Philip K. Dick

After the defeat of the Allies during World War II, the United States is divided up and ruled by the Axis powers

The Man in the High Castle

Tillie

On some other world, possibly it is diferent. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.

And what will that leave, that Third World Insanity? Will that put an end to all life, of every kind, everywhere? When our planet becomes a dead planet, by our own hands?

Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our earthly situation?

And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and their godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshipped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.

A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope. Falling into to an interminable ennui. They are not sitting helplessly waiting.

Watching him, Juliana thought, It's idealism that makes him that bitter. Asking too much out of life. Always moving on, restless and griped. I'm the same way: I couldn't stay on the West Coast and eventually I won't be able to stand it here. Weren't the old-timers like that? But, she thought, now the frontier isn't here; it's the other planets.

Edward Steel

Luke Harkness

Don't say it often but I actually preferred The Man In The High Castle TV Series. I think Philip K Dick opens up some interesting ideas in this book and obviously set up the whole idea of what would life be like if Germany had won the war. But there's a whole lot more that could be done with this book that the TV series goes on to delve in to.

Maybe this is an opinion based on having watched the TV Series already but I also feel it's a sign of the times. When this book was written I think books were written with a more philosophical intent - a thought I had with 1984 by George Orwell. Despite its history and the great premise, I just can't say I enjoyed this as much as I'd have liked.

Jim Hagan

First published in 1962, this title imagines the world as if the Allies had lost the Second World War: the African continent virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, and the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis.

Maximus

The synopsis and conceptualised setting of the book showed incredible potential for a brilliant readable sci-fi piece. Arguably, it was well written as an alternative historical aftermath story, but there was no excitement, cliff hanging chapters or big unexpected twists. I felt myself acting sanguine throughout reading it, expecting the story to pick up and catch me off guard which it never did. It didn’t deliver as nearly as much as I had hoped.

Sercan Y.

Kitap güzel ama altı kırkbeş'in çevirisi felaket, orijinal dilinden okumak lazım.. Çok başarılı bir dizi uyarlaması da var, onu da tavsiye ederim..

Joe F

I read this book after watching the show and I found the book to be pretty boring. There are bits and pieces of a good story here, but it never really pays off. The show did a much better job at creating a compelling story with these characters.

Although I’m a sucker for alternate histories, I found this one lacking meat on the bones. Also, the mysticism felt tacked on.

Frederik De Bosschere

Shape Mismatch

The book is marvelously written. Throws you into an interesting universe with little or no signboards. As you tread through the chapters, you encounter significant events with little or no imagination. I'm not sure if it does, but if the book has a following, it has to be one with a lot of fodder. Philip ensures that the ride is very interesting but leaves a lot demanding. 

The fact that he doesn't shy away from complex philosophical, theological, and political arguments and monologues, significantly adds to the experience.

However, if closure is something you're looking for, stay away.

“The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick’s career.” —New York Times It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award–winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake. Winner of the Hugo Award

Vicky (A City Girl's Thoughts)

This book isn't an easy read, nor is it easy to understand. Philip K. Dick takes us on an interesting journey through a world run by German Nazis who won World War II with Japan and Italy. America is divided: the Germans govern the East Coast, Japan the West, but the MidWest is a buffer zone where rebels and refugees live according to their own rules. Dick explores the use of East Asian religion (specifically Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) by the whites and Japanese of California as they try to make sense of their world increasingly under control of Germany, and ties an interesting analogy of the U.S. in the real-world 1960's to his fictional one (ex: Racism and materialism in the U.S. post-WWII is strikingly similar to the alternate U.S.).

However, while the idea of writing an alternate-history novel where the Axis won WWII is exciting, Dick wrote this book in a boring and confusing manner which felt as if this novel is underdeveloped. First, the plot is all over the place. I felt like every character had their own separate story (except for Juliana and Joe), so it almost read as a collection of mini-stories within Juliana's quest to meet The Man in the High Castle a.k.a the author of the fictional book "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy." The characters are underdeveloped, except for Juliana and Joe, leaving unanswered questions regarding their stories. There is no clear protagonist(s), and the ending is confusing. 

Due to all the hype surrounding Amazon's adaption of this novel I decided to give this story a read, but honestly, it's not worth it. This felt like a novel with an excellent idea but poorly executed. I've read that the T.V. show is better, but I haven't watched it yet, so this is one of those "The-T.V./movie-is-better-than-the-book" type of - well, I don't know.

Cheri Fuller

I struggled to finish this book. The story didn't grab me and I didn't really care about what was going on until about 90% into it. All in all, I found it terribly unsatisfying and disappointing.

Colleen

2.5 Stars but I will round up to 3 Stars I guess...

With most books, I know what rating I am going to give them as soon as I finish reading them. Some books, however, leave me feeling befuddled and uncertain of what to think or what to write about them. The Man in the High Castle was definitely one of those books. 

This particular book left me with the exasperating feeling that either I was missing the grand meaning or this book was not as good as people seemed to think it was. The last time I felt so bamboozled at the end of a book was Life After Life (ironic since these were both Book Club selections). I am ok with disliking a book; it is the feeling of the point going over my head that I cannot stand. I want to grasp the point firmly in my mind so I can decide whether it is worthy of lovey-dovey cuddles or whether it needs to be smashed into oblivion with alacrity. I cannot achieve Zen when I have a book waiting in Limbo. So on the occasions when the end of a book leaves me feeling that I've missed something, it feels necessary to do a little background research. With Life After Life, I quickly realized that I was searching for deeper meaning where there was none. With The Man in the High Castle, the answer was less clear. It seems that even the people who loved this book are a little foggy on what everything really meant. The story is so vastly nebulous that I do not think even the author had a clear outline of what he was writing (more on that later).

The Man in the High Castle is a work of Alternative Fiction focusing on the outcome of the Axis winning WWII. While Alternative Fiction was not new at the time this book was first published (1962), it appears that this was the first of the genre to really break into the mainstream. And here arrises a problem with reading a book like this so many decades after it was first published - I am sure this was a mind-blowing and controversial topic at the time, but unfortunately reading this book so many years after it was written, the concept of "what if the Nazis won WWII" has been done many times over in books, movies, tv shows, video games. In fact, one could easily argue that it is the most commonly used theme for Alternative Histories. It would be fair to say that some of those later explorations of the topic do a better job of pondering the topic. Certainly, The Man in the High Castle paved that road for them and as such is worth a read. But in and of itself, I did not find it to be a compelling book.

The book has a lot of good ideas that just never went anywhere. It is a short book which given my less than rapt feelings for it was probably a good thing. But while I was reading it, I also kept thinking how I would enjoy it more if the story delved deeper. Into the characters. Into the plot. Into the emotions of the world he built. Hell, any of it. This book set up an interesting world and then only let you look at it through a tiny window.

Despite having several exciting sounding plot points (politcal intrigue, assassination attempts, shoot outs, etc), the majority of the book is character driven. There are lots of overlong dialogue and even more lengthy inner monologues. Somehow, these running commentaries did not reveal any depth to the characters. Some of those monologues were so dry and flat, they might as well have been reading off of an instruction manual. 

Attachment to the characters was also prevented by the simply fact that there were too many characters none of whom got a satisfactory amount of time telling their point of view. Any time I would be getting into a section of the story, the book would skip to an entirely different person often times someone entirely new. The author was still adding new points of view half way through the story. The characters and different plot threads are all losely tied together, but in a rather haphazard way. And I could not stand Juliana's character. She was such a stereotypical bombshell beauty who is simultaneously supposed to be badass yet is somehow a helpless twit at the same time. Since she is one of two female characters in the story and the only one who features heavily, it made the story even harder to relate to.

The dialogue was extremely choppy. Actually, it was not just the dialogue, the characters' inner monologues were just as disjointed. There were a horrible amount of fragmented sentences all stumbling about with missing limbs. This might make a stylistic ambiance when used in moderation, but by the end I was craving complex sentences or at least some more complete ones. I read someone else's theory that these choppy sentences were supposed to show the adaptation to Japanese rule and how the (former) Americans started mimicking their way of speech. That may be true. The dialogue of the Japanese characters did have the English as a second language feel. But it made the writing hard to care about particularly considering how much dialogue there was. Even the inner monologues of almost all the characters maintained that choppy sentence structure. If they adapted their occupying country's speech patterns then they did so thoroughly and wholeheartedly. 
"Everywhere you go. Essential to keep head."
"Yes," Childan agreed. "Calmness and order. So things return to customary stability."
"Period after death of Leader critical in totalitarian society." Paul said. "Lack of tradition and middle-class institutions combine -" He broke off. "Perhaps better drop politics." He smiled. "Like old student days." The world building may have been heralded by some as brilliant, but it always left me wanting more. Part of that may have been due to what I mentioned earlier about already having been exposed to other Alternative Fiction that explored this topic better. Although the author spent pages at a time exhaustively detailing which Nazi leaders took over which government positions, it was done in an utterly flat and bombastic way. Another part of my disappointment was that the jacket description was very misleading. This book is not exactly about Nazi rule. It is about The Axis winning the war. The book takes place in a section of former America ruled by Japan. And while certain Nazi affiliates are crucial to the plot, Nazis do not occupy much of this story. They are mainly talked about in an offhand way such as people thinking about how much stricter things are in Nazi occupied areas. The Japanese come off as quite benevolent. Not that I wanted either group to be vilified. However it seemed other than calling the upper echelons of the German society inbred and crazy, the author seems to purposefully avoid being too controversial even while writing about a controversial subject. And the bit on the cover that exclaims that slavery is now legal? Well, that is barely even mentioned in the story and has no affect on the plot, so you might was well ignore that. (I do not consider that a spoiler; I'm merely correcting a false impression perpetrated by the publishers.)

This book just seemed to be trying to be trying much too hard to be clever. There was set up for so many analogies and so much symbolism, but overall it felt empty. For example, the amount of time the characters spent speculating about what it would be like if the Allies had won the war was absolutely obnoxious and my least favorite part of the book. The only thing that ties the characters and plot lines together is a fictional book within the book: The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. This book is "written" by someone in the story about what would their lives be like if the Allies had won the war. I could deal with this heavy-handed wave at Fate. What I could stand though, were that most of the characters spend extended amounts of time discussing the book and explaining it. Since The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is basically our true history, it all came across as gimmicky. 

The storyline was just so helter-skelter! Much of it revolves around the use of the I Ching - an ancient divination text. Most of the characters in the story depend heavily on using it. (view spoiler)[At the end when Juliana tracks down the author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, she makes a big production of bullying him into admitting that he used the I Ching to write the book. Or rather, that the I Ching wrote the book. That differentiation is crucial because it not only indicated that the I Ching is sentient and all-knowing but also leads to the gimmicky ending of the I Ching revealing that The Grasshopper Lies Heavy was true. (hide spoiler)] When I was looking around for some sort of cliff note or analysis of this book (due to the previously mentioned feeling of missing the point), I kept coming across references that the author actually used the I Ching to write this book. Now, I truly mean no offense to anyone who reveres that text, but using it to write a book was a terrible idea. (Although that certainly explains the lack of cohesion to the writing.) He might as well have used a magic eight ball! "Should this character go to jail?" Shake, shake, shake Magic Eight Ball's answer: "YES." Author's reply, "Okie, dokie, off to jail he goes!" And so on. The bigger legend around this book is that apparently the author did not like the answer he got regarding the ending and that is why he left it as such a vague cliffhanger. Apparently he got "TRY AGAIN LATER" too many times and just gave up. 

It is hard to rate this book though. Honestly, I did not enjoy reading it. Neither did I hate it. The entire time I was reading it, I kept hoping for more. The concept was great, but the execution was lacking. And the attempt at profoundness felt more and more gimmicky as the book progressed. Mostly I think this is the sort of book you read to see its impact on future literature not necessarily because it itself is outstanding. I am truly looking forward to discussing this in my bookclub because it will garner some interesting dialogue. But I am certainly more excited about discussing the ideas of this book that I was at any point while reading it.

Now that I've written all of that, I am reconsidering bumping my rating up to three stars. I might move it back to two stars after all.

RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 2 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 1 Star
Plot Structure and Development: 2 Stars
Level of Captivation: 2 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

Lacy W

Alright. Well this book was a bit of adventure and it brought out a lot of feels. I downloaded it because I saw that there was a TV show about it. Plus it's about World War II which is one of my favorite times in history to study. It's a good that I have been extensively studying WWII otherwise this book would have gone way over my head. 

Basically, the blurb sums it up. USA is now controlled by Japan and Germany. Basically everywhere is controlled by Japan and Germany. Germans have nearly perfected space travel. Japan pretty much runs all of the USA. That is the premise of this book. And that's all this book is about. Just the characters living their lives in this alternate world.

One of the major topics discussed repeatedly was race. I could just feel the racial tension emanating from this book. As someone who is Caucasian, I will admit I have no experience dealing with racism. I have had sexist encounters but no racist ones. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like to be constantly called a derogatory term. To be judged by the color of your skin. It sounds truly terrible. 

I feel like this is where we are headed with the US' new "president". I use that term loosely. That man has NO business running a country. How he was even elected is beyond me. I have heard him say nothing positive. He ran his campaign based solely on hate for other races, religions and the opposite sex and being a bully to his opponents. 

It's just...scary to think that what happened in this book could very well happen in the future. I mean think about it. Trump has already pissed off China. He is currently pissing of Mexico. What do you think is going to happen when he pisses off the wrong country?! The man has the emotional range of a teaspoon.  History repeats itself.... 

Alright, I'm done with that topic. Believe me, I could go on for hours. No one is allowed to mention Trump in front of me because otherwise I will go nuts. So I'll wrap up the rest of my feelings about this book. I was disappointed with the ending. It just...ended. There was no fight or anything. I was like  okaaaaay. 

The use of the Oracle was confusing. Is it like Tarot cards? I know that the characters used it to predict if a decision will be good or bad. But where did it come from? Why were they using it? It didn't help that the entire book was like reading choppy utterances. I felt like I was reading a monologue by Ollie from Family Guy. 

To wrap this up, I will say that if you don't know anything about WWII, do not read this book. I was even confused about who was who. It's best to have some knowledge or even better, have a lot of knowledge. But other than that, it was a pretty good book.

Ryan LaFerney

Philip K.Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was published in 1962 and has gone on to be one of the most influential works of speculative fiction in history. Dick earned his first Hugo award for this bold alternate history novel in 1963. It is a work that has gradually gained
acceptance as a modern classic as it helped to shape an entire field of modern fiction: alternative history. The Man in the High Castle in a nutshell is one of those genre-defining classics that historians of literature often talk about. It’s a novel of harrowing ideas but it’s far from perfect. 

In The Man in the High Castle, the United States has lost World War II and is occupied by foreign powers. The eastern seaboard has fallen under German control, while the West Coast is under the
sway of Japan. The South is a Vichy-type regime with the strings pulled by Nazi collaborators, while the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions are quasi-independent, buffer zones separating
the two occupying powers. Tensions between Germany and Japan simmer beneath the surface, and the threat of a nuclear conflict between them is ever present. The world building is simply perfect. 

In this highly charged setting, Dick develops his several story lines. We follow the secretive course of “Mr. Baynes,” a German defector attempting to enlist the support of the Japanese against
the machinations of Joseph Goebbels. He is working through a contact in the Japanese trade mission, Nobusuke Tagomi, who is ignorant of Baynes’ agenda, and is caught up in his own private
dramas—including a puzzling visit to another alternative universe. A third sub-plot concerns Frank Frink, an aspiring jewelry designer who is trying to hide his Jewish ancestry in order to avoid
arrest. Robert Childan, an American dealer in collector items, is another significant character whose ability to internalize the speech and behavior patterns of his mostly Japanese clientele has
helped him achieve a degree of success in the occupied territories. 

Personally, I found Juliana, Frink’s ex-wife, to be the most intriguing story line within the entire novel. We find Juliana striking up a relationship with an Italian truck driver, only to discover he has murder in mind. You see The novel also reminds us of its construction in the character of Hawthorne
Abendsen, who is the enigmatic “Man in the High Castle,” an author who is writing a fictional account of alternative history, in which the United States and its allies win the war. And Abendsen relies on the I Ching to write this novel-within-a-novel (something Philip K. Dick employed himself to write the novel). Abendsen is clearly a threat to German control as his enigmatic “Man in the High Castle” is a bestseller. It’s Juliana’s reading of this book and her high-stakes charged pilgrimage to meet with Abendsen by which Dick’s novel truly succeeds as an innovative story. 

Reality blurs within the story. And the distinction between the story and outside reality—as manifested in Dick’s personal life—also grows fuzzy (another trademark of this author’s oeuvre). In a
charged moment in the book, Nobusuke Tagomi finds himself in Abendsen's imagined world where the United States was the victor in World War II, and this strange situation of a “true” alternate
history in this midst of Dick’s contrived one, opens up the dizzying possibility of “true” realities. Juliana has a similar encounter. 

Nothing in the book is as it seems. Most characters are not what they say they are, most objects are fake – and the history that is supposed to imbue the artifacts Childan's customers long for is shown to be entirely intangible. What differentiates a cigarette lighter Roosevelt was holding when he was assassinated from an exact copy? Nothing we can perceive.

History and fiction become even more confused in a book-within-the-book (called, perplexingly, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy) which presents another counterfactual scenario in which the Allies won the war, but the British Empire came out with all the power (this is the book written by Hawthorne
Abendsen) . These ideas are then completely nuked when the I-Ching – which most characters play, and which Dick said guided his hand as he wrote – suggests the world in the second book might be the real one …

Sadly, the novel ends rather abruptly. The Man in the High Castle is not a long novel, but it feels like Part I of a larger, more epic work. Philip K. Dick himself intended to write a sequel to it, and indeed a couple of his later novels were conceived as sequels but did not turn out that way. The world Dick creates could certainly support a grander tale, and when it is finished one feels like there are many exciting things to come, if only Dick had written them. With another four hundred pages or so we might have been treated to an exhilarating mix of storylines, but then again, if the I Ching really was guiding the plot, we might have wound up nowhere at all.

Still, The Man in The High Castle presents a nightmarish and haunting vision of history. It also presents some of Dick’s strongest themes that would continue to be motifs within his work which include the nature of reality. In The Man in the High Castle the characters get a hint that the world that they are living in is fictional, and they get a glimpse of the truth.Both Juliana and Tagomi glimpse into another reality where the U.S. did win WWII as outlined in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. However, I don't believe that this new reality is real and true, while the reality experienced by the characters throughout the rest of the novel is necessarily false or fictional. Rather they both exist as parallel realities.

In the book, the idea of yin and yang (dark and light) is brought up numerous times and is part of the I Ching. Both exist simultaneously in an interconnected and complementary way despite being opposites. I believe both realities are representative of this yin and yang - they exist in an interconnected way rather than one being fiction or unreality.
In the book, Hawthorne (as mentioned he is known as The Man in the High Castle) is called "an external frame of reference," whose work allows readers to realize that the reality they are living in is not the only possible reality. Perhaps this is the power of Dick’s messy novel? That it shows readers that there are options when all hope seems lost, that there is a spiritual realm, that there is danger to fiction, and that the suppression of truth is part of our corrupt nature?
As mentioned, the world Dick creates could certainly support a grander tale and Dick did intend to revisit this story. Sadly, the novel ends rather abruptly, and many plot threads are left dangling (perhaps this we could blame on Dick’s use of the I-Ching?). However, this abrupt ending works to engage the reader. Dick does not paint a clear picture for us. It is left to the reader to decipher fiction from unreality. 

The Man in the High Castle, is a harrowing, experimental novel that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. It might not be a perfect novel. The prose is often jarring. The plot threads are unresolved. But dammit, it makes you think. And that is rewarding in and of itself.

Janice Hopper

I have avoided reading this book for years and years and years. I didn't really want to read it now. But it's our SFF book club selection for this month, so I thought I'd try to get through it.

I didn't want to read a book about Germany and Japan winning WW2. Especially at this time in history, I didn't want to read about fascism and genocide and Nazis.

The book has these things, though they're not the MAIN part of the story. It's all pretty complicated: there are many different powers competing in this world. People are divided in their own minds about who they are and what they believe and what they should be doing. There's a book-within-a-book the MIGHT be depicting what's actually real about the world.

Everyone consults the I Ching and derives counsel from it. I had no idea the I Ching had such a definitive role in this book. I found it odd, but it's essential to how the plot works out.
 
Nothing is really resolved. 

I'm feeling very conflicted about this book. I wish I could have read it when we aren't in such a fraught period of American history. :(

High Fidelity

3.2 ⭐
I loved the concept and some of the characters; oh boy, there was an abundance of characters.
But it leads nowhere, all the buildup got me hooked and I waited for some big twist that never happened. 
I might give the tv show a try.

Nelson Zagalo

PKD é um dos meus autores de ficção-científica preferidos, nomeadamente pelo modo como trata a Realidade, tudo no seu trabalho está sempre de algum modo ligado à discussão sobre o Real. Em "The Man in the High Castle" não é diferente, já que nos apresenta uma realidade alternativa, mas fá-lo de um modo histórico, fugindo ao tom filosófico, sua imagem de marca. Como ele chegou a dizer, "I am a fictionalising philosopher, not a novelist; my novel and story-writing ability is employed as a means to formulate my perception." 

E é por isso que apenas dou 3 estrelas a "The Man in the High Castle" , o livro acaba por se tornar confuso, pouco elaborado no detalhe, com falta de narrativização e mesmo de aprofundamento. A melhor parte acaba por ser a discussão em redor da Autenticidade das Imitações, mas é um tema que logo se perde no emaranhado de outras pontas. Julgo que PKD se perdeu no meio de tanta coisa que se poderia ter feito e dito nesta abordagem alternativa. Aliás como disse mais tarde, nunca chegou a fazer uma segunda parte do livro porque não conseguia voltar a investigar o regime Nazi de tão pesado. E isso nota-se aqui, PKD de certo modo quer aprofundar, mas ao mesmo tempo que afastar-se da temática, do profundo horror.

Dito isto continua a ser uma obra relevante, mas pela ideia, pela premissa, e por alguns fios da narrativa explorada, mas está longe de ser um grande livro. Se o objectivo é conhecer o trabalho de PKD aconselho antes a leitura de "The Simulacra", "A Scanner Darkly" ou "Ubik".

Shay Henrion

Did this book actually have a plot? A resolution? I feel like my copy was missing chunks of the story.

Kelsey Lynn

(9/63) In my Hugo Read-Through
         The Man in the High Castler by Philip K. Dick, won the Hugo award for best novel in 1963. It is also my first time reading Philip K. Dick and my first dive into alternate history. This books is a little hard to review without spoiling, but I'm determined to do so. So this will be a general overview and what I felt and took from it regardless of if I'm right or not.
         The Man in the High Castle is a story set in an alternate history, where Germany and Japan won WW2. The world map is much different, the United States is divided and under a lot of Japanese influence and rule. The story is told from multiple perspectives all living their lives in this world and from different sides of the war. In the story there is a popular book that actually yet another alternate history. This is going to be a quick disjointed review but oh well, I'll fix it later.
        This wasn't a book that was terribly exciting, however the author did a great job of keeping it interesting, and most importantly believable. He developed his alternate history in a way that makes the reader realize just how possible it was. By having a book within a book telling another history and showing the characters varying reactions, including in-credulousness at the possibility of anything other than the history they know, really smashes any issues the reader may have with believing the possibility of the books history. Having the characters think the other history was ridiculous and unplausable made this history all the more believable. He had enough politics for it to stand up and be developed properly however he didn't dwell on them or continue on long boring chapters of it. Just the right amount.
         What also helped the believableness of his world, and the quality of the story, was his characters. All of them were normal people that you can imagine meeting, no one was underdeveloped and no one was poorly written, they all had their own lives, voices and personality, and switching from one to another had a clear switch without any confusion and segwayed well. Having read so many books where the characters feel the same I found this book refreshing.

         What stood out to me about this book and what probably isn't right but I like to think it is. Was how it felt like the author was focusing on how people cope with war. Both the winners and losers. With our characters we had winners that glorified and pitied the losers. We had losers that glorified and resented the winners, who fanboyed over them but on the inside mourned for their own lost culture. You had Japanese people buying american history and art as kitschy decoration. Taking things that were important and meant something to the artist and turning them into everyday junk (sound familiar with peoples obsessions with japanese art?). You had people trying to find their place in between it all. Everyone seemed lost and looking for direction and honestly the finale for me just made this point even more for me. 

        Philip K. Dick did something that I think was the most important. When I finished the book, I thought about it all day, what it meant, what I thought it meant, I discussed it with my boyfriend even though he hadn't read it. I immediately wanted to read it again with what the finale offered, see it through those eyes. That's impressive, that's good writing, not only was the book well done but it was interesting in a good way.
 in conclusion
I was impressed with this book, I enjoyed his writing style and felt engrossed in his history. I believed it and his characters, and being Philip K. Dick was presented with a finale that opened up so much I immediately wanted to read it again. Unfortunately I'm sure much of the significance was lost on me, I'm afraid I'm abysmal at my own history, had I known more I believe this book would have even more significance. 
"You see my point. It's all a big racket; They're playing it on themselves. I mean, a gun goes through a famous battle, like the Meuse-Argonne, and it's the same as if it hadn't,  unless you know. It's in here" He tapped his head. "In the mind, not the gun...""

Patrick Baumann

'All these hundreds of thousands in this city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse, the truth . . . ? America, after the Second World War. The Allies have lost, and their enemies have conquered the world. Those who survive live in fear. The Nazis have taken over New York, while the Japanese control California. Yet in a neutral buffer zone between these two rival superpowers lives the author of an underground bestseller that, it is rumoured, offers an alternate version of history. Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others?

Seyfeddin Başsaraç

Diziyi seyretmeye başladıktan sonra kitabı okudum. Çok güzel bir fikirle yola çıkan, zayıf bir kitap olmuş. Yazarın kitabı bitirmesine fırsat olmadığı söyleniyor. 

Kitap irili ufaklı detaylarla etkileyici. Japon ve Nazi Almanya'sı kültürünü Amerika kıtasına göre harika harmanlamış ve, bütün bu hayali tarihi, bir grup insan üzerinden anlatmış. Ancak bu hikaye biraz fazla yavan. Ciddi akış problemleri kitabı zor bitirmemi sağladı. Dizi yapımcılarının kitapta yaptığı büyük değişimler diziyi kitaptan daha iyi yapmış. Belki de ilk defa seyrettiğim bir dizi, uyarlandığı kitaptan daha iyi oluyor.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Es super diferente a la serie, lo cual tiene lo suyo, ya que hace que no sepa lo que va a pasar, lo que crea expectativa y atractivo. Aun si la serie les gusto o no, recomendaría igualmente su lectura. La realidad es que hay elementos que tenia que cambiar, porque en audiovisual jamas hubieran funcionado.

Sarah Escorsa

I decided to read this book because I love alternate history, particularly when it has to do with World War II and its possible outcomes. 

Unfortunately Philip K. Dick's writing just spoiled it all for me. The book is full of trivialities and I found it boring from beginning to end. I didn't care about any of the characters and couldn't find any interest in the plot. This could have been a great book but it falls completely flat.

Sahi K

Another book I would have never read if not for my book club, especially because I don’t really enjoy narratives where the Nazis win. And being such an old book, I had some trouble understanding the writing style and sometimes even the vocabulary, and I feel like a lot of the meta commentary and philosophizing went way above my head. I also didn’t care much for any of the characters to feel invested in. 

I still thought it might have a good ending that would make it worth my effort but that conclusion just blew my mind because I did not understand a single thing about what actually happened. What the f was that???? Just makes it feel like all the time I spent reading was pointless. 

If you enjoy reading older books and award winners, then this might be for you. But like me, if you are more into modern writing styles and more accessible storytelling, I wouldn’t recommend picking this one.

Lucía RG

4.5*
This was such a good book!! can't recomend it enough

Bibi

Does this book have a plot even? It felt more like a bunch disjointed and barely coherent narratives loosely based around a world (that is actually interesting in itself I suppose).

Everyone in the PSA feels like some one-dimensional stereotypical generic "Asian" person, speaking "wisdom" and quoting poems. And what is up with Japanese people being so obsessed with the I Ching and Tao?

The Man in the High Castle

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