Rating: 
Summary: Why science fiction, and why aren't we reading it now?
Review: Dick's book is a novel of incredibly literary merit. I say this because it is about characters--at least five major ones--and they happen to live in a time where Germany and Japan won world war II, but this novel is much more than a nifty alternate history novel. The characters are rich and rewarding, and the choices they have to make living in a world where a minor difference made a major catastrophe are brilliantly thought out. With Germany in control of much of the world, TVs weren't invented until 1960 and only a few homes in Germany have them; Mars has been reached, but it's merely for dramatic effect, the Mediterranean has been drained and used as farmland; the African people have been decimated; the Jews nearly wiped out except for a few in disguise. This book is about finding the truth inside deception. Everyone's got a little racket going, and then pops in a book that calls into question the history as they know it. It's about their reactions to this book, the possibility that maybe there is a way out, or a way back, or another way. I love this book, and I think reading it now makes me more aware of the need to help the universe become less evil, not more so. That may mean taking responsibility for doing something about the evil--but if we don't, we get something like this book.
Rating:
Summary: Much more subtle than it appears
Review: We were all disappointed at reading the last few lines of "The Man in the High Castle". Like Julia and "The Grasshopper..." we are left pondering its true meaning. Consider this: in the novel Abendsen writes his alternate history using the I-Ching. He reaches a result that, although it does not match our reality exactly, is oddly familiar.
In reality PKD used the I-Ching to plot "Man in the High Castle." The implication is that TMITHC does not exactly reflect TRUE reality - but it is pretty close. PKD, like Abendsen, ws not really talking about his alternate universe. He is making a bold statement about America in the 1960s. Did the Allies really win the second world war? What benefit was it, if the USA becomes another Nazi Germany? Hitler once said: "Even if we cannot destroy our enemies, we can force them to become like us in order to destroy us." PKD often quoted this. He saw it as appalling that the victors over evil in the 1940s could end up plotting to blow each other up in the 1960s. Like Mr Tagomi, we are faced with a feeling of enormous moral outrage. Does it matter who wins, if the extermination of entire nations is even conceived of as realistic policy? Yet PKD also points out how unthinkable life under the Nazis would be. (He is a little soft on the Japanese, in my opinion; just check out their occupation of China. But I digress). PKD's outrage at the Nazis' appalling mental processes (they have wiped out the population of Africa, and don't even care) makes for very interesting reading. He puts into words what many of us cannot - the bizzare feeling that the Nazis were literally inhuman - that ordinary people cannot even begin to comprehend how the Nazi mind operated. It was something at a total remove from ordinary humane thinking - the sheer coldness that PKD was later to call "android behaviour." (This would later be studied in the classic "Blade Runner"). Furthermore, there is the simple visceral pleasure of slowly working out the details of PKD's alternative universe. Churchill still in power in 1962?? F.D. Rooseveldt assassinated in the 1930s?? Hitler dying slowly of syphilis?? This is a history that really might have happened, had the world been less vigilant - and less lucky. In real life, FDR nearly was assassinated - and was saved by his cigarette lighter. History is a mass of chance transformations. Lastly, there is PKd's fascinating ideas about "historicity" - ideas that are apparent to anyone who owns ancient or historic artefacts. I have some ancient coins in my collection. These coins probably went through the hands of Roman merchants, Roman sailors, even Roman soldiers, senators and noblemen. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that they are just pieces of metal. Where is the historicity in these coins? Only in my mind. PKD plays around with this idea with his notion of a factory turning out fake historical artefacts. The Man in the High Castle may seem disappointing at first reading - but further reading shows the great subtlety in this, one of PKD's masterpieces.
Rating:
Summary: A 'small story' in an alternative post-WWII history
Review: This book presents an alternative post world war II history in which nazi germany and japan won, and the US, like the rest of the world , is occupied by them. It's the 1960s, and there's a behind the scene power struggle in nazi germany. Both sides in this domestic power struggle quietly try to involve Japan in it.
A small antiques shop owner in the japan-occupied San Francisco, who normally sells 'americana' to the west coast's japanese high society, suddenly finds himself involved in this struggle without even knowing about it, and his quiet life change.
A great novel that presents what-if alternative history from one man's daily life point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: DUNCE AND THE HAUNTED CASTLE
Review: This Story is about Dunce, a young man who wants to grow up and be a police detective. He is on a trip with his friend Daryl to Scotland to visit his father, who works for a historic company. The second that Dunce arrives at the castle where his dad works, he is told by police that his dad was missing, and that they have no clues. The very next morning Dunce and Daryl went into the kitchen, and saw blood everywhere. A trail of blood led the two boys to a barn. As they walked inside they saw the maid hanging from her neck, and she has been stabbed several times in the back. When Dunce and Daryl returned with the police, the body was gone. The police thought that the boys were playing a joke on them. When Dunce returned to his rooom, he noticed a letter on the floor. The letter is from the killer. The letter says that if he wants to see his dad again he needs to come to the old cabin in the forest tonight. As Dunce arrives at the cabin, he saw his dad and the killer. Dunce is shocked. The killer was his mother. The mom wanted revenge because Dunce's father cheated on her many, many times. Right before she shot his father, gunshots were fired. It was the chef. He has killed Dunce's mom. Dunce and his father are now saved.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull and plotless; not worth reading, in my opinion.
Review: Boring! That's the first word that came to mind as I started reading The Man in the High Castle, and, no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep that word from permeating my thoughts as I plodded along in this book. One could say that the grasshopper laid heavy on my eyelids as I dozed off while I attempted to struggle through this book.
The Man in the High Castle starts off with an interesting premise - it's after World War II, and the Allies have lost because FDR got assassinated. The former USA has been divided: Japan has claimed the west, while Germany has claimed the east. This sounds pretty intriguing, and it promised to be, but then the "plot" of the book started. That is the problem that plagues the book: it has no plot! All it does is tell the stories of a few ordinary, boring citizens; one of which who sells antiques (wow!!!) and all of which are interested in meeting somebody who was written a book; this man who lives in the high castle. However, despite all the bad things that I've said about TMITHC already, as I continued reading the book, things actually got pretty interesting. I was thinking, "oh hell yes, maybe the ending will be exciting! maybe the separate stories of boring citizens will come together in a final exciting climax!" Then I actually read the end. It was so amazingly anticlimactic that I thought it was supposed to be a piece of humor from the great PKD. When I realized it was a serious ending, and some people actually enjoyed it, I was so mad that I ripped the book to pieces and wrote this scathing review. Bottom line: don't read this book, it's sooooo boring and sooooo stupid; basically a bunch of plotless drivel repackaged and billed as "great art" and "radically philosophical". Final score for TMITHC: 1 star
Rating:
Summary: Displeasing at the very least
Review: I found Philip K. Dick to be a racist bigot. I don't care what the context of the book is; his casual use of racist terms is uncalled for and should not have been published.
Rating:
Summary: One of Dick's greatest achievements
Review: Philip K. Dick is my favorite Sci-fi writer despite the fact that he is as easy to criticize, as he is to praise. He possessed an absolutely astonishing imagination, and created during the course of his writing career novels of ideas that were quite without parallel in the world of Sci-fi. It would be impossible to imagine current Sci-fi without Dick. The Cyberpunk movement is based squarely on his work, and his invention of genre's dealing with alternative history or alternative realities permeates contemporary writing. At the same time, Dick's books are frequently not as good as his initial inspiration. He was essentially a pulp writer, which meant that he made money for writing quickly, not for writing well. As a result, many of his characters are not fully realized, his prose is sometimes less than inspired, and some scenes are not fully developed. At his best, however, he is frequently stunning, and his explorations of how we perceive "what is" and "what might have be" are often thrilling. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE is one of Dick's most highly regarded books. In it, he gave birth to the alternative history genre. The story is well known: In the part of the former United States occupied by Imperial Japan, a number of individuals are struggling with the situation after the end of WW II, in which Japan and Germany split the continent between them. Many of them are aware of and discuss among each other a banned but nonetheless widely read and distributed book by a man who is said to live in a high castle. In this book, he writes a historical fiction, imagining the world as it would have been had Franklin Delano Roosevelt had not died before the beginning of WW II, giving the US a strong leader instead of the weak one who took over in his stead. He imagines that the US would have decisively influenced affairs both in Europe and the Pacific, leading to the defeat of both the Japanese and the Germans. Many other things happen in the book, but they are neither as key or as provocative as the basic world that Dick describes. This is the heart of the novel. After having read this book twice, I can only remotely remember the key characters in the book, and cannot recall with perfect clarity the events contained in it. But the world itself, and the novel within the novel that creates such a sensation, I recall vividly. This is not merely a novel for Sci-fi fans: this is a book for anyone who enjoys first-rate imaginative fiction. It is also a book of great historical importance, in that it was instrumental in creating a new sub genre in Sci-fi.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, at best
Review: Philip K. Dick is, in a Douglas Adams sort of way, a man who obviously has a lot of interesting ideas. His novel, "The Man in the High Castle," about America in an alternate reality in which the Allies lost WW2, makes use of these. But while his speculations on politics and foreign relations in general are interesting, his plotline is not. The characters, whose endeavors, of course, seem unrelated at first but come together in the end, aren't compelling, and, while having some interesting thoughts on their world, fail to engage the reader. The story moves slowly, and the philisophical musings aren't enough to justify it. In the end, a moderately interesting read, but not as fascinating as you might think.
Rating: 
Summary: An unsettling portrait of a nightmarish alternate America
Review: "The Man in the High Castle," by Philip K. Dick, is a science fiction novel that pushes the boundaries of the genre. It takes place in an alternate America where Germany and Japan won World War II. The Pacific States of America are ruled by Japan through a puppet white government; the Germans have engaged in genocide in Africa and are pursuing an aggressive space program. That's only the beginning of the "what if?" strangeness. In "Man," Dick uses a dual book-within-the-book theme. The plot and characters are continuously impacted by two texts: first, the ancient Chinese oracle known as the I Ching, and second, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy," a banned novel of yet another alternate America. The book thus becomes a mindbending literary house of mirrors. This is a bizarre, intelligent, and compelling work of fiction. There may be just a little too much going on; in the end, I'm not sure if the book completely holds together. But Dick poses some fascinating questions. "Man" is a biting satire about conspiracy, power, censorship, and cultural exploitation. Ultimately, Dick questions the very nature of science fiction, and ponders the role of literature in general.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story With a Open/Dead Ending
Review: Plot: The Axis powers Germany and Japan divvy up America. An underground novel circulating amongst the masses tells of a
history in which the Allies won. And one persons search to meet the "author" of this underground novel.
The Man in the High Castle is a good story but as my title suggests it does have a open ending which leaves the readers saying "huh?". Don't let its impending ending sway you from reading this book. Read it and draw your own conclusions.
This book should be made into a film.
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