldren. It is hard to believe that the Eldren would allow a whole race to live to die simply because one young man passed a test. That seems too arbitrary and makes the Eldren look petty.

In stories like this, the game can often become the center of the story with each chapter an endless description of the play, wins and losses. The author does a better job here and what little we learn about the characters is through the playing of the game. I probably would have found the idea of the intergalactic game much more stupid had I not been watching the second Survivor series at the same time. There were interesting parallels between the two, which I enjoyed. In both, individuals seek to win but must play with partners who will later become adversaries.

Parts of the story were left unresolved or played no useful purpose. The story suggests that the Eldren inhabit the Halo, which is the Oort cloud that surrounds Earth. If that is true, why do they consider Earth so unimportant? The Red Delvers want to mine Earth to revitalize their race. Again, there must be hundreds of planets that could be mined. Why is one so important? The relationship between the three humans at the game is sometimes ludicrous. Boliviar says a dozen times that Benn doesn't belong there as if he had some God-given right when in reality he is just as inadequate.