eBook: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

My favourite novel was written by Philip K. Dick and first published in 1962. The Man in the High Castle won the 1962 Hugo award, the Oscars of science fiction, for best novel of the year.

The background of the story’s events is based upon what would happen if Germany and Japan had won the Second World War. They divide up the United States, with Germany east of the Rockies, Japan to the west. Through the eyes of a number of characters we see what happened to the world in this alternate reality 20 years after the war ended.

Below is my idea of what would make a good cover for the book. I designed the first version of it a few years ago, and it was done in response to a number of covers that said little about the content and tone of the book.

Using an alternate reality has become a staple of science fiction, good and bad, but Dick used it not for the “Oooo, what if…” factor, but to comment on the state of American society as he saw it then. And as such, the book may use a speculative element, but I’ve always thought it does not truly fall into the science fiction category. So when I see it being marketed to a science-fiction-only audience with imagery and design that excludes anyone outside that genre, I don’t think it’s doing the book’s potential readership a service to understand its value.

I drew upon the language of military maps that we’ve all seen in historical documentaries and I combined it with the Taoist symbol (yin and yang). The I Ching plays an important part in the characters understanding that the world should not have been the way it is. The symbol also shows the ‘dance’ America’s occupiers are locked in, and it roughly shows the border between their territories.

The world is in decay, hence the aging of the image.

Below is the back cover for my version. After that, we’ll look at some of the published covers over the years.

While Dick is better known for being a middle-aged man with a greying beard, this photo of him was on the back cover of the first edition of the book. I thought it good to show Dick as he was when he wrote it.

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