The Shifting Realities of PK Dick

Part Three. Works Related to The Man in the High Castle and Its Proposed Sequel

Readers should consult the "Introduction" to this volume for a discussion of the Dick novel The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel the following year.

"Naziism and the High Castle" was first published in the science-fiction fanzine Niekas in September 1964. It was written in response to a politically charged review of High Castle in an earlier issue of Niekas by fellow SF writer (and friend) Poul Anderson. It was reprinted in the Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter, No. 14 (June 1987). As the essay raises a number of unusually important factual issues, it is essential to note that the assertion by Dick that "many" Jewish refugees who lived, during World War Two, under Japanese rule in the Far East "set up Hitler organizations" and performed the Nazi salute is utterly unsubstantiated by the numerous scholarly studies that I have consulted. Dick's own source for this assertion is unknown.

Both the "Biographical Material on Hawthorne Abendsen" (1974) and the two chapters (1964) of the proposed sequel to High Castle are published here for the first time. The quality of the two chapters is remarkable; see the "Introduction" for a discussion of the factors that led Dick to abandon this project. One historical clarification is in order: In the first chapter, reference is made to the suicide of Field Marshal Rommel by shooting. In fact, he poisoned himself. It should also be noted that an audiotape cassette released as PKDS Newsletter, Nos. 9-10 (January 1986) includes, as one of its sides, notes dictated by Dick (whose arm was in a splint due to a shoulder injury, which precluded him from his usual typing) on this proposed novel. The tape describes one scene in which Hawthorne Abendsen is brutally interrogated by the Nazis as to the truth of the Nebenwelt (or alternate universe) in which the Allies, not the Nazis, were triumphant. But Abendsen cannot provide them with the truth -- he does not know. The secret is ever elusive.