The Man in the High Castle (1962)

I listened to this on audio book. Does that count? I really liked it. I don't read a lot of science fiction but I like reading about Nazis (?) and the scope of his imagination as well as the breadth of his real-world references is astounding. I also like that his characters are inevitably more fucked up than the fucked up dystopias they inhabit. ( )

It is post World War II, but in this alterative future Roosevelt had been assassinated in 1933 and America had never emerged from the great depression. The Axis powers won and America is now under the Nazi’s on the east coast and Japan invaded and established the Pacific States of America (PSA) on the west coast. The Rocky Mountain States are now a neutral buffer zone. With the Nazi victory came sweeping changes across Europe, genocide in the African continent and they mastered space.

In this strange new world, PKD has scattered a cast of characters that are loosely linked. Bob Childan owns an antiques shop specialising in Americana relics some of which have been bought through the Wyndam-Matson Corporation. Frank Frink, who is secretly a Jew and a previous employee of Wyndam-Matson, discovers that the antiques are fakes, and walks away with a sum of money to start a new business with another colleague. His ex wife, Juliana, is now living in the neutral zone, and has begun a relationship with an Italian truck driver called Cinnadella. A Swedish industrialist named Baynes has recently arrived and is asking for a meeting with a Nobusuke Tagomi, a Japanese trade official, who had visited Childan’s shop to buy a gift for him. Several characters in the book are reading the banned novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen, who according to lore lives in a guarded home called the High Castle. This novel within the novel has its own alternate history, our future, where the Allies have won World War II. Throughout the book, some of the characters use the ancient divination text of I Ching to help them make decisions even though the choices presented are not always what they want.

I have come to like PKD books. Not all of them are great works of literature, but they all manage to mess with your head. In this parallel world, he has conceived a future with the Axis powers running most of the western world and still causing horrific acts. The story is woven with tension, from Julianna realisation about her boyfriend’s intentions, the power struggles at the top of the Nazi hierarchy and the potential for another world war. I liked the overlapping coincidences in the novel within from our world and the new parallel world that he conceived. Whilst the plot is not hugely strong, it’s a book that makes you think about the paradox of alternative futures and what the world might have been like. Good stuff. 3.5 stars. ( )

What if...?

The premise: The Allies lost WWII; Japan and Germany rise up to rule the world and the universe.

This basic idea doesn’t even begin to describe the story. Each chapter delves into the differences between cultures and how it affects decisions and actions.

What I found most interesting was the result of the what-if and the why-did. And now that I’ve finished the book I have another question... How did they? ( )

20 years ago the United States of America lost a war, and now the Earth is ruled jointly by Nazi Germany and the Japanese. Slavery is once again legal and persecuted minorities hide in plain sight under assumed identities. The world is a strange new place and the new order continues to destroy the planet. In the neutral space between German/Japanese America lives the man in the high castle, a man who writes and is famous among the underground for a subversive work of alternative history.

The idea of a history where Germany & Japan won WWII & what the world would be like is interesting. I also like the "book in a book" that has the allies winning, but still has a history that's different from our own.

BUT, the only thing that ties all the characters in the book together is reading the book "Grasshopper." Outside of that, I have no clue why 1/2 (or most actually) of the characters are even in the story. Also, the ending left me hanging. It's like Mr. Dick planned on writing a sequel that either I don't know about or that doesn't exist. ( )