One of the essential works of alternate history written to date. Dick describes a world were the Second World War was won by the Nazis. "The Man in the High Castle" deals with the political, cultural and social impact of this event on the lives of everyday people. The story contains no real heroes, nor villains (apart from the fascist totalitarian regime, of course), which is a good thing in this case. Dick wouldn't be Dick if there weren't also any characteristic philosophical themes in this novel. Wholeheartedly recommended. ( )

I have enjoyed novels of ideas immensely over the years and The Man in the High Castle is one of the best I have read in a long time.
In his novel the author, Philip K. Dick, has created an alternative world and then tops that by having his title character author a book within the novel that imagines the world as it really is. What if the allies had lost World War II? That is the premise, and Dick's ability to build a believable alternative reality based on that premise is the foundation of this exciting, suspenseful and enjoyable book. The characters, German spy, Jewish businessman, Japanese trade representative, Italian war veteran, and others, are each given individual fates that, woven together through a plot that creates suspense and wonder, inhabit a world that is scarily believable. Beyond them all lives "the man in the high castle" -- the author of the book about an alternative reality, a book that is banned throughout most of the world, inspiring even greater readership and fear. Philip K. Dick has written a novel that truly makes you think about the nature of fate (the I Ching is also an important element in the plot) and the small changes that could change history. An award-winning work of fiction, it is a book that recreates the universe. ( )

This book was good, but not as good at Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It runs the typical Dick story of "what is the nature of reality."

I like the idea that there is a "true" reality that lies in some kind of competition with other realities, but I don't think it gets enough fleshing out in the book. I also like that the concept of "true" is called into question. Ultimately, though, this is subdued underneath political machinations that go nowhere.

I leave the novel feeling pretty underwhelmed, especially being aware of what Dick can do if he just lets go a little bit more. On the whole a fine book, but nothing that I'm going to read again for a while. ( )

Possibly my favourite PKD book, this alternate history has a ring of authenticity about it, rare perhaps for PKD - Messerschmitt sub-orbital rockets; power struggles between the Gestapo and the Abwehr; tensions between Germany and Japan, once allies but now rivals; Nazi Mars missions and jokes circulating about whether this is a good place to build a concentration camp. At the same time, there are Dickian touches enough to keep fans of the seriously wierd happy: the I Ching and a reclusive sf author writing an alternate-universe novel about a world where the Nazis did not win the war - but not depicting our world; oh no, that'd be too easy. Recommended even to those who aren't too keen on PKD. ( )

Wow. I've read a lot of Dick's work, and this is probably my favourite (though I'll have to sleep on it before I can decide). It's the most measured, most thought-provoking book I've read in a long while (and I've read a lot!).

At first, the style seemed all wrong - dropped articles, missing subject words in the sentences, and then I realised what he was doing - by showing the way people would have thought in an area so strongly influenced by Japanese culture, it was necessary to show the pidgin English that would probably have developed. The refinements of thought and expression are clearer when the characters we follow are out of Japanese territory; in short, the stylistic device works because the story is stronger because of it.

Speaking of the story, I won't go into details, because the bumpf does enough to make you want to read the book, and I don't want to spoil any of the surprises. This is, of course, typical Dick in many ways - a complete mind-**** - but you won't mind as long as you let the story carry you away. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1219867...

This is very far from being a typical PKD novel, yet it was the only one to win a Hugo award, in 1963. The other nominees were The Sword of Aldones, by Marion Zimmer Bradley; A Fall of Moondust, by Arthur C. Clarke; Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper; and Sylva, by Jean Bruller. The only one of these I have read is the Clarke, which is good solid stuff from one of the greats, but I think the Hugo voters got it right. (Have any translated novels other than Sylva ever been shortlisted for the Hugo?)

Alternate history as a sub-genre often gets a bit consumed with its own cleverness, but The Man in the High Castle takes quite a different approach. The plot, as far as it matters, is about two German plots, one to attack Japan, the other to assassinate the author of a novel where Germany and Japan lost the war, and the attempts of Japanese and Americans (and one dissident German) to thwart them. Dick almost instructs us in how to read his alternate history, by having his characters read and talk about their alternate history, and with other incidents probing the links between reality and authenticity. There are a couple of 'normal' Dickian moments, when one character somehow finds himself in our world, and when others discover that their world is also fictional; but the flaws in reality are much more subtly done here than in many of Dick's books, and for that reason more effective.

It is a peculiarly subdued novel. Dick's writing is often manic: this isn't, except perhaps just a little towards the end of Juliana's journey. She and Frank never get back together. Mr Tagomi triumphs morally but is damaged physically. The man in the high castle actually lives in a fairly normal house and isn't really very nice. But it lingers in the memory. ( )

The premise of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, like his other novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is that things are not always what they seem, and indeed that the very nature of reality is loosely defined. This is exemplified in the book's strange ending, in which the reader returns to a reality more closely related to our own (in fact, it probably is our own!).

The 'thinking moments' of the book are overwhelmed by the random parts of the book though. Having said that though, the most profound parts of the book are when Dick returns to the central theme of questioning reality: namely the parts dealing with the forgery of Civil War era artifacts. Indeed, Dick asks, if the viewer cannot discern fake from real with his senses, then how can one ever know what is real? ( )

Food for thought but not the smoothest of reads. ( )

The fascinating alternate history presented is the setting of the novel, not the subject; what I found the most striking were the occasionally somewhat rambling passages about the authenticity of 'historical' objects and works of art, presented in the dialogues between the artists/salesmen and the Japanese government.

Of course, one cannot help but be intrigued by the glimpses offered of the historical events; difficult though it is to avoid spoilers, we are also given hints of a different future altogether - a future which is remarkably familiar.

Although the novel is definitely not subtle in making some of its observations, I did find it very thoughtful and well written. I just wish there was more of it! ( )

The concept of an alternate reality where the Germans and Japanese won WWII is beautifully written. This can be a difficult concept to write about successfully, and Dick did a wonderful job. However, the confusing, ambiguous ending leaves more loose ends than it ties up, putting a damper on the entire read. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/i... ( )

wierd ending, I really didnt understand it - very strange ... ? ( )

I know I was supposed to finish this book and be awestruck at how wonderful it is, but I'm not. The premise of what the world would be like if Japan and Germany had won World War II was what got me intrigued enough to read this story.... unfortunately it just seems to ramble with little or no plot.
I was actually enjoying the first half of the book; the character development had started, and I there seemed to be a story brewing. Then, instead of all the characters converging into some central story, everything just started to go different directions. Nothing ever comes together, and the book abruptly ends. A big disappointment. ( )

What a brilliant visioning of an unexpected future. No 2-dimensional good vs. evil here. ( )

This is a thought-provoking book bursting with ideas, but for me the writing does not sustain them. The central premise is that it's set in a world where Germany and Japan won WWII, and now have control of Europe and America. Most of this background is presented in passing. The book concerns a few ordinary people living in this world and their vaguely intertwined lives. Although I enjoyed reading it I thought the ideas might have fared better in the hands of a better writer. Some of it is a bit vague and confusing to the point of incoherence. ( )

I've heard this book is deep and fantastic, but it just didn't do it for me. I apparently missed whatever was deep about it. Written in the early 1960's, this is the story of what the world would be like had Germany and Japan won World War II. The western third of the United States is run by Japan, the eastern third is run by Germany, and the middle is somewhere in between. Things happen, but there is no real plot in this book. Germany is about to undergo a change in leaders. A German agent and a Japanese agent meet in the U.S. to make some sort of plans, using a legitimate businessman in San Francisco as a cover. Meanwhile, other people do stuff. And running through it all is a novel that everyone is reading, written by American, about what would have happened if Germany and Japan had actually lost the war. Is that what was supposed to be deep? It wasn't. And then it ended. Not very interesting. ( )

With works like this and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" it is odd that Phillip K Dick is not more widely read than he is, as his books rate for the most part with the doyens of American 20th century literature. This is the curse, I guess, of being branded a Sci-Fi Writer. It's embarassing to admit you like Sci-Fi.
The Man in the High Castle is superbly realised and depicted, and as with most of Dick's fiction, the outward subject of the book (in this case an alternative history of the 20th Century in which the Axis won the war and Japan and Germany conquered America) is only really the setting for a fascinating examination of the human protagonists, and the dilemmas of life they face inside it.

For this reason alone, his books have tended not to date; the particular issues they address are not of technology or history, but largely of personality and "spirituality" (for want of a better word).

The Man In The High Castle is also very well observed - in partiucular the ever-so slightly contorted constructions of Japanese English emanating from those in the Pacific States (whether Japanese or not) are very cleverly done. It is noteworthy that Dick doesn't stoop to make soft scores: there is little overt reference to the atrocities of the Second World War, and neither the German not the Japanese occupations are depicted as wholly brutal or totalitarian regimes - this is implied to an extent for the German regime, but none of the action really takes place there, and the Japanese government is portrayed surprisingly sympathetically, particularly at an individual level.

Ultimately, The Man In The High Castle descends out of focus and into incoherency, but as mentioned above, plot wasn't really what interested Dick, and this tends to be a characteristic of his novels.

Recommended. ( )

As I understand it, this book pretty much created the genre of alternate history. The book is really just a sort of story in this new universe rather than a story ABOUT it, which is different from a lot of alternate history. It was an okay story, I felt, it was quite different. An America that is divided between Japan and the Reich, in which the Japanese are clearly kinder overlords. Kind of eerie in parts. ( )

e suis fan d'uchronies et ce sans doute depuis que j'ai lu ce livre, qui reste pour moi un chef d'œuvre du genre. L'apothéose est pour moi la fin (je suis aussi très attiré par le Tao) qui reste très Dickienne. ( )

Very interesting novel, and a good read. Barely a sci-fi story, although it was Hugo Award winner. It is an alternate history novel in which the US lost WWII, and was split into 3 pieces, a nominally independent heartland, a Nazi-dominated east coast, and a Japanese-dominated west coast. ( )

I really enjoyed this book, I loved the ideas and the execution.

Things which seemed to irritate others, I liked: such as the iChing, the switching between different characters and plot lines to allow different perspective and new information to be put across without being info dumps; the book within a book, the alternative history within the alternative history and it not being the same as what really happened; the uncertain ending...

Definitely a book I will return to read in a couple of years time. ( )

The Man In The High Castle was one of the first alternate history novels to ever gain wide appeal. It tells the story of an alternate world in which the Allies lost the war, and the world is now controlled by the Japanese and Germans. The United States has been divided into three parts: the east coast, controlled by the Nazis; the west coast, controlled by Japan; and the Midwest, a neutral buffer zone under its own authority.

This was the first novel by Dick I've ever read, though I have read some of his short stories, and although the concept is intriguing I didn't much care for his writing style. The narratorial voice is far too deeply entrenched inside the character's heads, detailing every little thought and engaging in time-consuming and tedious interior monologues. Also, for a novel that is supposed to be examining the society of an alternate world, he spends a bizarrely large amount of time discussing jewellry and antiques. ( )

I'm going to shout so that you all can hear: PHILIP K. DICK WAS ONLY INCIDENTALLY A SF WRITER. His best works, of which this is one, are not. They are highly imaginative speculative fiction, which is another branch of fantasy (SF is another branch of fantasy). This book is brilliant. If it had been written by a non-pulp writer, it should have got it's author a major prize. My alternate worlds fantasy is where Dick was recognised early, and didn't expend his talent writing scores of crappy stuff for the pulp magazines. ( )

It took me quite a while to finally pick up and read this book, and the patience I gave it was paid off with a novel that begs an equal amount of patience.

It begins in a disorienting fashion, as multiple characters with many seemingly unrelated narratives are introduced. Ultimately, in a risky but admirable move, Dick doesn't struggle to interconnect each person, but lets the separate plot strands evolve as they will until they reach an end, whether appropriate or seemingly unfinished.

It is that unfinished quality that provides much of what is thought-provoking about the novel: not so much that it tells two "what-might-have-beens" about World War II but that history is so pliable, both in the conception of the novel and within the novel's own plot. The ultimate revelation, while far from a true climax, is nonetheless one of the most fascinating and mind-boggling reveals I've read in a long time.

There's nothing traditional about this novel, and that's what makes it so great and so worth reading.

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.

Rated at: 3.0 ( )