The Man in the High Castle

Firstly, I liked the general idea of the book: an alternative history where the Allies had lost WWII and Germany and Japan had taken control. They then proceed to start their own Cold War. So far so good, but that's where the enjoyment ended for me.

The novel uses the paranoid thoughts, philosophical and metaphysical feelings of several boring characters to drive the “plot” forward. Not even Stephen Hawking would be able to work out who is thinking what, when and why. It's all incredibly exhausting to keep a track of. I found myself writing down chapter summaries and then trying to connect different threads of activities together, just to try to attain a very small degree of understanding as to this unholy mess of a novel. Often the international cast is guided by mystical forces (I Ching) which leads to lots of insane babbling. Dick seems to have made a deliberate choice to ramble on and on about trivial matters too. The pacing is very, very s-l-o-w and I sadly found the whole thing extremely dreary and uber-tedious.

Did Dick write this when he was high? How did this win a Hugo ward? Was the committee high too? Did I mention that the book dosent really have an ending too. I mean, really? You read this whole sorry monstrosity and then you are just left hanging ....

I can't think of a single good thing to say about this novel. It fell flat on just about every aspect of what I would say makes an interesting read. One star for the alternative history angle, every other aspect sucked. And it sucked hard.

The literary equivalent of a turd in a swimming pool.