Works by
Diane Reed Slattery
(Writer)

The Maze Game (2003)
The Maze Game, a science fiction novel, tells the story of a cult of mortal Death Dancers who, for 2000 years, have kept the immortal Lifers riveted with the brutal beauty of combat in a maze made of the visual language, Glide. The Dancer is pitted against an immortal Player, and, though the Dancer may win many times, the maze game always, eventually, ends in the spectacle of the Dance of Death. Now, the survival of the game itself is threatened. Dancemaster Wallenda and the four young Dancers of the Millennium Class battle Joreen, the drug lord plotting to regain control of the game. Wallenda is forced by Joreen to reveal the dark secrets of the maze game’s origin, at the risk of destroying his students’ commitment to Dance.

But the greatest force undermining the game is love. The young Dancer Daedelus must choose between the delicate T’Ling, willing to die for love, and the fiery MyrrhMyrrh, who would kill for it. The cyborg, Angle, struggles with the longing to replace his human flesh and the knowledge that cold chrome repels the warmth of human touch. As they train for and compete in the Millennium Games, each Dancer confronts the shifting faces of love and idealism, and comes to terms with the multiple meanings of the maze game, the Glide language, and the Dance of Death.