Monday, September 21, 2015

Sci-Fi classic book review: The Man in the High Castle

Author: Philip K. Dick

Pedigree

- 1963 Hugo Winner
- Locus Best SF Novels of All-Time

Dust Jacket Summary

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 twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

Good Points

- a unique story set in an alternative history in which the Axis powers won World War II and divided United States into two territories.

Bad Points

- the story is very disjointed and fails to deliver on its premise.
- characters are uninteresting, bland and for the most part unlikable.
- plot elements introduced in the book but never resolved
- page after page of mostly boring descriptions of making jewelry, trading of antiques, etc. 
- the book doesn't so much as end as it just stops.

Final Word

For me, this the first PKD novel that was an absolute disappointment.  It was a chore to read, my mind wandered through out the story and I really dreaded picking the book up.  It finally reached a point that I just didn't care anymore. 

                                                           My Rating

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