Dick, Philip K: The Man In The High Castle.

[Dave]

Written in 1962 ‘The Man in the High Castle’ won Philip K Dick the Hugo Award.

Imagine the world if the Allies had lost the Second World War. The African continent virtually wiped out by the Nazis, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, rocket-ships make journeys across the world in hours, the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis… In the neutral buffer zone that divides the rival superpowers in America lives the author of an underground bestseller. His book – a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers – offers an alternative theory of world history where the Allied Powers actually won. Does ‘reality’ lie with the ‘Man in the High Castle’, or is his world just one among many others?

 

[greyhorse]

I've read Valis and Martian Time-Slip and while both were a little hard to understand, I enjoyed both to some extent.

If you've read either of the 2 books, is The Man in the High Castle any easier to understand or more SF-like?

Thanks in advance.

-Jeff

 

[Dave]

I've read quite a bit of Philip K Dick, but actually not those two books so I can't say.

I wouldn't say that it was very SF-like, at least no more than his other books and short stories. It wasn't weird like 'Ubik' and it isn't concerned with the 50's and earlier 60's fear of Nuclear Desolation, like his many short stories, because in this alternative reality the Cold War never happened.

It is more of a road story, the typical mythic Journey story. It reminded me more of Flash Gordon rocket ships and George Orwell's '1984' than it did anything else. It's exactly what the world might have been in 1970 if the Germany and Japan won WWII and continued the technologies they were researching at the time.