The man in the high castle

Philip K. Dick's 1962 Hugo award-winning novel The man in the high castle is the first novel published in the genre dealing specifically with alternative histories of the Second World War in which the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Italy) emerge victorious.

Set in the US some 20 years after this victory, the world of this groundbreaking novel has been divided up between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The western Pacific states of the US have been conquered by the Japanese and the eastern part is a racially-purged Nazi puppet state. The Rocky Mountain states remain nominally independent.

This dystopian novel explores the mounting tension between these two superpowers and uses an intriguing plot twist of a novel within a novel. The grasshopper lies heavy is read by several characters in The man in the high castle and tells of a world in which the Allies are victorious in World War Two (the world we live in).

This bleak but immensely readable novel is described by critic Avram Davidson as being full of “extrapolation, suspense, action, art, philosophy, plot [and] character.”

The man in the high castle has recently been adapted into a television series with Ridley Scott as one of the executive producers. The trailer can be viewed through this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3loUuH769w

Dick, Phillip K. The man in the high castle, London: Penguin, 2001.

References:

Books in Print Professional reviews
Goodreads Reader reviews 
The man in the high castle Wiki (for Avram Davidson's review)