Rating: 
Summary: Now If Only It Had An Ending ...
Review: This is the novel Dick is best known for. It won him his Hugo award and put his name on sci-fi radar as a person to watch. And for the most part it is intensely interesting. Now if only it had an ending.Although the concept of "what if the Nazis had won the war" has been beaten to death in straight-to-video action titles and alternate reality television series, it is important to realize that Dick was one of the first. This novel is old - it is from 1962 - and although the concept is a bit threadbare by now, Dick executes it well. Contrary to the opinion of some readers, I was fascinated by how intimately Dick seemed to know his Japanese characters. Perhaps some people have different opinions of Japanese mentality, or are offended by any typifying of their mentality. But whether or not Dick's writing was objectively accurate, it was internally consistent and believable. That is what matters. He was able to create characters whose actions seemed logical based upon what we understood of them. It is unfortunate that so few of the character arcs were given resolution, and that some of the more interesting plotlines were not developed (it would have been cool to read about the outcome of the supposed Nazi plan to attack Japan). But most of what Dick does present is interesting, so I can't really fault him for not writing about everything. It is a credit to his imagination that he created a world where there is so much stuff that he could only selectively develop a few ideas. But then we come to that darn ending. Perhaps I just don't get it. Some have suggested that Dick was hinting that the Nazis really won. I find that too embarassingly pandering to believe - anyone can shout "the fascists really won" and get someone to cheer. There really is no grounds for such a statement, and Dick was a clever man. Some have suggested that Dick was merely revealing that this was, indeed, a fantasy world as an end to his story. I guess I just find that anticlimactic. Besides, the whole thing was kind of silly. The man doesn't protect himself - why don't the Nazis just kill him? I find this problem with many of Dick's stories - he doesn't tend to finish with a strong statement or memorable line. This is in sharp contrast with Bester, who's better works (such as "The Stars My Destination") rise to a crescendo. However, Dick is much more gifted at fleshing out characters and internal monologues than Bester. So both have their strengths. I just wish Dick wouldn't let his stories taper off so lifelessly. Because I was so enthralled in the book I read it very quickly. Thus getting to the dull sigh of an end was even more disppointing. I had these very interesting characters floating around in my head with nothing to do. The quality of the writing earns it a 3 star rating from me. I cannot give it a higher rating because I just did not find it satisfying. Which is unfortunate, because I've almost worked my way through his available works.
Rating: 
Summary: Very accessible PKD
Review: Man in High Castle is an excellent book, and unlike other PKD works, is easily accessible for the uninitiated audience. If you liked Total Recal, Minority Report and Blade Runner and want to see what Dick the novelist is like, try this one.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest novels ever written
Review: This is quite possibly the greatest book I've ever read. It completely addicted me in the few short days it took to finish it, and really struck me with just how solid it was. It didn't have good characters but amateur writing, or good ideas but poor characters, and the quality was incredibly consistent, as it doesn't take long to suck you in, and doesn't feel like it has a single unneeded page, nor should anything have been done differently. What really makes this so perfect is how the ideas and setting are so well woven into the character's and their story. You may start off thinking "I'll read that book about the Axis winning WWII", but the book only reveals information about its setting as it pertains to the characters, and it works perfectly. By showing the world through the eyes of four excellent developed people, you get a much more real and vivid picture of the world while at the same time creating a much more enjoyable novel. The fact that Dick seamelessly layers interesting questions about reality on top of that just cements this novel's position as being as close to perfect as a book can be. If you're going to read a Philip K. Dick novel, this will probably leave the strongest impression on you, although if you got into him from the many movies based on his works, you may want to start with one of the stories or novels that inspired them.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: This is a superbly written exploration of what the world might have been like had Germany and Japan won the war. It's about how people survive when the ruling culture is not their own; how hope can be found between the covers of a book - how that same book can hold terror or fear for someone from a different persepective. What made me love this book, really love it, is not so much the idea of this alternate history of the United States, but how real the characters were for me. Frank Frink, his ex-wife, Juliana, Robert Childen, everybody. They were people, or personalities if you like, that you could see being created by this situation. I'd give this book to anyone to read and tell them to sit back and let it make them think. Run in the world Dick's created; imagine what it would be like. What would you be doing in this world? What would your family be doing? How would you survive in this world? It's a worthy book to spend your time on.
Rating:
Summary: Supreme
Review: This is among the best sci-fi I've read. Dick is great at avoiding the usual mannerisms of typical sci-fi authors and the academic sci-fi sect. The stylistically bare bones approach is effective in allowing the invertedness of the settings have their full effect (though I occasionally felt he rubbed it in a bit too much), which is good because plot-wise this book doesn't have a whole lot to offer- its scattered slightly interconnected situations offer more or less a snapshot of the world inhabiting the book, perhaps with some barbs pointed towards the "real" world and hit-or-miss parallels with life in general. Although I prefer 'Flow My Tears...' to this, The Man in the High Castle is a brief and worthwhile read (although it's much touted status as a classic might lead to some disappointment).
Rating:
Summary: What if the allies had lost WWII? And then...
Review: The Man in the High Castle takes place in a North America radically different than the one we know. Written in 1962, Philip K. Dick's vision is less science fiction that alternative fiction. The east coast is controlled by the Third Reich, the west by the Japanese, and the mountain states are all that remains of the old America.
Dick makes an interesting case, with his blend of historical and fictitious Axis and Allies characters that shaped the destiny of the world. He doesn't go into a lot of futuristic gadgetry, mostly just rockets that can take humans to the moon and Venus and Mars, along with a forty-five minute trip from Berlin to San Francisco. He hints at the experiments conducted by the Nazis, such as the draining of the Mediterranean Sea and the African atrocity.
What really makes this book stand out is the characters and how they are linked through this story. We see Robert Childan, a dealer in items of "historicity" and closet racist. There's Mr. Tagomi, a conservative but open-minded businessman who has a defining moment with an "antique" revolver and a bit of nouveau jewelry. Frank Frink is a Jew who has evaded the Holocaust and goes into business with a friend, making the new style of jewelry. His ex-wife, Juliana, embarks on a quest to find the writer of a popular, but controversial book, the titular "Man in the High Castle." Their lives are intertwined, along with their belief in the oracle of the I Ching and the attachment of value to things that belonged, or could have belonged, to someone famous or to a famous period. The past is linked to the present and future.
The story traces their lives, along with subplots involving the change of the German high command and a Swedish businessman who may not be all that he appears.
I liked the book because it's a thinker, one that makes you question how things might have been, how they are, and how they could be, along with variations if key events or people had not made certain choices of action. Recommended for fans of classic science fiction, fantasy and history alike.
Rating: 
Summary: What is the point?
Review: This book makes no sense. Granted as everyone says this book is an alternate history of if Germany and Japan won the big war. This book is not organized well, there are quite a few characters and each chapter tells a little bit more of the story. Only a few of the characters actually cross paths. The end makes no sense. This book was neither good nor bad but I can't say that it wasn't a waste of time. I am very disappointed as this is the 1st book by this author I read and I probably won't try another one of his books.
Rating:
Summary: I can't see the point
Review: Mr Dick is a great writer, but he often wanders away from the point of his story. This happens also in other books of Dick's.
The book is well written, you finish it with a blank face and don't know what all this was about. It's a good idea to imagin what the world would be if the nazis and the japanese had won WWII, to wonder about the opposition they had met, but I don't see how the other things (I ching, for example) click in the portrait. Besides, not all the stories of the characters are completed, and we must simply imagine their outcome, and the main action in my opinion is also lacking a round ending.
Dont'read this book if you are want to start reading sci-fi or Dick
Rating:
Summary: And Much of Madness
Review: As alternate reality novels go, this is the best. A world where the Axis won. The genius of this novel is that it focuses not on the plucky agitators, but on the colonial officials. Their reactions to a country not their own (ours) make this much more than a worthwhile diversion. Dick infuses the entire novel with a chase-scene paranoia, a rush that belies the characters' near constant consultation of the I-Ching. This lends a relentless focus to the book, which rushes on toward a conclusion that seems certain at one point, ambiguous the next, but always SO CLOSE. This is supposedly a CLASSIC, as I've heard. I only know that it's an incredible work. ...and more of sin, and horror's the soul of the plot.... May 2003. Several recent reviews ask "what's the point?" and "he dances around the center of the novel!" To these folks I would say that A) there is no "point" per se, just what you bring to it with your own values, and B) the genius of this as opposed to some of his other works is that he DOESN'T show us the man behind the curtain. True, it enriches some novels immeasurably, but this is one best left in its beareaucratic otherworld. And one more thing---if you can easily discern the central idea of a novel, why complain that the author somehow "misses" it? Try a more academic solution, such as "The author failed to fully explore the possibilities of the situation.." Or something...
Rating: 
Summary: An idea without any substance
Review: This is a very boring book. Only interesting because of its historical vision of the allies loosing the second world war.
There is hardly no plot; nothing happends during the whole book.
The caracters are very undeveloped and you hardly feel sympathy for anyone of them. The end of the book is very pretentions. I liked "Ubik" and "A Scanner Darkly" much better.
| 
