THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
Back covers
In a hilltop cabin, his "high castle," surrounded by barbed wire, a solitary writer conceives an imaginary account of history-in which FDR was not assassinated, in which Italy betrayed the Axis countries and the Allies won World War II. His novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, is of course banned in the eastern portion of postwar America, dominated as it is by Nazi occupation forces. But in the Pacific States of America, which Japanese victors control and where the Oriental race is superior despite its puppet white government, where the I Ching-the ancient Chinese Book of Changes which predicts the future and understands the presenthas replaced the Bible and a more permissive, humane philosophy dominates, the novel is tolerated by the authorities. And its incredible, fantastic image of a "mythical" postwar world is glimpsed against the "real" world of the present in
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
A NOVEL by Philip K. Dick
Against this background of a globe controlled by Germany and Japan, Philip K. DicK tells this bizarre, hilarious, terrifying, electrifying tale: of a dealer in historic U. S. trivia who maintains an exclusive antique shop in San Francisco; of a Jewish artisan hiding from the Reich racial laws and of his estranged wife languishing in the backwater country of the Rocky Mountain States; of a traveling "Swedish businessman" who is much more than he seems; of a Gestapo killer sent on the track of the man in the high castle. Mr. Dick's vision of contemporary America is of a world that never was. But it might have been-and his brilliantly satiric image combines with the high suspense of his story to make THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE an uncommonly original entertainment.
Philip Dick lives, with wife and children, in "a Campbell-Wong glass-sided house in the country north of San Francisco with a library of Jung and Zen Buddhism, cherry plum trees and central black-iron open fireplace, a passion for local fish and game, Paul Tillich and science fiction." Mr. Dick is the author of a number of science fiction stories and novels, and his novel, Eye in the Sky, was selected by Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine as one of the best fifty science fiction works of its decade.
Popular Library Edition
IT IS THE MORNING AFTER DOOMSDAY
NEW YORK...
under the heel of enemy Storm Troopers...
SAN FRANCISCO...
in the relentless grip of an overpowering invader ...
ALL OF AMERICA...a slave labor camp... Against this nightmare-come-true, one man, alone in a high castle surrounded by barbed wire, pits his solitary courage.
"A SEMINAL WORK IN SCIENCE-FICTION-PHILIP K. DICK'S BEST NOVEL, A MASTERFULLY DETAILED ALTERNATE WORLD PEOPLED BY SUPERBLY REALIZED CHARACTERS." Harry Harrison
"REMARKABLE, FASCINATING. IT'S ALL HERE, EXTRAPOLATION SUSPENSE, ACTION, ART PHILOSOPHY, PLOT, CHARACTER: REALLY A SUPERIOR WORK OF FICTION." Avram Davidson
"A CLASSIC. ONE THAT IS GOING TO BEAR REREADING, TOO - NOT FOR- WHAT HAPPENS, THOUGH THAT IS SUBTLY AND BELIEVABLY WORKED OUT-BUT FOR THE WAY THE ALTERNATE WORLD HAS BEEN CREATED DOWN TO THE LAST NUANCE." P. Schuyler Miller, Analog
To Robert Childan, the end of the war had been a new beginning-although he never would have believed it possible. Once, not long before, he had owned a small secondhand bookstore in one of San Francisco's poorer neighborhoods. But as more and more Japanese discovered the quaint charms of antique butter churns, old icecream makers and other American artifacts, Childan found himself in a position of expertise. He had grown up with such things -and so now his new shop, American Artistic Handcrafts Inc., was a success. To Frank Frink, the new regime was not exactly paradise, but he knew it could have been worse. Back in 1947, on Capitulation Day, he had vowed revenge, and buried his Service weapons underground - well wrapped and oiled for the day when he and his buddies would rise up and strike back. Yet time had dimmed his enthusiasm for violence, and he had gradually grown accustomed to the way things were. At least the top men in Tokyo were honest and seemed genuinely concerned for the welfare of the people .they'd conquered. It was more than could be said for the leaders of the Reich. Having just barely managed to win the war, the Germans had first taken care of the rest of the "undesirables." They'd made room for blond, blue-eyed Aryan settlers in the vast grain bowl of the world, the Ukraine -then concentrated on expanding their technological empire. Already they were years ahead of their Japanese counterparts in the development of plastics and other synthetic materials-and they were trying to conquer the solar system. And so the victors redesigned society while the losers tried to adjust. Yet there was at least one man whose spirit had not been crushed... one man who could still envision a better world in which the Allies, and not the Axis, had won....
1992 Vintage edition
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war-and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany II and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning , novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a I nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.
1987 Penguin edition
If Germany bad defeated Russia... If Japan had beaten the. U.S.A.
Philip K. Dick Is tripping the switches of our minds again with his vision of the world as It might have been: F.D. Roosevelt assasinated, a Shinto Califomla, Nazis In New York ... One of the characters living in this alternate world eventually learns, from no less a source than the l-chlng that the real world is one In which the Allies were not defeated...
This Hugo Award-wlnnlng novel Is one of Dick's most Painstaklngly constructed, and in its bizarre mirror of the world we know, an inner truth Is reflected back to us with chilling conviction.
'Philip K.Dlck Is the most brilliant sci-fi mind on any planet' - Rolling Stone
2001 Penguin edition
Imagine the world if the Allies had lost the Second World War...Philip K Dick trips the switches of our minds with his vision of the world as it might have been: the African continent virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis...In the neutral zone that divides the rival superpowers in America lives the author of an underground best-seller. His book - a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers - offers an alternative theory of world history. Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others?
Gollancz 2001 edition
The second World War has been over for seventeen years and people have now had time to adjust to thenew order. But it hasn;t been easy. The mediteranean has been drained to produce more farmland, the population of Africa has been almost wiped out, and America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanses in the West. IN the neutral buffer zone that divides the two superpowers lives the an in the High Castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that offers an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers didn't win the war. The novel offers hope to the oppressed and is a rallying cry for those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. Could it be a glimpse at the truth?
The Man in teh High Castle won the Hugo Award when it was first published, th eolny Philip K. Dick work so homoured and it remains teh finest alternative world novel ever written. Subtle, sombre, complex ad beautifully characterized, it is a profound and significant book that explores the nature of reality and authenticity, and tackles the issue of evil head on. Elegantly and wittily written, always surprising, The Man in the High Castle is an unforgettable masterpiece.