#73. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE By Philip K Dick

Published : 1962
Pages : 249
Overall Mark : 8/10

The Second World War has been over for seventeen years. America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. And in the neutral buffer zone between the two superpowers lives the man in the high castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that explores an alternate world history in which the Axis powers lost the war. It's a rallying cry for all who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. But could it be more than that?

PHILIP K. DICK (1928-1982)
'One of the two or three most important figures in 20th century US SF' (The Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction). Born one of twins - his sister died in infancy - he lived most of his life in California, and wrote more than fifty books in a career of prodigious productivity and achievement. The films Blade Runner and Total Recall are based on his stories.

VERDICT
This fascinating view of how the world of the early 1960s would be if the Axis powers had won World War II is remarkably clever, even using the idea of a novel being published within the book that tells the history we all know. Dick is at his most imaginative here, and doesn't fall into any of the usual traps of alternate historians by coming up with reasons for the change in history that actually make perfect sense. A wonderful book that forces us to question how close we were to the eventualities detailed here.