Now an Amazon Original series Winner of the Hugo Award "The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick's career"-- New York Times It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war--and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick ...
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Now an Amazon Original series Winner of the Hugo Award "The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick's career"-- New York Times It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war--and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. An ex-library book and may have standard library stamps and/or stickers. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.
As many genre fans know, this is one of the all-time best. Glad to again own a copy.
William V
Jun 23, 2011
disappointed
I must have not remembered enough of the story from my reading this more than 40 years ago. I was glad to re-enter Dick's im-
aginary universe and it was interesting but in the felt a little flat.
Emrys
Jun 21, 2009
A Thoughtful Counterfactual
The eponymous man is an author who has written an enormously popular book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which attempts to answer the question, what would have happened if the Allies had won World War II? - a question that can only be answered by the imagination, because in this alternate reality, the Axis won. America is divided into occupational zones controlled by Japanese and German forces, anti-semitic sentiment is rampant, and the I Ching is consulted by people everywhere as a matter of course.
The story takes its time getting off the ground. Initially, it feels like the interconnected plots are just an excuse for Dick to depict his alternate reality, but it gradually becomes apparent that there really is a point to them. There's no hook at the beginning, nothing to grab the reader's interest, but persevering is worth it. This is a good book, and well-written. The style bears little resemblance to that of Dick's characteristic sci-fi novels; in fact, it's obvious that he consciously altered his style for the purpose of writing this book, transformed it into the sort of broken English riddled with sentence fragments that might have become the norm under Japanese and German influence. The change is evident, but, with few exceptions, not overdone to the point where it might impede the reader's understanding. From that, as well as the terminology, history, and cultural references, it's apparent that Dick put a great deal of thought and effort into this novel.
