What do you think?
Rate this book
On Mazes and Meaning: A Short Story Collection
On Mazes and Meaning is a collection of twelve short stories that spans the chasm of being. From a ghost going about his daily business in a city, to a man drifting through a mysterious afterlife, to a woman who lives with an atomic bomb in her apartment, these twelve stories take a look at how it feels to be alive.
What you find in this book may depend on what you’re looking for. There is some introspection, I believe, and some wonder, and some comfort in friendship.
Perhaps there’s even a maze.
What you find in this book may depend on what you’re looking for. There is some introspection, I believe, and some wonder, and some comfort in friendship.
Perhaps there’s even a maze.
273 pages, Paperback
Published December 14, 2022
3 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 9, 2024
Ryden Lewis’ On Mazes and Meaning offers readers the ability to transcend philosophies, world views, perspective, and meaning through humor, empathy, emotion, vulnerability, history and so much more - all in a matter of 259 pages. I don’t know about you, but not many other books I have heard of have ever done that. Lewis writes in a way that makes deep philosophical and moral questions approachable, and it ultimately encouraged me to think much more deeply about my own closely held values and perhaps re-examine them as they continue to evolve in the maze of life.
Though I enjoyed and would recommend all 12 stories in this esteemed short story collection, I will highlight a few below:
“A Strange Dream” brings to life a beautiful song, which, though not mentioned by name but instead by artist, I believe to be “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel. I love this story because it really challenges the reader to envision this haunting, while perhaps sitting in their own silence – in contrary to the song’s artists, who chose to depict this story through ironic the sharing of sound. The protagonist, aptly named “Simon,” begins the story by praising silence and its ability to allow him to think, although later on, his dream reveals the challenges and frustration of silence, and implies that even in an enormous crowd or robust stimulation, one can still feel incredibly isolated or that they are missing out on something everyone else is experiencing or communication - and one is not guaranteed to be heard.
In “Nothing Short of Everything,” Lewis writes with detailed descriptions of a ghost who could not feel, yet felt everything after all. The ability for Isaiah to depict scenes with such vivid detail without being able to truly “sense” anything at all was sensational itself and profound. Lewis’ ability to rapidly build empathy for his protagonist in just 15 pages was impressive - I found myself rooting for Isaiah throughout the entire story, hoping that he’d find another like him.
“Reckoning in the Other Room” details the story of a woman living her own nightmare. In this story, Lewis expertly tackles the enigmatic duality that occurs with consistent pain and fear over time – the gradual numbing due to familiarity and thus release of power, juxtaposed against a yearning to dismantle the sources of said fear and resilience necessitated by such a task.
Though it is virtually impossible to choose, “Convenience” may be my all-time favorite story in On Mazes and Meaning. The way Lewis found a way not to use names but clearly delineate who was speaking and build personalities and empathy for these two distinguished characters was remarkable and a true testament to the challenge which Lewis laid out in the “Story Notes,” which was to get to know two people based only on what they say to each other. “Convenience” made me laugh out loud and produced one of my all-time favorite lines of the collection: “Remember the Golden Rule. If the customer is a jerk, give them a smaller scoop of ice cream?” I loved the juxtaposition of this nameless story with “Three Small White Dogs,” which explores the importance of names and in which no one could quite get “Gret Harmon” correct, the struggles of whom are, I imagine, remarkably similar to those of my brother Ryden (no, not Ryder or Ryan
Though I enjoyed and would recommend all 12 stories in this esteemed short story collection, I will highlight a few below:
“A Strange Dream” brings to life a beautiful song, which, though not mentioned by name but instead by artist, I believe to be “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel. I love this story because it really challenges the reader to envision this haunting, while perhaps sitting in their own silence – in contrary to the song’s artists, who chose to depict this story through ironic the sharing of sound. The protagonist, aptly named “Simon,” begins the story by praising silence and its ability to allow him to think, although later on, his dream reveals the challenges and frustration of silence, and implies that even in an enormous crowd or robust stimulation, one can still feel incredibly isolated or that they are missing out on something everyone else is experiencing or communication - and one is not guaranteed to be heard.
In “Nothing Short of Everything,” Lewis writes with detailed descriptions of a ghost who could not feel, yet felt everything after all. The ability for Isaiah to depict scenes with such vivid detail without being able to truly “sense” anything at all was sensational itself and profound. Lewis’ ability to rapidly build empathy for his protagonist in just 15 pages was impressive - I found myself rooting for Isaiah throughout the entire story, hoping that he’d find another like him.
“Reckoning in the Other Room” details the story of a woman living her own nightmare. In this story, Lewis expertly tackles the enigmatic duality that occurs with consistent pain and fear over time – the gradual numbing due to familiarity and thus release of power, juxtaposed against a yearning to dismantle the sources of said fear and resilience necessitated by such a task.
Though it is virtually impossible to choose, “Convenience” may be my all-time favorite story in On Mazes and Meaning. The way Lewis found a way not to use names but clearly delineate who was speaking and build personalities and empathy for these two distinguished characters was remarkable and a true testament to the challenge which Lewis laid out in the “Story Notes,” which was to get to know two people based only on what they say to each other. “Convenience” made me laugh out loud and produced one of my all-time favorite lines of the collection: “Remember the Golden Rule. If the customer is a jerk, give them a smaller scoop of ice cream?” I loved the juxtaposition of this nameless story with “Three Small White Dogs,” which explores the importance of names and in which no one could quite get “Gret Harmon” correct, the struggles of whom are, I imagine, remarkably similar to those of my brother Ryden (no, not Ryder or Ryan
April 25, 2024
Ryden Lewis is my friend. I’d been meaning to read On Mazes and Meaning for years after obtaining it during the throes of grad school.
My favorite stories were “Nothing Short of Everything,” “Oracle,” “Reckoning in the Other Room,” “Virtue by Habit Alone,” and “The Letter.”
I went into this expecting some well-written and interesting short stories, but I did not expect the degree to which these stories would penetrate my mind and reveal keen insights about my life.
I’ve been rather introspective lately - I think in large part due to a rapid sequence of life changes over the last couple years. “Nothing Short of Everything” and “Virtue by Habit Alone” in particular helped me understand feelings I’ve been having in a way I struggle to do myself. I’m almost glad I waited to read this book until now because it felt as if these stories were written specifically for me and the current contours of my life.
On Mazes and Meaning was a joy to read. Lewis’ personality and experiences oozed from the pages. I felt like I was peering into the mind of my treasured friend. His prose was sharp and insightful - full of vivid descriptions and perceptive observations woven together to create beautifully human stories in a way that only a gifted writer could.
I look forward to what Lewis writes next.
My favorite stories were “Nothing Short of Everything,” “Oracle,” “Reckoning in the Other Room,” “Virtue by Habit Alone,” and “The Letter.”
I went into this expecting some well-written and interesting short stories, but I did not expect the degree to which these stories would penetrate my mind and reveal keen insights about my life.
I’ve been rather introspective lately - I think in large part due to a rapid sequence of life changes over the last couple years. “Nothing Short of Everything” and “Virtue by Habit Alone” in particular helped me understand feelings I’ve been having in a way I struggle to do myself. I’m almost glad I waited to read this book until now because it felt as if these stories were written specifically for me and the current contours of my life.
On Mazes and Meaning was a joy to read. Lewis’ personality and experiences oozed from the pages. I felt like I was peering into the mind of my treasured friend. His prose was sharp and insightful - full of vivid descriptions and perceptive observations woven together to create beautifully human stories in a way that only a gifted writer could.
I look forward to what Lewis writes next.
July 10, 2024
On Mazes and Meaning is an insightful collection of short stories about the different aspects of life. The stories range from an endearing story about a ghost, an anxiety-inducing tale about a man in a maze, an eerie story about a town that may not exist, to a dystopian story about a woman living with a bomb in her apartment. While reading this collection of stories, I found myself relating to and rooting for a ghost that is condemned to be invisible, anxiously flipping through pages to find out if a man got out of a maze, to then feeling devastated about the death of a character who is only known through letters. Lewis is able to weave in and out of a wide variety of topics while still creating characters that the reader can easily connect with. In a story about two strangers sending letters to one another that ends in tragedy, Lewis displays how someone you have never met can significantly impact your life. Lewis is smart, funny, thoughtful and takes you on a journey through many different universes. The “story notes” section allows you into the author’s thought process behind each story which truly makes you feel like you’re inside his mind. I would highly recommend this collection to any reader who is looking to examine life on a deeper level.
December 25, 2023
On Mazes and Meaning by Ryden Lewis is an authentic celebration of creation. A quote from Camus sets the stage for the book signaling that the author wants to center the importance of the work on the fact that it exists:
“But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.”
The first short story, The Death of Novelty, echoes the above “why” for the book. Instead of striving in vain for originality, primacy is given to authentically embodying that which is recycled (the reviewer notes that Mr. Lewis’ first book was Science Fiction, a genre known, perhaps as much as any, for consistent themes and tropes). An iguana, nibbling on a plant, is elevated to poetic status for being unconcerned with the unoriginality of its actions. It is easier than ever to be acutely aware of the millions of others leading similar lives, but the author finds his voice nonetheless and it is his nonchalance towards novelty that feels so new.
The final section is an essay on alchemy, time, and possibility. According to the author, there were once many futures for these moments I read this book. But, as I read, my mind does not wander to the infinitely vast topic of alternatives. Mr. Lewis’ book brings me to the moment.
“The present, the dot at the center, is a point of conversion. The ethereal cloud of the future, previously unknowable, is transformed into tangibility, physicality.”
And what a pleasure to enjoy the conversion of what these pages could have held into what they did hold. Anticipation of the next word, line, story being the only match for the appreciation of the last. At this point, where one could find the magnitude of the past and future daunting, the author finds the excitement of living - leading the reviewer to hold onto the last lines of the collection:
“onward we wonder, we the alchemists, with thousands of cats in thousands of boxes to uncover”
With all those potential futures, it is a great responsibility to direct others, but On Mazes and Meaning is certainly a worthy box to peer into.
I feel lucky to be here reading this book.
“But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.”
The first short story, The Death of Novelty, echoes the above “why” for the book. Instead of striving in vain for originality, primacy is given to authentically embodying that which is recycled (the reviewer notes that Mr. Lewis’ first book was Science Fiction, a genre known, perhaps as much as any, for consistent themes and tropes). An iguana, nibbling on a plant, is elevated to poetic status for being unconcerned with the unoriginality of its actions. It is easier than ever to be acutely aware of the millions of others leading similar lives, but the author finds his voice nonetheless and it is his nonchalance towards novelty that feels so new.
The final section is an essay on alchemy, time, and possibility. According to the author, there were once many futures for these moments I read this book. But, as I read, my mind does not wander to the infinitely vast topic of alternatives. Mr. Lewis’ book brings me to the moment.
“The present, the dot at the center, is a point of conversion. The ethereal cloud of the future, previously unknowable, is transformed into tangibility, physicality.”
And what a pleasure to enjoy the conversion of what these pages could have held into what they did hold. Anticipation of the next word, line, story being the only match for the appreciation of the last. At this point, where one could find the magnitude of the past and future daunting, the author finds the excitement of living - leading the reviewer to hold onto the last lines of the collection:
“onward we wonder, we the alchemists, with thousands of cats in thousands of boxes to uncover”
With all those potential futures, it is a great responsibility to direct others, but On Mazes and Meaning is certainly a worthy box to peer into.
I feel lucky to be here reading this book.
December 25, 2023
After achieving critical success in the niche world of videogame-based science fiction novels, author Ryden Lewis takes the short story scene by storm with On Mazes and Meaning. The book is a collection of characters and events that span, and often transport, the mundane to the fantastic. Lewis leverages his eclectic interests, subversive thoughts, and uncanny psychosocial analyses to build narratives that collectively dare the reader to question the world around them and reconsider their place within it.
In particularly enjoyed Reckoning in the Other Room, which follows a compelling and flawed protagonist, Adria Godwin, on her mission to make civilization notice its own ambivalence. Adria’s world may be described as post-dystopian, undergoing a pseudo-emergence from an Orwellian totalitarian state. Although the government no longer controls every aspect of people’s lives, its authority remains absolute and its influence unquestioned. Adria, who cohabits her apartment with a decades-old government-installed “population control device,” is all too conscious of the State’s desire to subdue its population, and she suspects new, more insidious, methods for maintaining that control.
By chronicling Adria’s rebellion against an apathetic world, Lewis channels many of the struggles that young people wrestle with in modern American society. How to demand subjective change while accepting that the world has objectively improved in many ways? How to stay focused in a highly distracted society dominated by passive entertainment? How to sustain a movement when its efforts have little apparent effect on those it is meant to help? Through Adria, Lewis deftly navigates existential contradictions, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about the fate of Adria’s society or of their own. Most notably, Lewis demonstrates the importance of individual action and thought, while reminding us that “a person is a person more than she is a hero.” After all, there are few fairy tale endings in life, but there will always be truth and those who seek it.
In particularly enjoyed Reckoning in the Other Room, which follows a compelling and flawed protagonist, Adria Godwin, on her mission to make civilization notice its own ambivalence. Adria’s world may be described as post-dystopian, undergoing a pseudo-emergence from an Orwellian totalitarian state. Although the government no longer controls every aspect of people’s lives, its authority remains absolute and its influence unquestioned. Adria, who cohabits her apartment with a decades-old government-installed “population control device,” is all too conscious of the State’s desire to subdue its population, and she suspects new, more insidious, methods for maintaining that control.
By chronicling Adria’s rebellion against an apathetic world, Lewis channels many of the struggles that young people wrestle with in modern American society. How to demand subjective change while accepting that the world has objectively improved in many ways? How to stay focused in a highly distracted society dominated by passive entertainment? How to sustain a movement when its efforts have little apparent effect on those it is meant to help? Through Adria, Lewis deftly navigates existential contradictions, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about the fate of Adria’s society or of their own. Most notably, Lewis demonstrates the importance of individual action and thought, while reminding us that “a person is a person more than she is a hero.” After all, there are few fairy tale endings in life, but there will always be truth and those who seek it.
December 25, 2023
On Mazes and Meaning takes readers on a journey to the depths of their own souls (as well as the author’s), and lets them sit there for a while, contemplating along with Lewis, searching for something they may not have even thought to look for. It uses playful dialogue and metaphorical subtext to convey profound reflections on humanity. And it’s an absolute joy to read.
Lewis’s originality (or, rather, authenticity, if we consider the perspective of “The Death of Novelty”) is strikingly evident throughout the book. The stories elicit questions in their beginning pages that are satisfyingly addressed throughout by Lewis’s evocative storytelling. As you peel back the layers of each story, you are drawn in more and more with the urge to uncover the true message eagerly awaiting you at its end (I felt pure delight when I discovered the connection to the maze on the book’s cover). He invites the reader to ponder these messages long after they’ve turned the page. “Nothing Short of Everything” created imagery so vivid that I felt a real connection to the protagonist and his happiness became intertwined with mine. It stuck with me for days.
Lewis’s writing is deeply embedded with the elements that make us human, and reminds us of our natural curiosity about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. One can’t help but feel they’ve uncovered some exclusive truths about reality after joining Lewis’s world. I feel lucky to have been invited in for these 12 short but impactful stories, and I can’t wait to return.
Lewis’s originality (or, rather, authenticity, if we consider the perspective of “The Death of Novelty”) is strikingly evident throughout the book. The stories elicit questions in their beginning pages that are satisfyingly addressed throughout by Lewis’s evocative storytelling. As you peel back the layers of each story, you are drawn in more and more with the urge to uncover the true message eagerly awaiting you at its end (I felt pure delight when I discovered the connection to the maze on the book’s cover). He invites the reader to ponder these messages long after they’ve turned the page. “Nothing Short of Everything” created imagery so vivid that I felt a real connection to the protagonist and his happiness became intertwined with mine. It stuck with me for days.
Lewis’s writing is deeply embedded with the elements that make us human, and reminds us of our natural curiosity about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. One can’t help but feel they’ve uncovered some exclusive truths about reality after joining Lewis’s world. I feel lucky to have been invited in for these 12 short but impactful stories, and I can’t wait to return.
December 27, 2023
On Mazes And Meaning, the first short story collection by Ryden Lewis contains twelve stories ranging from tales of ghosts, presidents, convenience store clerks and more. Exploring themes of fate, purpose and time Lewis crafts his characters and sends them out into both extraordinary and seemingly mundane circumstances.
A personal favorite of mine includes Nothing Short of Everything, wherein Lewis portrays a ghost faced with immortality exploring the world and observing others, spending eternity searching externally (and eventually internally) for answers to myriad questions. Another favorite is The Letter, a story about a man finding and forwarding an addressed envelope without possibly knowing what this action would ensue, weaving together the lives of strangers.
Borrowing at times real scenes from the author’s Chicago, in On Mazes And Meaning Lewis has compiled a strong collection with both heavier and lighter moments. Characters search for belonging and contemplate reasons for existence. Lewis provides a story for all audiences, leaving readers with plenty of ideas to reflect on.
A personal favorite of mine includes Nothing Short of Everything, wherein Lewis portrays a ghost faced with immortality exploring the world and observing others, spending eternity searching externally (and eventually internally) for answers to myriad questions. Another favorite is The Letter, a story about a man finding and forwarding an addressed envelope without possibly knowing what this action would ensue, weaving together the lives of strangers.
Borrowing at times real scenes from the author’s Chicago, in On Mazes And Meaning Lewis has compiled a strong collection with both heavier and lighter moments. Characters search for belonging and contemplate reasons for existence. Lewis provides a story for all audiences, leaving readers with plenty of ideas to reflect on.
December 27, 2023
Paths Found and Lost author Ryden Lewis has now published a collection of short stories, called On Mazes and Meaning. These one dozen stories range from 4 to 49 pages. He explores belonging, the meaning of life, the afterlife and relationships.
“The Cartographer”, written in an interesting split page format, is hopeful, daring, and a bit claustrophobic. A man finds the love of his life and must risk it all to secure their future.
Another favorite is “The Letter”, where a man finds an envelope under a bush by the
street and forwards it. He becomes an unexpected pen pal. He learns about anticipation, friendship, sorrow and joy. I read this story in one sitting.
On Mazes and Meaning is gritty, thought provoking, and at times challenging. This collection encourages the reader to think freely while absorbing Lewis’s ideas. This is unique and authentic.
“The Cartographer”, written in an interesting split page format, is hopeful, daring, and a bit claustrophobic. A man finds the love of his life and must risk it all to secure their future.
Another favorite is “The Letter”, where a man finds an envelope under a bush by the
street and forwards it. He becomes an unexpected pen pal. He learns about anticipation, friendship, sorrow and joy. I read this story in one sitting.
On Mazes and Meaning is gritty, thought provoking, and at times challenging. This collection encourages the reader to think freely while absorbing Lewis’s ideas. This is unique and authentic.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews