The Man in the High Castle

I think PK Dick created an interesting alternative history that progressed into a Japanese-German cold war that reflected his own moment in history. I wouldn't place this as the best WW2 alternate history but it is an important one. The internal dialogue of the characters is dominated by a pre-occupation with racial issues (also reflective of the time it was written) and no one is handling the racial issues well. The Nazi empire is just killing millions of people- including nearly the entire population of Africa in just 15 years. The Japanese empire is having difficulties transitioning from a homogeneous society but fall back onto their rigid law system and hierarchical society. In the midst of this are the Americans trying to come to terms with their new overlords. In this area, none of the characters show growth over the course of the story.

PK Dick did a good job taking the Japanese and German worldview during WW2 and expanding it into the policies and attitudes of a victorious empire. The in-fighting, final solutions, and super-weapons of the Nazi party expand globally and into space. The focus on correct behavior, service to the emperor, and collector tendencies of the Japanese dominate the Pacific sphere.

For me the plot of Man in the High Castle was secondary to the world building, which is fortunate since the plot was all over the place. My biggest issue is the fact that the novel doesn't really have a conclusion which is especially frustrating since PK Dick never wrote the sequel as he had planned.

The Man in the High Castle was an interesting read since the I Ching is present in every scene as characters look for guidance (and PK Dick used it to determine major plot points). This lends a lyrical quality that contrast with the choppy sentence structure employed throughout the novel.

I love science fiction and fantasy but I have read virtually nothing from the 1930s-60s (I'm young, I tend to read female authors, & I tend to read either new releases or from the public domain). I've been working on expanding my reading to get a better sense of the history and variety of this genre and like so many others I will slowly be working my way through the Hugo and Nebula award winners. I picked up Man in the High Castle because my wife wants to watch the Amazon series and I refused to do so until I had read the book. After reading it I'm guessing that the TV series is going to be completely different.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel but wish the ending actually wrapped up the threads of the story (or that PK Dick actually wrote the sequel as he had planned).