The Man in the High Castle (P. K. Dick, 1962)

The Second World War has been over for 17 years... the Allies have lost it... the African continent is virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis... The point of divergence between the world of The Man in the High Castle and actual history is the assassination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

In the neutral zone that divides the rival superpowers in America lives Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of an underground best-seller The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Living in the castle of the book's title in the Rockies, Abendsen has consulted the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, and used his readings of it to write the Science Fiction book, which describes an alternate-reality in which America and the Allies win the Second World War, although stilldifferent from "our" reality. His book has become a popular success, so much so that the Nazi high command want him assassinated.

Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others?

Rating: 9/10