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The Man in the High Castle
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The Man in the High Castle
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The Man in the High Castle
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The Man in the High Castle

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

In this Hugo Award–winning alternative history classic—the basis for the Amazon Original series—the United States lost World War II and was subsequently divided between the Germans in the East and the Japanese in the West.

It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In this world, we meet characters like Frank Frink, a dealer of counterfeit Americana who is himself hiding his Jewish ancestry; Nobusuke Tagomi, the Japanese trade minister in San Francisco, unsure of his standing within the bureaucracy and Japan's with Germany; and Juliana Frink, Frank's ex-wife, who may be more important than she realizes.

These seemingly disparate characters gradually realize their connections to each other just as they realize that something is not quite right about their world. And it seems as though the answers might lie with Hawthorne Abendsen, a mysterious and reclusive author, whose best-selling novel describes a world in which the US won the War... The Man in the High Castle is Dick at his best, giving readers a harrowing vision of the world that almost was.

“The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick’s career.” —New York Times

Editor's Note

Daring alternate history…

If you’ve never read Philip K. Dick, start here. A daring alternative history and a powerful novel of ideas told with hallucinatory clarity, this is PKD at his strangest and his best.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherMariner Books
Release dateJan 24, 2012
ISBN9780547601205
Author

Philip K. Dick

Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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Rating: 3.7168930889954703 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I've heard about this novel for years and even more so recently with the Amazon TV series. I haven't seen the TV show so I don't know how it compares to the book but I have heard a few people say that they feel like the show was more engaging than the book and I can imagine why they might feel that way.The concept of this novel is definitely very intriguing. What if America and the Allies had lost World War Two? Germany and Japan have effectively gained control of the globe and are spreading their influence from each of their respective capitals. The United States is caught in the middle between the expansive influence of both countries such that the Eastern United States is now under German control while the Western United States is under Japanese control (with a small buffer down the center with some ambiguity).There are a couple of main plotlines that weave together in strange ways and provide interesting commentary. The most exciting action-packed plot is one of "spy-vs-spy" as we see continuing power struggles between Germany and Japan. This plot hides in plain sight (as most good spies do) for large chunks of the novel but its influence can be felt throughout. The other plotline is subtler and less action filled. It's the plot of the existence and creation of the arts and culture...particularly American art. We see a fascination for the "authentic" American culture and art and we see a sort of sublimation around not only the creation and distribution of American arts but also in the type of art and in the behaviors of pre-war Americans trying to survive in this new culture.The book's title refers to a character that exists somewhere between the two plots but mostly on the artistic side. An author, Hawthorne Abendsen, has written a novel with an alternate reality in which the Allies won the war. The book has been banned by the Axis victors but has a heavy underground following and it crosses the paths of many of the main characters. The rumor is that the author is still alive and living in the United States but he lives in a sort of fortress that keeps him safe from potential repercussions from the Germans or Japanese. This man lives in his "high castle" and his subversive novel has a direct or indirect influence on many of the themes and elements of the story we are reading.From the beginning of the novel (and through much of the book), the focus is on the western US and therefore on the interactions with Japanese influence, culture and government. Over time, the story expands to include areas further East first in a sort of "no-man's land" on the border area where Japanese and German control intersect/overlap and then the novel expansion shows us German control not only in the more eastern US but also the strong influence they hold across all of the United States (and presumably the world).We initially follow three main characters in California. The first, Bob Childan, is a white American making a living by selling American antiques to wealthy Japanese now living in the California area. He is quite racist and resentful to his new Japanese rulers and customers but he also makes a good show of trying to appease them and give them exactly what they want, largely to keep himself out of trouble. The second is a high-ranking Japanese official named Tagomi. He is a regular customer of Childan's shop and at the beginning of the book he's searching for the ideal American artifact to impress a European emissary visiting soon. Tagomi seems legitimately enchanted by American history and culture but is also very faithful to his Japanese culture and an ardent follower of the I Ching. He is also very distrustful and hateful towards the Nazi Germans although as a public official (and for his own safety) he does his best to keep appearances genial.The third character is a man named Frank Frink. We learn early on that he has changed his last name from "Fink" to "Frink" to try and hide his Jewish ancestry. Even though he lives in California under Japanese control, the anti-Semitic German influence is still strong due to the German-Japanese alliance. Frank works as a metalworker and is one supplier of "antiques" to Childan's shop. His life is largely one of trying to stay unnoticed. He tries to assimilate into the new culture and do what he can to work and interact well with those around him. When he does take chances, it's usually because of the influence of others or because of unfortunate happenstance.As the book progresses, we meet more main characters who continue to twist and unravel the plots and themes in ways that really get you thinking. The line frequently blurs as we try to determine which of our main characters may be the "good guy" or at least the most "morally respectable." Our characters and the culture they live in is constantly conflicted and leads to a lot of introspection and redefinition of self and culture. The one main exclusion from ambiguity are the German Nazis. While there are certainly some "innocent" Germans who aren't involved in the political machinations, the novel largely presents the idea that the Nazis are "evil" and despite any ambiguity between the other characters there is a unified acceptance that the Nazis are the antagonists.The writing and dialog style seemed to me to be attempting to present a sort of "English as a second language" feel for the foreigners now living in the US. That stylistic choice was a little distracting at first but I quickly got used to it.The themes were very interesting. Not only is the concept of America falling under enemy rule a thought provoking idea but the lengths to which this book takes it are quite insightful. What happens when the country and culture in which you live are suddenly controlled by a truly foreign nation? How does an individual adapt to the requirements and expectations of the new culture? When moral conflicts arise, how does an individual deal with the changes and save their lives...and at what expense? While the themes are fictional and America-centric I couldn't help but think of political upheaval globally and imagine similar situations existing in nations who have seen changes in government over the years (whether peaceful or because of war). As an American, I definitely take for granted my ability to live, work, think and act in a certain way. What would life be like if I was required to suppress years of belief and culture?Overall I enjoyed the themes and interesting plotlines and characters. However, I also found the pacing and structure of the book to be slow. Lengthy periods of exposition, while interesting, were cumbersome at times. That said, I did enjoy the slower pacing as it relates to the way the plot and machinations were revealed over the course of the story. The intricacies and relationships between characters and plots were exposed subtly and came together in fun ways. It may not appeal to and keep every reader interested but I found it to be a worthwhile read that left me pondering.***3 out of 5 stars
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had read interesting things about this book so I wanted to love it. I didn't. First it is dated. It is written in 1962 and many things from the book described the future a person from 1962 would imagine. Secondly, I found it hard to follow the story. I had to keep rereading parts to understand the countries and the people in the book. Finally I just didn't understand the ending. I feel like the ending was suppose to be some big revelation. I keep trying to understand what it means. I have read articles on what the ending means and yet......it still doesn't make sense to me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I kind of always had this idea PKD would be a bit underwhelming, so probably I shouldn't have started with this one, because I've got all kinds of--UGH, I GUESS--fanboyish high strung sensitivities and preferences as far as alternate history goes; but I am also a students of litretchah, and so in principle a good weird artful yarn should take precedence over a small verisimilitude (because make no mistake this world divided between Germany and Japan--two totalitarian geopolitical behemoths, undercutting e'en Orwell!--with Nazis on Mars in the sixties could never have happened); but there's more about it that's offputting: as a lover of Japan, I should again be open to Dick's take here where the Japanese are basically the good guys despite massacres and slaves, a weird Orientalist Asia-Pacific empire where everyone speaks in me-so-solly and is enlightened like Spock (atrocities notwithstanding) and consults the I Ching. The idea of an Asian–American hybrid culture emerging PERHAPS 100 years avant la lettre is a great one but the execution is wonky, and the nostalgia for pre–war to end all wars US frontier shit that is a huge plot point sort of works but has these weird notes of that whole post(real)WWII thing where "they love all our cultural detritus in Japan." It has moments of appeal but then you remember how totally unlike any of this, and totally awful, early-Showa Japan was and it gets offputting. As for the Nazis, Dick was obviously familiar with the idea that the Reich was a "weak dictatorship" where the centre did not hold and each sinister bureaucracy in the military and police and security services and military police and secret police and security services for the security services pursues its own agenda, but, well ... so what? If you're looking for insight into Nazism you won't get it here, it's bog-standard Reich-on-Reich intrigue. And um then there is a woman written like a mid-twentieth-century sci-fi woman (she loves to shop!) but also, which is nice, a judoka and finally a reluctant action hero, and then at the end she goes to one deceptively normal suburb and everything gets Lynchian-with-a-flash-of-2001-odyssean and then it ends. To me, it doesn't amount to much.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The overall theme of an alternate history is interesting. The sub themes of cultural differences and supernatural writing are less interesting. The TV show series based on the book has given some fame to the book. I mildly recommend this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    It is amazing to me that Dick has a loser here especially since Heinlein loved it. Anyhthing else by him is superior.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I started this book because I watched the first season of the Amazon series and loved it, but then lost interest during the second season because the plot appeared to be taking a different direction that didn't quite make sense from the original trajectory. It made me curious about how the original story was written.One of the primary differences between the book and the movie are that the novel is an alternate reality in which the Axis powers won WWII and everyone is reading a book (not smuggling movie reels) that is an alternate reality in which the Allies won. This was the most fascinating aspect of the story, as there are a number of conjectures on the plausibility of whether or not that state of the world (which is our own reality) was even possible and how civilization would be different in that scenario. This is an inception-like view of our current state, as well as insight into the human psyche and how we use our biases to process events in history and our place within them. The book is worth reading for this reason alone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The basic idea of recursive alternate history was very interesting, but the writing and story were not that great.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In this alternate history, the US and it’s allies lost WWII in the 1940s. The US in 1962 is divided up between Germany and Japan, with an unoccupied strip in the middle following the Rocky Mountain Range. A banned novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, is read by many of the main characters, influencing their choices, but perhaps not as much as the popular I Ching.It was very interesting visiting this SF classic after having watched the first season of the TV series. Juliana is one of the few ladies to have a full name and a role in the plot. She’s Frank Frink’s ex-wife and lives in Canon City in the neutral Mountain States teaching martial arts. Meanwhile, Frank is still in San Francisco working at a metalsmith’s shop. He’s one of a shrinking number of Jewish Americans living in the Japanese occupied states. For me, it was these two characters that I initially gravitated towards the most.A Mountain States author wrote The Grasshopper Lies Heavy some years ago and it was initially banned in all Axis occupied lands. However, Japan lifted it’s ban and this has allowed the book to spread a bit. This book depicts a world in which the Allies won; the book’s WWII outcome doesn’t reflect our historical reality but provides yet another possible scenario which I found interesting. Most of the main characters have an interaction with this book and each character’s reaction is a bit different. Juliana becomes a bit obsessed with the book after she meets a truck driver, Joe Cinnadella, who let her borrow his copy.I didn’t particularly like Juliana after she hooked up with Joe. Her character really had this shift that I didn’t find fully believable. I also noticed the same thing happen with Robert Childan, the man who runs a San Francisco antiques store. Both characters change direction and are then used by the plot. It felt like PKD wrote a quarter of this novel, set it aside, and when he came back to it he decided he wanted to take a different path but was too lazy to rewrite these characters to fit what came next. Instead, he just has this rather swift shift in character for each of them that feels unnatural the rest of the book.While there is not much more than a peek into Nazi-occupied US, we do hear quite a bit about the Germans. They have a huge advantage in technology, so much so that they are sending Germans to Mars and Venus to colonize them. Japan is increasingly falling behind in their tech and tensions continue to mount between these two world powers. I did get a giggle out of the apparent jump in tech and science (colonizing Mars) and yet the Germans and Japanese continue to use tape recorders. I just had to keep in mind that this book was originally published in 1962 and many authors, even the SF greats, rarely saw any tech beyond physical recordings on some sort of plastic strip.The story winds up the reader, tightening the tension with each chapter. Some characters are just trying to get by. Others are actively assisting the German government in maintaining their current world dominance. Some few are interested in finding a way out of this Germany/Japanese controlled world for everyone. Yet even as the story reaches what I was expecting to be the final crescendo, nothing truly big happens at the end. Most of our characters are still, for the most part, stuck in their various situations trying to find a way out. Nothing is truly resolved. Since I wasn’t fully invested in the characters, I was OK with that. This novel was pretty mediocre for me.I received a free copy of this book from eStories in exchange for a review of their audiobook services. Their service is set up much the same as other audiobook platforms. When you sign up, you get 1 audiobook for free and you have this free audiobooks trial period as well. There’s also the free audiobooks download app for iPhone or Android. Keep in mind, my experience is for this single book. Nowhere on their website does it say that you can download to a PC or laptop, so I had to clarify that with a representative before I agreed to give their services a try since 90% of my audiobook listening happens on a laptop. Once I signed up, I picked out my book, I went to my eStories library, and there is a DOWNLOAD button, which I clicked. I was expecting options to pop up – various formats, perhaps a eStories specific player for computers (or links to Windows Media Player or iTunes), etc. However, instead it just started downloading a zip file full of the MP3s for my book. Now, for me, this was fine. Once fully downloaded in my Download Folder, I wanted to move my audiobook to another folder but the move failed completely and I had to redownload. (I don’t know if the failed download was due to corrupted files or not, but considering the small difficulty with the Android player, that might well be the case.) Later on, since we were headed out on a road trip, we downloaded the same book from eStories to my man’s Android cellphone. The download went swiftly, however there was some minor corruption of each MP3 file. Each file ended with a random sentence fragment taken from that file. At first, we thought the eStories player was cutting off the last word or two of the chapter but a spot check of my laptop audiobook revealed what was happening (though not the why of it). I informed my contact of this and the info was passed on to the tech team, so hopefully that is already fixed if you go to use the Android player. Browsing their selection is pretty good – genre, length, abridged or unabridged, etc. They don’t have as big a selection as Audible.com but they do have some small publishers and indie authors/narrators as well as the big publishing houses. You can create a Wish List as well. One cool thing is that you can upload any audiobook from your computer to your eStories library and from there listen to it on your Android or iPhone. I haven’t tried this yet but I like the idea for Librivox audiobooks for my husband’s Android. Each book has a detailed description – author, narrator, publisher, length, series, etc. However, unlike other platforms, I can’t click on the series and have all the books in the series pop up. Overall, eStories has potential.The Narration: Jeff Cummings was OK. He did fine with regional American accents but his foreign accents were pretty rough, especially his Italian accent. He did do a good job imbuing the characters with emotions at the right times.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A bit disappointing, not in comparison with the TV series which I haven't seen yet, but due to its philosophical meandering. The story line is fascinating, an alternate history premised on the United States losing World War II resulting in Nazi control over the eastern third of the nation and the Japanese over the western states. The center of the country appears to be ungoverned and ignored by both occupiers. The story focuses on characters from San Francisco who have adjusted to their Japanese masters. There is an awareness of the characters of their "place" in the sense of unspoken hierarchical status that is an oriental social construct. A shopkeeper is doing business in antique American memorabilia that are eagerly sought by Japanese customers. Another character is secretly Jewish and he and a partner make handmade jewelry in which the Japanese have invested a fuzzy spiritual "wu" that make them coveted. There is a mission by a Nazi Abwehr intelligence agent who is trying to expose a plan by the Nazi administration to destroy Japan with a nuclear attack. There is a power struggle in Germany following the death of Fuhrer Martin Bormann and the upshot is that opponents to Bormann's successor Dr. Goebbels are gaining the upper hand and the planned attack on Japan will not succeed. The story also reveals that the Nazis have extended their genocidal mania to Africa and have drained the Mediterranean Sea to open it to farming. In the Rocky Mountains Juliana, an emigre from California meets Joe, a mysterious man posing as an Italian truck driver. He is touting a contraband book, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy", that puts forth an alternative history in which the US has triumphed over the Axis powers. They decide to pay a visit to the author, Mr. Abendson out of admiration, but it becomes clear that Joe is really an assassin in the pay of the Nazis who are frightened about the book's story line. Juliana manages to kill him and goes on to meet with Abendson to warn him about attempts to kill him. She is frustrated about Abendson's indifference to the import of his book.Throughout the story there is repeated use of the "I Ching", a mystical Chinese method of interpreting talismans to guide an individual's actions. I thought this was a bit overdone and tended to get overly mushy.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    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.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    OK but a bit heavy on the philosophy. I know I read PKD as a teenager - my tolerance was obviously higher then :)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In this first major novel by science fiction master Philip K. Dick, he establishes himself as one of the greatest writers of the genre in mid to late 20th century America. His literary genius was recognized by the presentation to him of the Hugo Award for "The Man in the High Castle". In this novel, as in his later works such as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the inspiration for Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner") and "Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said", Dick reveals his characteristic blend of scientific fictional speculation, social commentary with a heavy serving of satire, attention to historical/sociological detail, and keen insight into psychology- especially the conditions of alienation, stress, trauma and identity crisis.In "The Man in the High Castle", Dick imagines a nightmarish present based on history taking a radically bad turn in the early 1940's- leading to Axis victory in the Second World War. In the present day, 1962, of the novel, America is divided into four separate zones. The "United States" is a Nazi protectorate governed by a puppet regime that is controlled and policed directly by the Third Reich. It rules the Northeastern and Great Lakes regions of the former USA. The old Confederacy has been revived in the South and slavery for African Americans has been restored. Confederate slaveholders are allowed to take their human "property" with them to other Axis-controlled sections of America, where their property rights are respected and there are no sanctuaries for escaped property. The Pacific States of America, including the western sections of Nevada and Idaho, is a protectorate of the Japanese Empire with its territorial capital in San Francisco. The last part of America that is still governed by semi-independent Americans is the Rocky Mountain States which also includes the western area of the Great Plains. This is a neutral zone separating the Nazi and Japanese spheres of influence, where it is still possible for Americans to live in a precarious state of "liberty". The title of the novel is based on one American living in this neutral zone, near Cheyenne, who has written a novel in which he imagines an alternative history and present- a timeline in which the Allies win the Second World War and the world is divided between the victorious United States and British Empire after the war. It is said that the author of the novel, which is a best-seller, even on the black markets of the Axis regions of America, where it is banned, served as a U.S. Marine fighting the Nazis in their invasion of Britain during the war, and is now a recluse living in a heavily fortified bunker on a Wyoming mountaintop overlooking Cheyenne and surrounded by an armed guard. Hence, he is the "Man in the High Castle". Much of the novel deals with an American shop owner in San Francisco who deals in "genuine American arts and crafts" ranging from Mickey Mouse watches to Civil War firearms. Most of his clientele are ambitious, status-sensitive Japanese businessmen and bureaucrats who are very keen to add to their collections of all things Americana. He secretly despises the "Japs" and openly admires the Nazis because he is a racist and the kind of American who would have welcomed working with the Nazis to rid the world of the Communists, Jews, and inferior colored races. Dick also writes of an impending war between the Nazis and the Japanese in which he portrays the Nazis, who are armed with ICBM's and hydrogen bombs, as death-loving psychopaths, and the Japanese as fairly normal and even humane (compared to the Germans). He makes fun of the Japanese obsession with "consulting the Oracle", or the I-Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, but he reserves his most caustic wit for the Aryan storm troopers and their American collaborators.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Man in the High Castle was written in 1962 and published in 1963. It might or might have not predated the Cuban Missile crisis. By now we know that in 1962 the world faced a bigger danger than thought at the time for a nuclear holocaust. What should the I Ching have said, had the US and and the USSR consulted the Chinese oracle? We will never know.What we do know that Philip K. Dick must have been high around that time on whatever he was using around that time. It's the duality of being a genius and being at risk of mental illness. In many books Philip K. Dick balanced on that thin line. The results were - as always - astonishing. One of my most beloved Philip K. Dick books is Ubik, which knocks you off balance with its ending. And with a dime. The end must have been stolen by the movie Inception, but that aside.The Man in the High Castle is the story of an alternate history where the Axis forces, especially Germany and Japan, have won the Second World War. For those who are sensitive to vulgar nicknames for Italians (wops) or Jews (kiks) or whatever minority came in the pitch black spotlights of the Nazi society, the book might be less than optimal for your peace of mind. For all others, it is a treat. In the end the book is not so much about a clever turning of tables on the Allies and the Axis forces, but about human nature. So you think we would be worse off? The Cuban Missile standoff has shown us that no matter if you're the good guy or the bad guy, the end might be the same for you both: Totaler und Radikaler, as Goebbels once screamed in one of his speeches, than you might have dreamed.The book builds upon quite a cast of characters whose paths eventually all will cross in all kinds of remarkable ways. And leading some of them through the story is the I Ching, the Chinese oracle which holds such deep wisdom, even if you - quite correctly - are convinced predictions by oracles are funny, yet utter bunkum. The Man in the High Castle only appears in the closing pages of the book, together with .... well.... very, very minor spoiler alert - the bunkum oracle as well.What does it tell us? The oracle dispenses its wisdom and gives a description of an alternative that turns out to be as weird and dismal as any other variety of reality. For humanity going left or right doesn't matter: they always find ways to make it the wrong turn. It might well be that Philip K. Dick was quite aware of the Cuban missile crisis after all.What should we think of the book? What better way to find out than to consult the oracle itself. Over to the I Ching. Hexagram 35, Advancing (Jin), active lines 2 and 6 turning it to 40, Release (Jie):You advance, but you are worried. The omen is auspicious. Now you receive armor and blessings from the mother of the king.(Change wells up in his feelings. He is not in control here and it causes him distress. If he coordinates his feelings instead of controlling them this same change would cause him happiness.)The ram avances with its horns. Hold firm in striking the city. Even in danger, the omen is auspicious. No harm, but an omen of misfortune.(Accepting change at the foundation involves changing the superstructure. This is demanding and needs the approach of sympathy).Over to hexagram 40, Release (Jie):Release. Favorable in the southwest. Nowhere to go. Auspicious to return. In proceeding with a purpose, it is auspicious to be early. (A new way leads out of insecurity and vacillation. Release from indecision.)Well, it's obviously about the change in history in the book. It's distressing, but when you deal correctly with the story and are armed against it, it turns out to be a positive experience. You must open yourself to the 'change at the foundation' , the alternate history. You have to accept and be positive about the story. Only this assures you that in the end the book will give you a new way to free yourself from doubt and make you decide what you think of the history and time we live in.Well, isn't that great? The I Ching delivers. Yes, as I said, exactly. Funny, but bunkum nevertheless.Let me be the oracle. Read that book. You won't be disappointed.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Dick creates an interesting premise and a collection of interesting characters, but, spoiler alert, nothing happens. The characters wander onto the stage, mumble incoherently about the I Ching, and then wander off. I plowed through the religious blather because I thought that, at some point, something interesting would happen. And then, nothing did. If you want a meditation on the I Ching, I suspect there are better places to look, although I wouldn't know, because I don't want one. If you want a story that explores the nature of humanity and the fickle finger of history, I strongly recommend Michael Chabon or Robert Harris.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As a reader who is not an aficionado of speculative fiction or alternative historical fiction, this novel left me rather perplexed. Having read Robert Harris’ “Fatherland” a number of years ago (and having enjoyed it) and spurred by the popularity of the Amazon TV series inspired by Dick’s novel, I dove in.Set in an alternate post-WWII America that has been divided by the victorious Japanese and Nazis, the narrative focuses on five or six characters whose stories never quite coalesce; the fragmented narrative structure in itself is not necessarily a flaw (plenty of good novels feature fragmented narratives), but in Dick’s novel, it definitely creates a lack of coherence that ultimately enervates the novel. More than half the book is devoted to exposition, but the payoff—which doesn’t really emerge until the final three chapters or so, once again in very fragmented fashion—feels uncertain and anticlimactic. Complicating matters is a novel within the novel, an alternate history that presumes the Allies had won the war but is itself different from the actual historical record (e.g., FDR did not serve four terms as President). Excerpts from this novel, called “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy,” along with the “I Ching,” which every character seems to consult for guidance, appear throughout the story, yet again these elements fail to add any sort of coherence to the narrative.Perhaps my lack of expertise in this genre handicaps my appreciation of this novel (which did, after all, win the Hugo Award), but I was, in the end, disappointed.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm glad to have finally read this, but this is a strange novel. To me, it fits into the category of alternate history - sort of. In the 1962 of this book, America lost WW2 to German and Japan and the USA is split between the 2, with a 'neutral zone' in the Rockies between them. The Germans have drained the Mediterranean, sent rocket ships to the Moon and Mars and have done all sorts of other projects. What's largely left out is what happened to Russia, China and India and something mysterious happened in Africa. The action mostly takes place in the Pacific states, most of which just consists of daily living there. The strange part - apparently there's a man who writes books about how things might have been, but somehow this seems tied to an alternate reality its possible to reach.A lot is left unexplained, but the alternate reality 1962 is fascinating, if quite a bit racist and sexist, as you might expect. Still a fascinating book, but the Amazon TV series is better.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook of Philip K Dick's classic 1962 alternate history.

    Japan and Germany have won the 2nd World War. The United States is divided between the Nazis on the east coast, and the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. The story is told via the point of view of four main characters. Nobusuke Tagomi is a high placed Trade Official. He obtains American antiquities through the business of Robert Childan, a nervy japanophile and obsequious social climber. Also supplying Childan (with antiques of dubious provenance), is Frank Frink, Jewish-American metalworker and sometime jeweler, whose estranged wife lives in Canon City, in the buffer-zone mountain states. These characters choices are often made at the behest and request of divinations through the I Ching, the Book of Changes. All of them read or encounter the subversive novel, 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy', which weaves a tale of an alternate history in which the USA had not been defeated.

    Once refreshed of the plot, cannot understand why Amazon messed so extensively with the plot for the excellent miniseries which I enjoyed last year. The most inexplicable difference was the replacement of the novel 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy', with clandestine and banned films. A book is just so much more accessible to a wide audience, than a banned film.



  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle examines a world in which the Axis powers defeated the Allies in World War II. For Dick's story, the divergence occurs when Giuseppe Zangara succeeded in his assassination attempt on FDR in 1933, leaving the US more reluctant to prepare for war and get involved. Dick focuses on Japanese-controlled San Francisco in the Pacific States of America as his characters examine the role of proper place and political intrigue between the Nazi-controlled United States (everything east of the Rockies). In Dick's alternate history, an author wrote a novel about a history in which the Allies won, titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. That fictional novel-within-a-novel, like Man in the High Castle, serves as insight into the world that created it. Dick writes, "I tell you; a state is no better than its leader, Fürerprinzip- Principle of Leadership, like the Nazis say. They're right. Even this Abendsen has to face that. Sure, the USA expands economically after winning the war over Japan, because it's got that huge market in Asia that it's wrestled from the Japs. But that's not enough; that's got no spirituality. Not that the British have. They're both plutocracies, rule by the rich. If they had won, all they'd have through about was making more money, that upper class. Abendsen, he's wrong; there would be no social reform, no public works plans - the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats wouldn't have permitted it" (pg. 154). While a description of our world through a lens darkly, the combination of government and capitalism remains a threat, even without race-based totalitarian powers. This Folio Society edition contains gorgeous illustrations by Shotopop.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Philip Dick is one of the most influential writers in science fiction history. After penning numerous magnificent novels, he gradually spiraled into depression and ultimately insanity. Much of his later work is simply unreadable by mere mortals such as me.This is a relatively short (235 pages) work of alternative history, in which Franklin Roosevelt is assassinated in the first year of his first term. He is succeeded by a collection of mediocrities, ensuring world domination by the Germans and the Japanese. In the year 1962, The United States is split into spheres of influence, with the East Coast the dominion of the Germans and the West Coast dominated by the Japanese. The American heartland is largely ignored. Much of the writing and storytelling is simply brilliant. There are several different threads involved, including a Jewish jewelry maker in the PSA (Pacific States of America), a dealer in American antiquities who struggles to interact with his Asian overlords, a divorced woman in the Rocky Mountain States, a Japanese Trade representative, a German spy operating in Japanese territory on the West Coast. The political and social landscape is rich with satire and extremes. For example, the technocratic Germans have established bases on Mars, but elimination of most of the world’s Jews has resulted in a world where America has no commercial television or entertainment industry.Much of the story revolves around a renegade American author, holed up in his Rocky Mountain fortress (The Man in the High Castle) who has published a controversial novel (banned in the German controlled eastern United States). The novel is a work of alternative history in which the United States wins the war and splits governance of the world with the British Empire. So, you’re reading a book of alternative history which features a work of alternative history, such history largely mirroring the world in which we live. How clever.Very short; very witty; quite enjoyable. No masterpiece, but well worth the effort.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What is real and what is fake? That seems to be the underlying theme of this book. Also German, American and Japanese character, and a heavy reliance on "the oracle" of I Ching.Quite complex with the book-within-book plot, spies, forgers and lots of twists and turns. But I found it ultimately unrewarding, and the ending was a bit of a let down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this as a teenager around 1970, when I was reading a lot of alternative history books such as If the South had won the Civil War and On the Beach. It led me briefly to investigate the I Ching, but I lost interest in that, as I have a disinclination concerning supernatural divination. Now about to turn 60, I've been rereading some of my childhood/teen-aged books to see how they affect me now. Over 40 years have passed and I see layers of meaning that I completely missed. The concepts of wabi and wu, the reactions of the characters to craftsmanship and Art, and the providence of artifact and value completely went over my head back then. This time, I found myself pondering Dick's themes. It surprised me that these are still Creativity conversations 50 years later. (The Mickey Mouse watch scene could be enacted today with no loss of irony). On a stylistic note: I have been teaching many Asian exchange students over the past decade. One of the hardest writing concepts that we have grappled with is the use of the definite and indefinite articles, as they seem to be lacking in their languages. I noticed that Dick also eliminated them from his narrative. It was a good choice on his part for this story, but I kept wanting to grab my red pen and insert them!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick, was first published in 1962 and it won the Hugo award in 1963. It is a very interesting alternative history novel in a world where The Third Reich of Germany and Imperial Japan defeated the Allies of World War II. As a result, The United States was divided into three areas, i.e., The Pacific States of America controlled by Japan, The Rocky Mountain States served as a buffer between the Pacific States and the remainder of the United States, which was controlled by Nazi Germany. This situation created a very grim and oppressive society for the citizens and residents of the former United States of America. In addition to the loss of their dignity, they lost their civil rights, and any realistic opportunities to determine the course of their lives. In these occupied areas people are persecuted based upon their ethnicity, their religion, and for many other reasons. Jewish people are exiled and even executed. This book provides the reader with a strange and bitter taste of the lives of a fairly large number of characters as they struggle to maintain some semblance of decent lives. To me this story generated an underlying feeling of gloom and hopelessness, but even more salient was the surrealistic environment and behavior of the characters. Some of the important characters based their decisions and actions upon the I Ching (The Oracle). A few of the characters become obsessed with reading a novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by Hawthorne Abendsen, who lives in a high castle in Colorado. These characters read large segments of that book enabling the reader to experience this book within the book. The Grasshopper book posits that Germany and Japan did not defeat the Allies in the war. Instead the Allies won the war. The Man in the High Castle is a complex and unique novel. Although I was not sure where the story was taking me at times, I was not frustrated or bored while reading it. Although many of the characters were struggling, even those who were members of the occupation forces, I found them to be intriguing. The Man in the High Castle is well worth reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The book has interesting premise: FDR died and the Axis won WWII. Japan occupies the west coast and Germany occupies the Midwest and the East Coast. What's left of the US is in the rocky mountains. Besides the premise, I didn't find the characters interesting or there to be much of a story. It's much more of a story of free will and destiny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Allies lost World War 2. As a consequence, the Axis powers have occupied portions of the USA: NAZI Germany has the east coast, and Japan has the west coast. Between these two occupied territories exists the still independent Rocky Mountains States. A state of Cold War exists between the two imperial powers. The Germans control access to their technology and spy on the Japanese. But the German leader is dead and a nasty leadership transition is underway.A man living in the Rocky Mountains has written an alternative history in which the Allies won the war. This book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, has been banned in the German territories, but is a topic of discussion in many places including the occupied German lands.The main theme of the book appears to be that nothing is at it seems. This includes the undercover German Baynes, the various German representatives in San Francisco, the Japanese general travelling incognito, Juliana's boyfriend, even the man in the high castle himself and his book. The other recurring theme is the I Ching, or Book of Changes, which suggests that events are not arrived at by chance.As usual, Dick has painted a story that has many layers of meaning. The message is as relevant today as it was when the book was written over 50 years ago. I give the book 4 stars.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The Man in High Castle is my first foray into PKD's works. TMHC does offer an interesting scenario if the Allies did lose WWII. THe story is well told and assembled-- although, the halting dialogue of Robert Childan, supposedly indicating his complete indoctrination into Japanese culture, was irritating after a while. Other characters, too, were written in a halting Japanese-esque style of conversation-- the Masouras couple, Mr. Tagomi, etc. I would have liked to see the characters developed a little more; for example, Joe Cinnadella. I would have like to know more about Joe's beginnings. He just happened to be an agent for Germany and just happened to be at the same diner as Julianna Frink? Too many coincidences for me to get through.

    I also couldn't feel anything for any of the characters, except for maybe Julianna. The other characters seemed to be underdeveloped.

    I did like the chapter where Nobosuke Tagomi wandered into the park after receiving the jewelery from Childan. After studying the jewelery for its meaning, the piece appears to reveal itself and its true meaning at which point Tagomi wanders through the street to discover the Embarcadero freeway-- having never noticed it before. This part of the novel appeared to be some sort of alternate reality where the Axis Powers did in fact lose the war.

    The Man in High Castle is an interesting and is well crafted; however, for me, there were s few issues which hindered the text too much.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    But his underlying question, one which he could never reveal to the pinocs flitting about Trade Mission offices, had to do with an aspect of Mr Baynes suggested by the original coded cable from Tokyo. First of all, coded material was infrequent,and dealt usually with matters of security, not with trade deals. And the cipher was the metaphor type, utilizing poetic allusion, which had been adapted to baffle the Reich monitors - who could crack any literal code, no matter how elaborate. So clearly it was the Reich whom the Tokyo authorities had in mind, not quasi-disloyal cliques in the Home Islands. The key phrase, 'Skim milk is his diet', referred to Pinafore, to the eerie song that expounded the doctrine, '. . . Things are seldom what they seem/Skim milk masquerades as cream.'This book, which won the Hugo award in 1963, was a great start to this year's reading and well worth a 10 star rating. This book is an alternate history set 15 years after the axis powers won WWII. Apart from a small Italian empire in the Easter Mediterranean, the world is split between Germany and Japan. The eastern coast of the former USA is ruled by Germany, while Japan rules the Pacific coast and the neutral Rocky Mountain States form a buffer zone between them. "The Man in the High Castle" follows the interlinked stories of several Japanese, American and German characters in the Pacific States of America, but I'll leave you to discover the details for yourself.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Much like the other Philip K. Dick novels that I've read, "The Man in the High Castle" is both a product of the author's blazingly original analytic mind and his not-exactly-elegant prose style. Closer to what's called "speculative fiction" these days than any traditional science fiction, the book imagines an America that lost the Second World War. Divided by the victorious Axis powers, Americans survive as a humiliated, colonized, subaltern class. Of course, the idea that America is a successful nation both at war and at peace is so central to twentieth century American identity that I imagine that a good deal of the attraction that this novel's first readers felt to it had to do with the fact that it dared to think the unthinkable. Having said that, Dick does a good job of considering what "American identity" might look like if it were considered this country's past instead of its future. I was particularly taken by the interior monologues of Robert Childan, a San Francisco antiques dealer whose interactions with his Japanese clients have caused him to take up the I Ching and even to modify his own thought patterns to match his clients' imperfect English. Dick's take on the Nazis is trickier, and not just because the novel views them at something of a distance. He doesn't minimize their evil: the alternate history he provides of a Nazi-dominated world is pretty chilling. Still, I feel that there's a kinship between a few of Dick's literary creations and the National Socialist mindset. To Dick, the Nazis represent he psychoses and psychological contradictions that he described in "A Scanner Darkly" operating on massive scale: a purposefully inhuman induced schizophrenia. In "The Man in the High Castle," Dick contrasts this with the gnomic, contemplative verses of the I Ching. It's an odd juxtaposition, one which readers with a limited amount of patience for Dick's religious or astral interests may dislike. Still, even as the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century recede into memory, the social analysis that Dick provides here is probably more illuminating than many popular analyses of the America that actually exists.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this novel by PKD. The alternate history he weaves is compelling and believable. He excels at using his characters' thoughts and inner turmoil to show how our society might have been if the Nazis and Japanese had won WWII. The ending did seem a bit weak to me, however.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
     This one might, I think, grow on me. It's an alternative history, set in the early 60s, assuming that Germany & Japan had won WW2 and that they have subdivided the globe between them. There's a small buffer state, the Rocky mountain States between the two that is nominally independent. In this separate state, a book has been published that tells of an alternative future in which the Allies won the war and the horrors inflicted on the world since haven't happened. There are a number of separate strands of story in the book that overlap and gently touch each other. The text is, at times, written in a very formal, stilted manner, which makes it odd to read, but it does seem to reflect the formality of a Japanese society. At times it's a bit hard work, but the whole things does sort of tie up quite neatly. An odd, but strangely satisfying read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've come to this book after reading most of the popular books. This is totally different than the others. Great experimental writing. Wonderful characters with such intricate and profound lives. There is a lot to ponder in this book, deep enough to question the relationship between author and reader. Great read.