Customer Reviews
Not Free SF Reader 
2007-12-07
Split states spoils of war.
This novel is an alternate history, and one of the favorite subjects of such books - World War 2.
Here the Allies lose, and the USA is occupied territory, split, naturally enough to be half owned by Japan, and half by Germany (west versus east).
Needless to say, this is now not a very nice place, and tensions also exist between the two occupying forces.
An author here is working on a book that would result in a severe punishment - an alternate history of his own where the Allies did not lose the war.
3.5 out of 5
Dick to duck 
2007-11-20
Several years ago, having read and reviewed THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER (Vintage Books, 1991), I decided to check out this book which won a Hugo Award and was widely considered to be Dick's best (during his lifetime, at least). The setting and denouement of HIGH CASTLE are wonderfully original, but the twenty year distance between the two books is all too evident. Dick's writing improved tremendously over that span, leaving the feeling that a terrific idea was somewhat wasted on his inexperienced talent. The story is set in post-WW II California, the Nazis and Japanese having won the war and divided the world between them. The Jews and most Africans have been liquidated in the ensuing 18 years, and the Japanese are still cooperating with their technically and militarily superior allies in rounding up Jewish survivors. The only serious trouble on the Nazi horizon is a widely circulated (though banned) book which spins a fable of a world in which America won the war. Written by an author who holds out in a secure fortress in the Rockies, the book has stirred the imaginations of millions of Americans in occupied territory on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The surprise ending deserves better writing, but it at least exhibits the amazing PKD imagination, seeing between the cracks in reality.
The Most Amazing Alt-History Novel Ever Written 
2007-11-02
It's hard to describe exactly what kind of book Philip K. Dick's The Man In The High Castle actually is. Part science fiction. Part alternate history. Part meditation on the nature of reality. Whatever you call it, though, it's easy to see why it won the Hugo Award in 1963 and why it's considered one of Dick's best works.
The premise of the novel is pure alternate history. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt is assassinated in Miami in 1933 -- an event which almost actually happened -- and, as a result, America is unable to recover from the depression and does not come to the aid of Europe when World War II starts in 1939. The Nazis overwhelm England and Russia. The Japanese destory the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. And, in 1947, America surrenders and finds itself divided between German and Japanese spheres of influence.
Most of the plot of the book takes place in San Francisco, in what is called the Pacific States of America, which is under Japanese control. The German half of the world, though never directly visited is clearly shown to be as brutal and deadly as one would have expected a Nazi-controlled world to be. The Slavic population of Europe returned to the steppes of Asia. American Jews suffering the same fate as the European cousins. And, apparently, the continent of Africa the sight of a holocaust that makes the murder of the Jews seem tame by comparison.
The books focuses on several Japanese and American characters who are trying their best to live their lives in this world and on a book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts a world in which the Germans and Japanese lost the war. Another plot focuses on power struggles in Germany after the death of the Furher, Martin Boormann (Hitler apparently having been confined to a mental institution with a syphallis-infected brain sometime before) and an apparently German plot to attack its one-time ally, Japan.
The question of what is real and what is not plays a prominent role in the book as well. Is the book-within-a-book correct ? Did Germany and Japan really lose the war ? And, if so, what does that really mean ? At one point, one of the characters finds himself in a San Francisco that more closely resembles our own than the sleepy seaside city ruled by the Japanese, suggesting that the world of Dick's book is, in fact, an illusion.
Read the book and draw your own conclusions, though. This is truly a classic.
Interesting, but... 
2007-10-14
Interesting plot, in a quintessentially Dick-ian way, but the writing is awkward, and for a sci-fi novel that is more about alternate history than it is about a future society shaped by imaginary technology, his depiction of a Sino-Japanese culture is not convincing -- no explanation is given for the Japanese's fascination with the I-Ching, for example.
An alternate universe where people are obsessed with an alternate universe 2007-10-09
I have read only a few books in my life that are so disturbing that I have trouble completing them. Usually I don't have any trouble with serious novels and great literature, because I know going in that they have an agenda, a point to make- and usually not a pleasant one. But some books come at you sideways sneaking up with humor or escapism and sinking their talons into you. Catch-22 was one such book for me, and "The Man in the High Castle" was another.
By now it's a standard science fiction device to wonder what may have happened if things had gone differently in history. In fact, there is so much alternate history that it sometimes has a special sub-section devoted to it in the bookstore. But what most of those books concentrate on is the events: Roosevelt was assassinated, so the U.S. didn't enter WWII. The South won the Civil War, so slavery was never abolished. And so on. "Castle" has some of that, certainly. But it reads differently, because it concentrates on the effect of the new world on ordinary people. And needless to say the effect is not good.
In the world that Dick describes, the Japanese and the Nazis have won the second world war and divided the globe between them. The Japanese half is administered efficiently and held within the rule of law. The Nazi half is a charnel house of criss-crossing genocides; Jews, blacks, even Italians all exterminated with varying levels of prejudice, with no end in sight or comprehensible reason.
These events are in many ways remote from the characters in the book, all of whom live on the Japanese administered West Coast, or the "free" mountain states between them and the German East. But each character has internalized, to varying degrees, the horror that the world has become. Their basic thoughts are warped, and it seems as if some of them know it but cannot quite articulate what is wrong.
There is in this world a book of alternate history, a science fiction novel, that describes what the world might have been like if Germany and Japan has lost the war. I was expecting that book to mirror history as we know it, but of course it didn't - even the alternate history was gloomy, pessimistic, and wrong. The tragedy, as one of the German characters puts it, is that even to him this story of the defeat of the Reich seems more cheerful than the reality of their victory.
This is an incredible book, but a hard read. But ultimately I'm glad I picked it up, if only because it's good to be reminded from time to time of how good we have it here in the real world.
mind bending 2008-06-23
the ending of the book, for people who are thinking about buying it, is confusing and probably leaves the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about it. It takes place in an alternate history where Nazis and Japs rule the US, or the east and west while the middle is neither. there is also a really confusing ending to it which will make you go "HUH?" for quiet a while where you would probably have to draw your own conclusions from it.
Maybe not Alternate 2008-04-29
I read this recently after hearing about it years ago. I was struck by how accurately it depicts California today. I wonder if it was ever intended to be an "alternate" version of reality or actually a comment on America hidden behind the sci-fi premise. This would explain the end which is intentionally left unclear as to which reality is correct. Of course, today there are more foreign people in California and the Governor is not only foreign but the son of Nazis. Yet, there were signs things were headed in that direction at the time Dick wrote. He was interested in science like the space program, which was dominated by foreign people (even ex-Nazis). He had psychological problems and many doctors in this area were foreign. Mental institutions at the time tended to cause more mental strain then help and he likely knew about that. His books eventually became successful films but until late in his career he was shut out of Hollywood. Most Hollywood sci-fi was badly written, mostly cribbed, and the industry was controlled by foreigners. The businessman depicted in the book is easily recognizible as a Hollywood type mogul. The parts about Americans being shut out and not even being able to go to nicer sections of the city isn't far from reality today, and probably wasn't back then either. So Dick is really one of the American artists in the book, whose work is having an impact but is not repected, nor were probably his friends. He could see that things could go either way and maybe he would be successful or maybe not.
A Pioneering Book of Its Type 2008-03-13
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick's Hugo Award winning 1962 novel, is credited by many with the creation of the alternate history genre. It may not have been the first alternate history novel published but it does seem to be the one that jump-started the genre. And what an alternate history is tells.
Franklin Roosevelt was assassinated in the early years of the Great Depression and America's contribution to the Allied efforts during World War II were limited by its delayed recovery from those disastrous years. In fact, Germany and Japan have won the war and have pretty much divided the globe between them, with Japan in control of Asia and Germany of Europe and Africa. Even the United States has been divided between the two: Japan has the western part of the country, Germany the eastern part and there is a buffer of "free states" between the two sections. Almost twenty years later, Germany, still determined to finish its extermination of the Jews, has decided to do the same to dark-skinned peoples and has turned Africa into a massive killing ground.
Japan, on the other hand, rules its territories under the rule of law and those living in the San Francisco area, where much of the novel takes place, are the lucky ones. Americans, especially white-skinned ones, are definitely second class citizens in the Pacific States of America, but they do not live in fear the way that residents of the German territory do. However, Germany is the more powerful of the two superpowers and is able to demand the handover of all Jews identified in the PSA.
The Man in the High Castle focuses on ordinary Americans, many of whom were children during the war and who do not remember much of pre-war life, as they try to make their way from day-to-day. Dick cleverly included one character, Hawthorn Abendsen, who has written an alternate history of his own, a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in which Germany and Japan lost the war (an alternate history within an alternate history). The world described in Abendsen's book is very different from the real world and is an irritant to both the Germans and the Japanese. But, as usual, it is the Germans who want to take things to the extreme by exacting their revenge on the author and German authorities have sent someone to infiltrate Abendsen's supposed fortress of a hideout.
Dick chose to end The Man in the High Castle in such an abrupt and ambiguous manner that most readers will be left scratching their heads and trying to reconcile 99% of the book's content to what is disclosed on its last three pages. Readers usually enjoy surprise endings but this is not a very satisfying one and they are likely to find it more annoying than surprising, something that will ruin their overall perception of the novel. I found the core of Dick's plot to be well crafted and enjoyable but the book's ending is the reason I cannot rate it higher than I have.
One of the best books I've read in a long time 2008-01-28
...and just to make sure, I re-read a chapter a night to the end. Slowly. Every word. There is so much going on in this novel, the detail, the books within books, the characters, the politics. You can get an idea of the plot from the other reviews, but don't dwell too much on what anyone else says. Get a copy. You won't regret it. It's even better the second time around.
Alternate History... Or is it? 2007-12-26
1962: the Allies lost the war and Germany and Japan are the new powers of the world. America is divided between the two, Japan controlling the West and Germany the East. Genocide rages in Africa and Germany is exploring space with a vengeance. The picture is horrifying and brilliantly sketched by Dick. Believable character development. I will have to read it again to determine if I actually enjoyed this book. Of course, if you read it, be prepared for the Dick-ian twist at the end...
