finished The Man in the High Castle (book). that was...not good.
I didn't like a single one of these characters and the characters I do like from the show aren't in it. neither, it seems, has it a plot...I don't understand the motives of any of these people, the way he writes women is...bad...why does frank try to go after childan? the story implies it's because he's a jew and that's just what they do. WHY is this (in-universe) book so dangerous? to everyone else it's just a work of fiction. it doesn't "say there's a way out," it just gives an alternate alternate history. what is the point of the alternate account? is this really what dick was expecting of the future, or is that somehow the point, that even the "real" world isn't actually the "real world"? I guess we were supposed to believe the oracle was correct and not just a projection of the characters this whole time?
no one's resisting either of these governments, so why does it matter if there's another way? the only person harmed by the governments is frank, and even he gets out of it, everyone else vaguely supports it and other than passing comments we hear about offscreen like the ethnic cleansing of africa these seem like perfectly fine countries with perfectly docile citizens. Tagomi is the only one(?) who can travel between worlds (which, by the way, he finds most dissatisfactory) and this is seemingly unrelated to Abendsen, although maybe it's just being connected to the Dao. everyone spends a lot of time talking or introspecting and very little time doing anything.
I liked the part where Childan openly embraced white pride. That was pretty satisfying. Moderately impressive use of slurs. Odd passing mentions of things like slavery and space travel but not really connected to anything.
nothing happened! what is this oracle nonsense! is she literally a demon? even "the man in the high castle" is not even in the high castle, nor does he seem to actually be an important character in the book.
I want to know what kind of person reads this book and actually successfully pitches 4 seasons of an adaptation to Amazon for a book I can only assume none of them read because if they had done they'd have laughed him out of the office for wanting to adapt such an action-orientated-less book to anything longer than a bra commercial, and to shake his hand for pulling it off by completely ignoring basically the entirety of the source material.
My beautiful Kido-tai and John Smith weren't even in it. Nor was Trudy, the crown prince, the Yakuza, the blonde Lebensborn babe, Heusmann, or any of the Resistance, of which there appears to be none. Yeah yeah there's the possibility of nuclear war but this is the 60s baby that's happening in the real world. Frank never interacts with Juliana once. Frank is a swindler jewellery maker pretty much just because he's Jewish and fulfilling some sort of racial drive, not a very creative motive; Juliana is infantilized and a psychotic golddigger, psychopathic, and spends a not-insignificant amount of time considering how much her bra covers her nipples including after she's just had a mental breakdown and killed a man.
a major theme of this book seems to be the idea that fate is something that happens to you as opposed to anything you make happen (wasn't that some quote in the first season? "destiny is something you make yourself" or something?) and consequently none of the characters do anything but tell fortunes.
I get the weird vibe that Abendsen's house of unnamed party guests in the desert that just happens to be going on night in and night out waiting for her like NPCs is like, Limbo
the character I like least in the show, Childan, is the character I like best in the book because he's the only one who has any sort of psychic change. I have to wonder who's side Dick is on sometimes because like I said it was very satisfying to have Childan embrace volkishness, maybe he's our guy all along
