The Man in the High Castle
Ratings474
Average rating3.5
If you've watched the Amazon original series based on this book, and read it thinking you'll be seeing something just like the TV show, you might be disappointed. The premise is the same, and some of the characters are the same, or at least have the same names, but the story is less widely dispersed. The action in the book takes place only in the Pacific States and, to a lesser extent, the Rocky Mountain States, and there are no films...instead there is a book written by the Man in the High Castle. Despite this, if you can read the book and judge it on its own merits, it's a great read and an intriguing story. I found that it being different from the story depicted in the TV show made it more enjoyable...I didn't know what to expect, or what to think about some aspects of the book as I read it.
An interesting examination of “historicity” and “authenticity” of artifacts, in the context of an alternate timeline where America lost WWII.
This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for fans of Phillip K. Dick, you'll know what to expect and you won't be the least bit disappointed. if you've never read any of his books, then maybe it's time to take the plunge.
More narrow in scope than the show. The narrower focus allows for a better focus on the themes of multiple parallel realities bleeding into one another. The Man in the High Castle as a foil for PKD is obvious but interesting in the context of the novel.
While this is a tour de force of alternate history, the story itself is not very involving. I am giving the a generous 4, but ultimately I was rushing just to get to the end of the book.
Not bad. I found the scene in the motel room chapter with Joe Cinnadella and Juliana Frink rather silly.
Having read other Philip K. Dick novels, I didn't really expect this book to have a point or a clear conclusion, but I never expected to find it so.. upsetting. The vision presented in the novel is frightening, interesting at times, and at other times boring enough to make me skim through the pages. And then the entire thing just sort of fizzles out and ends with a whimper. 2.5, I guess? It was okay.
Very disappointing. I'm not at all clear what happened in the last pages.
But I'm pretty sure it was unrelated to the rest of the book.
I'm a little bummed. I love Dick's short stories, but this just sort of fell flat. It came together in the end; it just didn't feel the same as some of his other work.
Executive Summary: Once again, Phillip K. Dick seems to have interesting ideas, but told in a story that never really grabbed me.
Full Review
I've owned this one for a few years. After reading several other things by Philip K. Dick and coming away not too excited, I hadn't really been in a rush to check it out. However, with the Amazon series premiering this month, I wanted to read it ahead of time.
Much like his other work, I found myself often bored at times. Philip K. Dick had great ideas. I think that's why so many enjoyable movies have been made from them. However, his storytelling just never seems to engage me.
I like the concept of an alternate history of where Allies lost World War 2 and the US is occupied by both Germany and Japan. Even better is the alternate history book inside of this book positing what might have happened had the Allies won. Very Meta. One has to wonder if Inception was inspired by this story within the story idea, though I'm sure this probably isn't the first or only instance of such a thing.
I found most of the characters fairly uninteresting, and the main plot sort of a vehicle for wandering around this alternate world. I think a lot more could have been done with the idea, and I'll be curious to see what the show writers inevitably did with it.
I think if you've enjoyed other works by Philip K. Dick, you may enjoy this. If like me, you've discovered that his writing just doesn't do much for you, you may come away underwhelmed just as I did.
I loved the premise of this book and the fact that it was written so soon after the war made it insightful. Although the first half had me hooked I found it more and more existential as the book went on and as such i felt it lost its focus.
This is the week I've been waiting for for months - the release of Amazon's series based on The Man in the High Castle! My obsession with this as-yet unreleased series started several months ago...
I've been listening to the Sword & Laser Podcast for about two and a half years, and it long been apparent that The Man in the High Castle was the favorite novel of Tom Merritt, one of the podcast hosts. I quickly came to respect the tastes of Tom and Veronica, and added The Man in the High Castle to my ever growing “to read” list. It was probably doomed to remain on that limbotic list indefinitely, but then Amazon posted the pilot for their upcoming series as part of a test program to see if they wanted to finance the rest of the series. I'd been curious about the book, so I figured I'd watch the first episode. By the halfway point I knew it was going to be good, but by the end I knew it was going to be phenomenal. So Phillip K. Dick's classic alternate history jumped to the top of my stack because I just couldn't wait until November to see how the story was going to end.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history about the United States if Japan and Germany had won WWII. The plot centers around a woman named Julia who finds a book about an alternative history of the United States and goes on a journey to find the author. The novel also has several subplots involving the political officials representing Japan and Germany, as well as Americans who are trying to find their place in society several years after the war.
What I've come to find about the works of Phillip K. Dick is that he tends to have amazing concepts and world-building, but less interesting characters and plot. The concept for The Man in the High Castle is brilliant, and presents an incredibly well thought-out alternate history. The characters are strategically placed in occupations that perfectly show the workings of this alternate society, and the characters themselves have very interesting and distinct desires. The ending of the novel, however, feels a bit anticlimactic after the buildup and suspenseful plot that leads towards the end of the book.
Which is perhaps why I'm so excited for the Amazon series. I was able to go to the High Castle Panel at San Diego Comic-Con this year, which has only made me more excited for the show. Based on the two episodes I've seen so far, the series is attempting to be faithfully painful to the world created by Philip K. Dick, while creating the sorts of story lines and drama that are more successful for a visual media. The sets, costumes, and acting are all amazing, and they have perfectly created the world that PKD envisioned in his original novel.
The novel is a classic example of alternate history, and although I wasn't overly excited by the ending, I still think it is well worth reading. While I believe the adaptation will create a more exciting plot and explore the characters more deeply than in the original book, I still think it was an enjoyable and intellectually stimulating read. It isn't my favorite novel of all time (sorry Tom!), but I'm very glad I read it. I think this is the sort of novel that anyone can read and enjoy, and I'm excited that it may find a larger audience with the Amazon Prime series release.
Firstly, I liked the general idea of the book: an alternative history where the Allies had lost WWII and Germany and Japan had taken control. They then proceed to start their own Cold War. So far so good, but that's where the enjoyment ended for me.
The novel uses the paranoid thoughts, philosophical and metaphysical feelings of several boring characters to drive the “plot” forward. Not even Stephen Hawking would be able to work out who is thinking what, when and why. It's all incredibly exhausting to keep a track of. I found myself writing down chapter summaries and then trying to connect different threads of activities together, just to try to attain a very small degree of understanding as to this unholy mess of a novel. Often the international cast is guided by mystical forces (I Ching) which leads to lots of insane babbling. Dick seems to have made a deliberate choice to ramble on and on about trivial matters too. The pacing is very, very s-l-o-w and I sadly found the whole thing extremely dreary and uber-tedious.
Did Dick write this when he was high? How did this win a Hugo ward? Was the committee high too? Did I mention that the book dosent really have an ending too. I mean, really? You read this whole sorry monstrosity and then you are just left hanging ....
I can't think of a single good thing to say about this novel. It fell flat on just about every aspect of what I would say makes an interesting read. One star for the alternative history angle, every other aspect sucked. And it sucked hard.
The literary equivalent of a turd in a swimming pool.
This alternative history was confusing and disjointed.
Perhaps my opinion of this book could be summed up by quoting a small passage from it: “I want to comprehend. . . But he knew he never would.”
Excelente historia alternativa que plantea como sería el mundo en caso de que el Eje hubiese ganado la segunda guerra mundial. Sin embargo el libro deja demasiados elementos abiertos o libres a la interpretación del usuario, y resulta un tanto confuso por momentos. Quizás sea un asunto de la traducción, pero demasiados elementos importantes que se dan por asumidos y que nadie se toma la molestia de explicar sus orígenes o conceptos fundamentales. Final abierto, quizás DEMASIADO abierto.
Story: 2 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 9
Prose: 7
Another awful book. Not a single thing happened. Just a lot of waiting for characters to appear and other random events in 3-5 different story lines.
There were a few good points though:
1. Most alternate history books about WWII seems to forget Japan
2. The Japanese influence on their “territories” in the US is brilliant
3. The simplified prose used by Japanese characters is extremely clever
4. The ramifications of Nazi victory in WWII is profound and terrifying, from the technological innovations to culture cleansing
5. This book was my first exposure to the I Ching (Book of Changes). Including that philosophy definitely made for some fun
Not sure if I should even return to Philip K. Dick after that. He seems to be an “idea man”, not a storyteller. Recall having lacklustre feelings about “Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep”, though I did give it 3 / 5 stars. Would welcome your thoughts on the subject...
I watched the Amazon pilot episode yesterday so I had to read the book, which I finishing in two sittings, to my surprise. P.K. Dick is a very compelling writer even though I don't think I fully understand where he was going with this book, which doesn't really have an ending, just an invitation to think about where we're all headed with our lives. Pretty interesting.
“Et si l'Allemagne et la Japon, vainqueurs de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, occupaient les Etats-Unis ?”. C'est le point de départ de cette uchronie qui se déroule en 1962. Derrière cette idée intéressante, l'histoire du roman est cependant un peu décevante.
- Japan en Duitsland hebben de oorlog gewonnen, en zie Wikipedia voor de verdere beschrijving van het boek (opgelet, spoilers).
Een klassieker, met recht en reden. Ik herlees om de zoveel tijd eens iets van Dick. Niet teveel na elkaar – een indigestie van ‘s mans verzamelde verhalen is me ooit slecht bekomen – maar toch om de zoveel tijd eens iets.
Volledig aangeraden, dat spreekt.
This has to be the worst cover in the history (or alternative history) of mankind. But the book itself is quite amazing.
I liked it, but it seemed like half a story. As others have said abrupt confusing ending. I felt he could have done more with some of the character story lines and the politics. It's been many years since I read Androids Dream, but I would have to say I enjoyed this more.