The Man in the High Castle

An Electrifying Novel of Our World as It Might Have Been

English language

Published Oct. 8, 1962 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

OCLC Number:
504595

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4 stars (2 reviews)

It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

This harrowing, Hugo Award–winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.

50 editions

I'm Not Sure

3 stars

I didn't dislike it, but I also don't feel like I connected with it? I liked the initial structure of it feeling like multiple vignettes that had all connected somewhat to the same book. And while I understand what was happening, I felt like it wasn't quite hitting the right notes for certain characters or even the overall theme. In a lot of ways, it felt like it kept fumbling some of them. (Edit: Upon reflection, it isn't actually true that the stories were woven around the same book because three of the characters never actually engage with the book in any capacity and their stories don't even mention it from the background.)

It was fine. Not my favourite book, but it was okay.

reviewed The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (A Berkley medallion book -- D3080.)

Review of 'The Man in the High Castle' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I read this book because I'd seen a couple of episodes of the TV series. Honestly, as usual, the book is better. They took a lot of liberties with the series (only way to stretch a relatively short book that long,) and the characters are sometimes quite different.

This is classic Phillip K. Dick. Dystopian alternative future. It's very conceptual, rather than character-driven, although a couple of the characters are better developed than the rest. Worth a read, for sure.

Subjects

  • fascism

Places

  • San Francisco
  • California
  • Berlin