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Review by Mohamed Ansar on April 21st, 2010
If the point of good science-fiction is to create a completely alien, yet at the same time utterly believable world, then Philip K. Dick succeeds with The Man in the High Castle. However, the world that Dick has crafted is not a distant galactic empire, or a society of the future inhabited by androids - it's something far closer to home, and all the more chilling because of it.
The Axis won the Second World War, and split the world between them. The Japanese control the Pacific, whilst the Nazis are left free to complete their racial cleansing across the globe. America has been split between the two superpowers, and it is primarily from the point of view of the occupied Americans that this story is told.
Dick uses a number of loosely connected characters to flesh out this terrifying parallel world, showing the different facets of an occupied people. The alternate world he creates is so convincing, and you really get a sense of the desperation of the characters, and of just how lucky we were in 1945.