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Book Description
'Dick's best work, and the most memorable alternative world tale...ever written' SCIENCE FICTION: THE 100 BEST NOVELS
Product Description
It is 1962 and the Second World War has been over for seventeen years: people have now had a chance to adjust to the new order. But it's not been easy. The Mediterranean has been drained to make farmland, the population of Africa has virtually been wiped out and America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. In the neutral buffer zone that divides the two superpowers lives the man in the high castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that offers an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers didn't win the war. The novel is a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. But could it be more than that? Subtle, complex and beautifully characterized, The Man in the High Castle remains the finest alternative world novel ever written, and a work of profundity and significance.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read this in my teens, and I think that much of the subtlety passed me by. I have just aquired a new copy from Amazon,decorated with one of the most un-pc book sleeves you are likely to come across ( not a "tube-reader" folks)! I have just finished reading it, and well, this is clearly a work of genius. The book for anyone who hasn't yet read it, contrasts a novel, The Grasshopper Lies Down, about our post-1945 world; within a novel where the Axis powers won the Second World War. Japanese- controlled West Coast of USA is honourable,spiritual and superstitious, and speak in clipped English; whereas the Nazi-controlled Eastern seaboard is materialistic and technologically advanced. Africa has been obliterated as an extension of the Final Solution. Dick's book questions the exact nature of history and reality; that what is real is only relative to the individuals own experience.
I have to say that I didn't wholly understand the ending; if anyone can explain this I would be grateful! I have read lengthy reviews which suggest that the world in Abendson's book is in fact, the real history of the 20th century. But this doesn't work for me.
If you think the previous paragraph contradicts my praise for this book, you are missing the point. It is a process-based novel and the ending is largely irrelevant, in my opinion anyway.
Has this novel ever been made into a film?
If not, why?
I have to say that I didn't wholly understand the ending; if anyone can explain this I would be grateful! I have read lengthy reviews which suggest that the world in Abendson's book is in fact, the real history of the 20th century. But this doesn't work for me.
If you think the previous paragraph contradicts my praise for this book, you are missing the point. It is a process-based novel and the ending is largely irrelevant, in my opinion anyway.
Has this novel ever been made into a film?
If not, why?
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the perfect book for those new to PKD's work or who have tried reading later, spaced-out novels such as "Valis" and given up. Counterfactual books, both fiction and non-fiction, are all the rage nowadays. So it is difficult when reading this book to remember that when it was published (in 1962, before the Vietnam War) the memories of World War II and the Korean War were still vivid. The premise is this: the Allies lost the war and the USA is split between the "Pacific States of America" in the West, run by the Japanese, and the East Coast, which is part of greater Germany (along with Europe and part of Asia). The background to how this came about is wonderfully teased out over the entire course of the book, and similarly the effects of Nazi rule over most of the globe are glimpsed in chilling off-hand remarks. PKD's world is well-thought out and comprehensive: while the "final solution" has been applied to the whole of Africa, Herbert von Karajan is resident as conductor-in-chief of the New York Philharmonic.
This is PKD's most mainstream, and in many ways his most approachable, published work. It is a wonderful analysis of how ordinary Americans might have behaved under totalitarian rule. There is a power vacuum created by the death of Martin Boorman, but the wider political picture remains a backdrop to the inter-connected stories of a selection of "average joes", all of whom are masterfully characterised. As a nod to the "science fiction" categorisation of the book, at the core of the tale is a bestselling, underground book written by a man who supposedly lives in a high castle in the Rockies, and which is a work of alternative history about how the Allies won the war - is it possible that reality could have been changed in some way? Intriguingly, even the alternative history presented in this book-within-a-book is substantially different to our own received history.
As ever with PKD, there are ambiguities everywhere and no definite resolution, not least to the identity of "the Man in the High Castle" and what his book represents. As previous reviewers have said, this novel examines ideas of oppression, colonialism, and the loss of cultural identity. It is a sometimes bleak work, but not without hope and some typical PKD black humour. This edition, with an insightful introduction, rightly presents the novel as a modern classic.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What if history had run on different tracks? What if Roosevelt had been assasinated and not led the USA into World War II, what if the North Africa campaign had failed and Rommel succeeded, Stalingrad never happened and the Nazis taken over Europe. What if Japan had prevailed at Pearl Harbour, the United States fleet destroyed, Japan never made to suffer the atomic bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima? If Italy had never switched allegiance from Axis to Allies, and instead become a minor ruler in a world split between the might of two empires: Japan and the triumphant Third Reich. If the USA was partitioned, the Rockies acting as a DMZ between Japan's reticent Buddhist non-violent society on the western seaboard and Germany's agressive Nazism complete with work camps and gas ovens to the East. Dick imagined this, and the result is an extraordinary mediation on American society and the fragility of history.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Inner Truth/Inner Disbelief (Terrifying)
DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK
In the last chapter in the "Story" Juliana Frink finds out that her reality isn't "real". Read more
In the last chapter in the "Story" Juliana Frink finds out that her reality isn't "real". Read more
Published 13 days ago by Guy J Ashford or Are you watching closely?
Fruitless Philosophising, Best Avoided
Often described as Philip K Dick's best work, I found The Man in the High Castle to be poorly-executed and a little boring. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Richard Bagshaw
Readable.
Firstly, I acknowledge the Amazon seller, World of Books Ltd. The book was delivered in a reasonable time and in the condition in which it was described. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Sc Kenneally
The Man in the High Castle
I love science fiction. I also love alternate history. Finally, I have an interest in the Second World War. Clearly then, The Man in the High Castle held something for me. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. S. A. Johnson
Illegible BOOK?!
Couldn't believe the standard of print! Blurred. Ugly. Bought two books published by SF Masterworks, both equally appalling. Read more
Published 4 months ago by pen name
Thanks
Thank you for sending the book do promptly, it made a great Christmas present for my brother. Great quality too
Published 5 months ago by Claire
Fake to end all fakes?
I recall reading this as a teenager. I didn't really understand it then, and revisiting it more than thirty years later was an odd experience, as I expected to find a real classic... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Archy
Great backdrop, but some plot elements did not work for me
This is one of the most well known alternate history novels and won the Hugo Award in 1962. The historical backdrop of a United States divided between Nazi German and Japanese... Read more
Published 8 months ago by John Hopper
More than just an interesting alternate history
1. The surface story
Set in 1962, fourteen years after the end of a longer WW2 (1939-1948). Read more
Set in 1962, fourteen years after the end of a longer WW2 (1939-1948). Read more
Published 10 months ago by nigeyb
Another Philip K. Dick Classic
Philip K. Dick is a master of unconventional sci-fi and fantasy genre, and those qualities are clearly exhibited in this work. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Dr. Bojan Tunguz
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