A book specially designed to be read by non-scientists and scientists alike. There is detailed science, as well as humour and some interesting stories. Each chapter can be read in its own right.

Looks at the history, theory, and design of mazes, including hedge mazes, panel mazes, mirror mazes, turf mazes, and panel mazes.

Thread your way through this history of mazes from the ancient world to today and solve over one hundred mazes along the way. From prehistoric times, mazes and labyrinths worldwide have served as different symbolic, ritualistic, and practical purposes. Taken as a powerful metaphor for life’s journey, they can be used as tools for meditation and learning at any level, even when completed for recreation. Maze images can be enjoyed as motifs themselves, but also in their material forms—a meditation, puzzle, dance, walk, ritual, pilgrimage, or simply a day out. Drawing upon a wealth of historical and classical literature; accounts written by explorers, archaeologists, and historians; and the output of modern and contemporary world-renowned experts and enthusiasts, social historian Dr. Julie Bounford explores the evolution of mazes through time and across continents, presenting their history in a fun and engaging format while challenging readers to solve over one hundred mazes—many created exclusively for this book by illustrator and artist Trevor Bounford. Learn about: The earliest recorded examples, legends, and mazes in the ancient world Mazes used as sacred rituals and symbols that take us beyond the natural world Turf, stone, hedge, and garden mazes, and sites of communal rustic revels The modern revival, with mazes taken to forms never previously imagined Explore how mazes can improve your mental dexterity and create mindfulness, and use the gazetteer to locate historical, replica, and interesting mazes that exist around the world today.

From the text adventures of Zork, to the arcade game of Pac-Man, to the corridors of Doom, and on to the city streets of Grand Theft Auto IV, the maze has often been used as a space to trap and confuse players in their navigation of gameworlds. However, the maze as a construction on the landscape has a long history before the invention of the videogame. By examining the change in the maze from the landscapes of open spaces and closed gardens through to the screen of the videogame, both mazes and labyrinths are discussed in terms of historical reference, alongside the author's personal experiences of walking and playing these structures. This book shows how our cultural experiences of real world maze landscapes may have changed, and how we negotiate videogame worlds along the various paths and meanings they so often create for us.

Irwin mirrors the aesthetic impact of the genre by creating in his study the dynamics of a detective story--the uncovering of mysteries, the accumulation of evidence, the tracing of clues, and the final solution that ties it all together.

Mazes and Follies

Literary scholar Michael A. Chaney examines graphic novels to illustrate that in form and function they inform readers on how they ought to be read. His arguments result in an innovative analysis of the various knowledges that comics produce and the methods artists and writers employ to convey them. Theoretically eclectic, this study attends to the lessons taught by both the form and content of today's most celebrated graphic novels. Chaney analyzes the embedded lessons in comics and graphic novels through the form's central tropes: the iconic child storyteller and the inherent childishness of comics in American culture; the use of mirrors and masks as ciphers of the unconscious; embedded puzzles and games in otherwise story-driven comic narratives; and the form's self-reflexive propensity for showing its work. Comics reveal the labor that goes into producing them, embedding lessons on how to read the "work" as a whole. Throughout, Chaney draws from a range of theoretical insights from psychoanalysis and semiotics to theories of reception and production from film studies, art history, and media studies. Some of the major texts examined include Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis; Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth; Joe Sacco's Palestine; David B.'s Epileptic; Kyle Baker's Nat Turner; and many more. As Chaney's examples show, graphic novels teach us even as they create meaning in their infinite relay between words and pictures.