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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1989 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
Imagine the world if the Allies had lost the Second World War...Philip K Dick trips the switches of our minds with his vision of the world as it might have been: the African continent virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis...In the neutral zone that divides the rival superpowers in America lives the author of an underground best-seller. His book - a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers - offers an alternative theory of world history. Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others?

About the Author
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was born in Chicago but lived most of his life in California. He was among the most prolific and significant of all science fiction writers. His other novels include Time Out Of Joint and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Customer Reviews

What If...?

This was the third Philip K Dick novel I have read. This novel was very interesting from an historical point of view and I became engrossed with the main characters. However I believe that this shouldn't be the first Philip K dick you should read, I think that "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is a far better book.

I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover... but isn't the cover just brilliant?

Please read this book... it gives a clever and witty insight of how the world would have been if Germany won WW2.

4 Stars

Pure Genius?
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?

Not bad, not great
From most of the reviews on this site and being a huge fan of AH I had high hopes for this book, but I felt let down.
Instead of a novel its more like a collection of stories that are slightly interwoven - characters from a few of the stories appear in others, but that's about it. I enjoyed all of these stories, the characters were well thought, as were the situations, the use of the I Ching was a great way to show how the Japanese affected American culture, although it appeared to be an ancient version of a horoscope in its vague superstitions, so I didn't actually like the way the story was so driven by it. The problems occur towards the end of the novel, when most of these stories just stop, without any sort of ending to that particular part of the overall story, that's it, they end. This doesn't happen until quite close to the end of the novel and its brought to the finish by a story which doesn't seem that important when it starts, but in my opinion becomes the most important story in the novel, and is the only one which comes to any sort of conclusion. The ending leaves quite a few questions, and as its quite a short book, I thought it could have been fleshed out at least a little by answering those questions and telling us what happened to most of the other characters in the other stories.
Reading the mostly positive reviews here and elsewhere I cant help feel I missed something reading this book, or maybe I misunderstood it. It isnt bad by any means, its ok, but thats about the best I can say about it.