The Man in the High Castle
- 259
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- Series 2015
- On screen
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Tähtivaeltaja Award
- 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
The strength of this novel is its premise and the unease it creates: a partitioned America under Japanese and German rule, seen through several separate lives, with a subversive novel inside the story that imagines the opposite outcome. The vision is frightening and at times fascinating, though some readers find stretches of it dull and feel the ending trails off instead of resolving. Best for readers who value ideas and atmosphere over a tidy plot.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Man in the High Castle is an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1962, which imagines a world in which the Axis powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the life of several characters living under Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as they rule a partitioned United States. The eponymous character is the mysterious author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a subversive alternative history of the war in which the Allied powers are victorious.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- SeriesThe Man in the High CastleIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.0 across 1,273 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 7.1 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.1 | 128 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 6.9 | 1.1K | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Man in the High Castle?
It has 259 pages — shorter than 84% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.1 and 7.5, closest to this book.
