Book Review: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

About:              
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick is a historical fiction which imagines the axis winning World War II. The book won the 1963 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

• 288 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0544916085

My rating for The Man in the High Castle– 4
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Thoughts:
I wanted to read this book for a while, what final pushed me over the edge was watching the Amazon series on Amazon Prime.  The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick is known for its imaginative story line, but the book really shines telling the personal stories of ordinary people, none of which can be defined as heroes.

Alternative history stories telling about the Nazis taking over the world are not uncommon, the possibilities are obviously horrifying and the author does not shy away from this motif.  A few months ago I actually read an interesting book called The Madagaskar Plan by Guy Saville which talks about Nazi occupation in Africa, a thought which stops the blood in the views of Frank Frink, one of the main characters in the novel.

The story deals a lot with what’s real, what’s not real and whether we can tell the difference. But in a regime under Nazi Germany and Japan, the difference could mean life or death. The book ends in ambiguity, we do not know what will happen to the characters involved or how they end up.

Synopsis:
At the end of World War II, the world finds itself occupied by Nazi German and Imperial Japan, the two big winners out of the conflict. Robert Chidan, an American antique dealer livin in San Francisco sells his wares to sophisticated Japanese customers. One of Mr. Chidan’s most prominent customers is Mr. Tagomi, Japan’s trade m minister. Frank Frink, a Jew in hiding, makes fake jewelry for Mr. Chidan’s store.

In Colorado, Juliana, Frank’s estranged wife, is bothered by post-traumatic stress brought on by the horrors of Japanese occupation. Juliana meets and Italian soldier and together they try to find Hawthorne Abendsen, an author of an influential book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which tells of a world where the US and Britain won the war.

Buy The Man in the High Castle from Amazon.com*
More Books by Philip K. Dick
More Recommended World War II books on Man of la BookStore

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I borrowed this book from the local library.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account