What makes The Man in the High Castle so compelling is that it portrays a bleak alternate reality that could very well have come to pass. What many people in the modern age forget is that the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy, very nearly won WWII. Furthermore, the United States was not always the dominant power that it is today. In fact, prior to WWII the global military might of the U.S. was just ranked at the bottom of the top 5. It was only after WWII, when the U.S. allowed Nazi German rocket scientists to become citizens and work on our missile program, that we became the world's only Super Power.

Given these circumstances, in some ways it seems amazing that no one came up with the idea of writing a book with this same premise before Philip K. Dick. But at the same time, even in today's modern age, his concept of a conquered, divided U.S. still feels fresh, new, and counterintuitive, all at the same time. PKD was truly a genius and The Man in the High Castle is among his greatest works. I have read this book twice over the years and it still continues to amaze me with its insight into a world that could have been if things had gone just a little differently.

There are a number of additional aspects that make The Man in the High Castle so gripping. PHD's ability to capture the true paranoia and collective hysteria of Hitler and other specific key figures in the Nazi German regime, and envision what the U.S. and the rest of the world would have become under these circumstances, feels authentic yet mind bending. Nazi German conquerors rule the East coast of the U.S. and the Japanese have the West coast. But the depicted different ways in which they control, repress and influence native U.S. citizens are indeed facinating. The elements of native U.S. people utilizing the historical Chinese book, the I Ching, to make decisions in daily life, ideas of determination versus fate etc. are all unique aspects conceptualized by PKD. Finally, the idea that there is an author that has written a book banned by the Nazi German regime fantasizing about an alternate reality where the Allied powers of the U.S. and Britain had won WWII (that is not exactly like our reality today) is, in a word, brilliant.

In conclusion, there is no denying that Philip K. Dick was a visionary. Like many of PKD's books, one central theme in The Man in the High Castle is a questioning of what we know as reality. They say history is written by the victors, but what if the victors had been different...?

I just read this book for the second time, and I still can't follow all the intricacies of the plot or say clearly what happened and why. In other words, it's just like everyday life. There is no clear protagonist, no clear resolution, and the plot is incomplete to say the least, just a small, partial segment of an extremely complex/intricate ongoing process -- just like real life. The book is loaded with oblique humor and incisive description of the human condition. As other reviewers have said, Dick can really get into peoples' heads and minutely describe their experiences in a fascinating, believable way. It is 15 or so years after a WWII that was won by the Axis powers. There is a struggle for power among the brutal Nazi leadership that might ultimately bring about the end of the world. The thoughtful civility of the one ruling race (the Japanese) is contrasted against the mad, ruthless machinations of the other (the Germans). The Americans are minor bit players in the new world picture, but a bestseller circulates in what remains of America that is an alternate history novel wherein the Americans and British are victors. Yet, this alternate history is not ours either. And, perhaps in a third reality is the story of the man who wrote the novel, who may be a paranoid schizophrenic type from our reality who may have dreamed up the other two realities. This man (Dick himself?) has used the random process of I Ching to create the novel that embeds the other two realities, but perhaps now has become anxious that what he has created by this process has somehow become real. In other words, this novel may be completely true, in a sense.

Maybe I'll figure out more when I read it again...

PKD's recent literary resurgence has led to a (long overdue) reconsideration of his work. The Man In The High Castle won the Hugo Award, and is often sighted as among his best novels. And while the premise is certainly intriguing, the book is exceedingly poorly written - and not in a pulpy, so-bad-it's-good kind of way. PKD was a great risk taker as a writer and he deserves credit for that; he has written some fantastic, delirious and chaotic books that defy easy categorization (A Scanner Darkly is a great place to start), but this isn't one of them.

Dick's novel is set in an alternative present where the Axis powers won WWII and the Japanese have taken over the Pacific states. Dick's eerily believable world is full of paranoia, which is what Dick does best. The only problem I had with the novel is that it is really about a group of people who are only loosely connected and their stories never converge.

In this nightmarish "alternate history" novel, the United States and the Allied Powers were soundly defeated in World War II, and America is now occupied by Nazi Germany east of the Mississippi, and Japan in the West. Erwin Rommel is Military Governor of Nazi Occupied America, in which the Nazi racial purity laws are in full and vigorous effect. In the west, Japan rules with a more humane, but still an iron hand, and in both areas Americans themselves are a downtrodden minority and underclass in their own country, and America is being colonized by the victors.

But is this real? Or is this alternate universe a mistake; a kind of kink in time? The reader must judge. Author Dick specializes in stories that test the meaning and substantive nature of reality, and that is part of the theme of this compelling novel.

This is one of the great "alternate history" novels of Science Fiction, and you do not want to pass it up.