The Man in the High Castle -- Roll Call and First Impressions -- ***NO SPOILERS!!!***

[Nick]

Please tell us if you are reading or planning on reading The Man in the High Castle.

And please -- ***NO SPOILERS*** in this thread.

[Jim]

Just read it recently. I wrote a short review and will put it into the spoiler section.

[Nick]

Jim wrote: "Just read it recently. I wrote a short review and will put it into the spoiler section."

Thanks Jim!

I've read it several times. I still do not know if I quite understand the end -- which is why that statement is not a spoiler!

[Andrew]

Will be reading this later in the month.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Started this two days ago. It is stunning.

[Ken]

Ha, I gave my copy to my son a couple of months ago after he started watching the series on Amazon
I finally located another copy for myself.

With that said, I have too much on my plate to join in on the read. Still slogging though the penultimate Malazon book

[Joey]

I finished reading this novel two months ago, and will begin a second read. The fictional reality (realities?) is slippery, and I hope to arrive on more solid ground. For example, the question of authenticity and replication is an issue, but does it stand for the novel itself?

[Nick]

By the by -- I just watched the recently made film Radio Free Albemuth in which PKD is a character. Very anachronistically, the film mentions The Man in the High Castle. The film sets its story in 1985, and PKD mentions that he is about to get his new novel TMITHC published. Later he mentions he is about to publish Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, all of which, in our universe, take place in and were written before the events in his own life which led him to write Radio Free Albemuth and its sister novel VALIS.

Radio Free... and VALIS are almost like a rewrite of each other. I have never read Radio Free... but VALIS is one of my favorites, so it was interesting to see how similar they are.

And, yes, there are many themes in common with The Man in the High Castle, published in our universe way back in 1962.

[Joey]

Thanks, Nick, for the information about the film Radio Free Albemuth. I watched it last night, and not only does it invoke the idea of how tenuous notions of reality are as does The Man in the High Castle, but it had a Phillip K. Dick feel. I would encourage a viewing, and the novel is on my list to read.

The film is quite intriguing and lots of fun.

[Nick]

As witness to the popularity of PKD in this group, next month's selection is also by him, Martian Time-Slip. Hopefully, the discussion on PKD can pick up a little next month with this very cinematic novel -- it is not as heralded as this month's selection, but perhaps we will be able to compare the two. Why was The Man in the High Castle so lauded whereas "...Time Slip" was not? -- that sort of thing.