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)

The Plot Against America

 

Philip Roth's prize-winning The plot against America has several similarities to Jo Walton's Small Change series. Set in World War 2 America as opposed to Britain, Roth explores the chilling consequences of a fascinating “what if”. What if the right-wing, isolationist and anti-Semitic aviation hero Charles A. Lindburgh had defeated Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 US presidential election?

The plot against America is narrated from the perspective of a young Philip Roth and his family. In it he explores the virulent anti-Semitism of 1940's America.

President Lindburgh proceeds to lead America on the path towards fascism, signing treaties with both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan promising that the US will stay out of their expansionist wars. He also enacts new laws to take Jewish youth from the east coast cities of the US to the rural Midwest and South to “Americanise” them.

Whilst there is no evidence that Lindburgh ever planned to run as president, he was a staunch isolationist and felt that “undesirable elements” of the US population were pushing America towards war.

The plot against America received rave reviews with the Library Journal stating that “Roth's take on alternative history is crafted with chilling plausibility” and that it is “[a] novel of fear and fearful possibility ...”


Roth, Philip. The plot against America, Sydney: Random House Australia, 2004.

References:





 Books in Print Professional Reviews
New York Times Review
Goodreads Reader Reviews

Weapons of Choice

Weapons of choice is Australian author, John Birmingham's debut novel. It is the first book in his Axis of time trilogy. It is a curious combination of alternative history and science fiction.

The basic premise is that a technologically advanced naval fleet in 2021 is transported back in time to 1942, via a wormhole, into the American fleet on its way to the World War 2 Battle of Midway in the Pacific theatre.

In this novel Birmingham ignores the Grandfather paradox in backwards time travel. In this paradox what would happen if someone travelled back in time and killed his grandfather before his father was born? He wouldn't have been born of course.

That aside, in Weapons of choice Birmingham explores the far-reaching consequences of modern computerised weapons travelling back to the time of World War 2.

Birmingham, John. Weapons of choice: World War 2.1, Sydney: Macmillan, 2004.

Axis of time trilogy

• Weapons of choice (2004)
  
• Designated targets (2005)
  
• Final impact (2007) 

References:

Books in Print Professional reviews 
Literary Travesty review 
Axis of time Wiki 
Goodreads Reader Reviews