The Man in the Maze is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, originally serialized in the magazine Worlds of If in April and May 1968, and published in bookstores the following year. 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. In 1968, the United States adopted the Architectural Barriers Act, which mandated that public buildings be accessible to people with disabilities. In the same year, Silverberg published The Man in the Maze, in serial form, with it being novelized in 1969.In a typical literary reversal of the New Wave, in the story, a disabled man uses an alien labyrinthine city to reject abled society. Silverberg reframed the ancient notions of disability discussed in Philoctetes in order to highlight contemporary debates of disability and project them into a utopian future that had apparently eliminated the notion. In doing so Silverberg stressed how "process, ability and disability come to construct and problematize both individual and collective human identity for the past, present, and future".:143Silverberg employed similar techniques in Dying Inside. Source: Wikipedia (en)