Amazon's "The Man In The High Castle"...Sort Of Like "Little House On The Prairie"

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Let me explain.

For those of you who have seen both the 1970s TV series Little House on the Prairie and Amazon's TV series The Man in the High Castle, you're probably thinking there's absolutely nothing these two productions could possibly have in common.

There was at least one thing they had in common--they're both based on books.

I remember back in elementary school, so that would be the mid-1970s, a new television series was about to begin. I was excited about it because during that time our teacher was reading to us Laura Engles Wilder's series. I couldn't wait to see all those stories we'd heard read to us portrayed on the small screen. But because I was so young, I didn't realize that, though the characters were the same, the stories would be different. I mean, if they followed the books, there's be no way the show could continue for more than one season.

The show came on. I watched a few episodes then became disinterested. I didn't continue to watch it because it wasn't like the book.

Fast-forward several decades. Last year I read Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. It's a great work of fiction. The premise is genius--America in the 1950s where Japan and Germany won WWII and how things might have been.

I found out that Amazon was making the story into a series and so I watched it. Just like Little House on the Prairie, some of the characters were the same, but the new TV series expands on the Philip Dick's original source material, expands on it a lot.

I hope I've matured in the years since elementary school. At least, I think I have. This time I didn't let the fact that so much was different from book to series ruin the show for me. And even though both shows were similar to me in one way, there were many, many ways in which they differed.

Namely, Ms. Wilder didn't use so many swear words to get her point across...

* Photo used without permission from: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=PV_ShortUrl?_encoding=UTF8&node=2676882011

Philip K. Dick's "The Man In The High Castle"...A Book Review

In February I attended a literary symposium and one of the first panels of the day and the first panel on which I was a part was on the writings of Philip K. Dick. On the panel with me were several Hugo Award winners (well, one had won a Hugo last year and another won his just last week...), a filmmaker and other noted guests.

I was out of my league, I knew it, but I ended up having a great time. I had read several Philip K. Dick novels. It became clear that I had a lot more to read. In the Dealer Room a gentleman was selling paperback and hardcover novels and it was from him I bought The Man in the High Castle. 

If I were to give an elevator pitch of the book it would go like this: imagine the United States if Hitler's Germany and Japan won WWII. What would life be like for those living in the states?

The book answers this question very effectively. Americans carry on with their lives, but if you're Jewish, you want to stay clear of the the east coast and especially the southern states where German influence and rule is in full swing. Japan rules the west coast states and those people living there must deal with Japanese customs.

What I loved about this book is how it focused on very few characters. As the stories unfold and intertwine, an interesting subplot develops. A man living in Cheyenne, Wyoming wrote a book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which describes a reality in which America and Britain won WWII. The book fascinates and aggravates almost everyone. We eventually get to meet the author as one of the characters interacts with him, though the result of their meeting doesn't answer many questions or tie up any loose ends. In fact, the ending is somewhat ambiguous. I was left feeling that the lives of these characters could fill several books.

This is a relatively short read, but I took my time because I didn't want to miss anything. I wanted to really enjoy it.

Since I attended that panel on the writings and importance Philip K. Dick had on the world of science fiction (and if you don't believe he did, check out his IMDb page: HERE and see how many stories you know that he wrote...), I've bought another Philip K. Dick novel that I'll be starting hopefully soon. I'm preparing my self so that if I'm ever asked to be part of another panel on this particular author, I'll be ready.

Proofreading...Oh, The Horror!

I feel I should begin this post by saying that I am a terrible speller and have been all my life. Okay, I'm a better speller than I used to be, and much better than when I was a toddler, but as an adult with an advanced degree in English, I'm not very good.

I think there's even a condition for the way I form words. I haven't done a lot of research into it. For me, I write or type the word and to me, it will look correct, even though sometimes it's not. The vowels give me the biggest headache. Thank goodness my wife is an excellent speller. Many a time I've asked her to help me with a word and 99% of the time she's right. When we both get it wrong, I open Google and use the search function as a Spellcheck.

And I rely too much on Spellcheck--way too much.

Since getting into this writing thing I'm doing, I've read a lot of books, both from established publishing organizations and from self-published authors. One of the biggest slams against self-published works is that they're full of errors, grammatical and otherwise. I've read many self-published books and yes, they have errors. I've also read some from established publishing houses and small press publishers and they have mistakes in those books, too.

So, on tonight's commute, I was reading a book written in 1962 and published by Berkley Medallion Books in arrangement with G.P. Putman's Sons. On page 212, middle of the page, I found an error. I'm not writing about this to sound superior. It's just that as I read books growing up, I never saw the errors. I've often wondered how all those books were published before the age of computers without any errors.

I suppose mistakes in books have been occurring as long as there have been books. This makes me feel a little better that in my own self-published book released last January, there's a few "bugs" I didn't catch. Of course, the more we do something, the better we get at it. That's the theory, anyway. My next project might have no problems at all.