The novel from which this TV series is adapted is an old dystopic novel of 1962, entirely positioned in an alternative world in same year. But first of all let’s speak of the novel itself.

This book is an old book, in fact a classic, rather confidential at the time of its first publication and even when recently republished because of its theme, but it has been brought to new awareness in the public because Amazon has just decided to produce an adaptation of it for video streaming. Is it a good decision to bring it back to fame, because it will be fame this time? We’ll see right now why it should not have been kept more or less confidential for more than fifty years.

The genre is difficult because it is RETROSPECTIVE SCIENCE FICTION. Science fiction is supposed to imagine what the future will be or may be according to one or two parameters that are changed in our present in absolute or relative value. Of course you can cheat the way “Back to the Future” did at least three times, and we may regret it does not go on at least one more time, but things are what they are and life is a truck full of manure as we all know. Here the author imagines in 1961-62 what the world would have been if in 1945 Germany and Japan had won the war. It is the basic hypothesis so many people work in their minds or in bar and saloon discussions: what the world would be if… And there is no limit to these IF’s. As they say in Paris the Eiffel Tower could be put in a bottle if… and the same for the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building in New York if …, and for the >Washington Monument in Washington DC if … And after every presidential election in the world people imagine what it would be or would have been if the loser had won. Follow my eyes and read my lips.

But what is the main and basic interest of this book?

First the world is cut in two with Japan on one side and Germany on the other side. The Communists have disappeared due to a strict eradication of all Slavs by Germany. The racial problem has also disappeared by the elimination of all black people in the world and first of all in Africa by Germany. In the same way the holocaust of Jews was continued though here the Japanese refused to cooperate. Imagine the world without Black people even in Africa, with maybe a few survivors surviving since it would be their only function as absolute slaves to be used, and abused, by any one of a paler complexion including children and even babies. I regret the book does not expand on this subject as much as it does on Jews, and particularly the few Jews who managed to get out of the influence of Germany and be de facto protected by the Japanese.

But the most frightening part is that Germany is in the hands of the few people who were leading Germany in the war. In spite of the fact that Hitler is dead in 1961, it is his direct lieutenants and underlings that have taken over and are fighting for dominance, Goebbels first of all. The book is quite explicit on what happens in such a totalitarian state that is like a pot with a dozen spiders locked up in it who can only manipulate the crowds of people through the glass wall that protects them (the leaders only) and of course they have their legions outside that can eliminate all those who have to be eliminated for the dominating underling(s) to remain dominant, and at the same time these legions can go on some blood baths of their own for the fun of shedding and drinking the red stuff we call blood and they call a delicatessen though the Jews would consider it to be the soul of man, the divine part of man.

And yet the book is fascinating for other reasons. It explores the very contemplative and oracular culture of the Japanese who have some kind of portable oracle in two volumes they consult regularly to know the meaning of the present and try to cope with the future. It provides the believers with Hexagrams that are both sibylline and enlightening in the shape of Haikus of six or about six lines. But the inner psychology of these Japanese is explored in depth: contemplative, extremely civil and polite, courteous and maybe even servile, but never revealing their true feelings and avoiding expressing any emotion and sensation. Cold for sure and yet tremendously empathetic, but unexpressed and unaired empathy. It is this very quality that makes them resist the German Nazis because they are able to communicate with the deepest forces in the universe, what every geological element carries, atomic forces and the power of any design, the design of molecules, or human-created designs and there we have a tremendous surprise. Two people launch a jewelry production unit in San Francisco and the main worker of the two is a Jew running incognito under a false name and under the de facto protection of the Japanese, a little bit more at the end of the book. And it is this Jew who is the creative jeweler, the creative artist, the craftsman who is producing with his hands the world of tomorrow as the Japanese main character tells us over and over again.

That would symbolically tell us the German Nazis tried to eradicate the Jews because they represented the future and the Nazis represent the past. Simple, symbolical but is it really cathartic? There I cannot answer because anti-Semitism is slightly more complex than just a simile or a metaphor. It has to do with the fear that developed somewhere in the Middle East some 10,000 years ago in the vast confrontation of three cultures emerging from the ice age and trying to invent the future of the planet: The Turkic peoples, the Semitic peoples and the Indo-European (Sumerian) peoples. We are still living on that heritage, the heritage of an anthropological rivalry that became the differentiation of three linguistic families, and of three cultures with three religions, and what’s more the Semitic community got split in two along a social differentiation (exploiter and exploited) and a religious antagonism (Judaism and Islam). Christianity is the third religion branching out of Judaism and it is more or less assumed as part of the European, hence Nazi definition. The Christian religion is vastly absent from the book.

Of course in this book the Arabs and beyond them the Muslims are totally ignored and unconsidered, being replaced by the fourth human group that never had any role to play in the previous triad, the Buddhist and Confucian human family who are also from another linguistic family, isolating languages, here represented by the Japanese. That’s the main element that is absent from this book. Northern Africa, Egypt were essential at the end of the Second World War and still enormously influential in 1962, but yet the Arabs and Muslims are just not considered at all. That’s the shortcoming of the book in our modern times because since 1960-62 it is the community that has emerged most strongly from the initial triad and today the Asian isolating family is no longer represented by Japan but China. But of course this book did not aim at telling us its future which is our present, but only the present in 1961 if …

The last element I would like to show is that the book has no end, precisely because of what I have just said. It does not open on the future in 1961 so it cannot have any end. It is coming to several open-ended dead ends, open-ended because we can imagine what we like, but dead ends since it does not tell us anything about what may happen after 1961. That’s the doom of retrospective science fiction. It is dramatic, frightening but at the same time it leads to no vision of the future. It is some kind of castrated science fiction that cannot tell us anything about our real world, the world of the real readers of the book, particularly those who read it a long time after the writing time. And that’s where the video adaptation will be fascinating since it will have to be adapted for today’s and tomorrow’s publics. But we’ll have to wait for it to be available in the whole world to add a paragraph, in fact a few paragraphs, to this review.

Let the few who can access the video adaptation celebrate! God Bless the Child! (Review published on December 23, 2015)

Now let’s move to the TV series.

The TV Series, the Blessed Child I have just mentioned, whose first two seasons are only available so far, is an expanded vision and the expansion seems to be changing quite a few details, especially since television must be visually acceptable and it does not have to be logically or even concretely possible. The Man in the High Castle is apparently making disturbing films that describe the world the way it developed after the victory in WW2 against Germany and Japan and his “studio” is a big warehouse somewhere in the San Francisco area, at least till he decides to move on and to torch his film producing “high castle.” We are not told then where he decides to move to.

The second remark is that the TV series can easily jump from San Francisco and the Japanese Pacific states, to New York and the Greater Nazi Reich and to Berlin, the capital of this Greater Nazi Reich. To enable this, some characters have to be invented and the series becomes the story of these characters.

In San Francisco the central character is Juliana Crain who moves to the Neutral Zone, a buffer zone between the Japanese Pacific States and the Greater Nazi Reich, in fact Canon City, Colorado, after her sister is killed by the Japanese police, leaving her partner Frank Frink behind. She will come back and later she will move to New York as a refugee from the Pacific States where she is wanted by the Japanese. Frank Frink is also essential in San Francisco because of the role he plays little by little with the resistance against the Japanese. Frank is surrounded by several other characters and he is very complex since he is connected to the Japanese mafia who manages to liberate him and later his friend Ed McCarthy from the accusation of having shot the Japanese Crown Prince, though it was done by a Nazi agent. And on the Japanese side you have one more character (apart from the police and the general organizing the production of an atom bomb), the Trade Minister who is lost between the reality of these Japanese Pacific States, the recollection of his wife before this time (she is dead) and for him the alternative world of Kennedy’s USA in 1962 and the Cuban crisis with the Soviet missiles. He is able to navigate from one level to the other thanks to some kind of typical Zen meditation.

San Francisco then is divided between the Resistance, the Japanese and the Americans who try to survive and strive in this colonized situation, with the Neutral Zone behind and direct bus lines used by the Japanese to transport uranium from the Neutral Zone to San Francisco, unprotected and thus killing all the “American” passengers, which does not count for anything for the Japanese since they are “American” and this ruse enables the uranium to be transported unnoticed by the Germans.

New York is not in any way simpler since it has been totally expurgated like Europe of all the Semites, meaning the Jews, and of all the Blacks since all Africans have been sent back to Africa which is a big German colony, meaning a slave territory for all kinds of work. The main Nazi master of New York and the American Nazi states is a certain SS Obergruppenführer John Smith, and his family. We discover them from the inside because of Juliana Crain who is integrated into the Nazi elite by John Smith himself because he thinks she has some inner information about the resistance and the man in the high castle. The Nazi Reich practices total eugenics and John Smith’s son has the genetic disease John Smith’s brother had. He has to be eliminated. But John Smith is cheating with the system with the plan of sending his son on a patriotic trip in Latin America where he will be kidnapped by some “Semites” and thus will be able to remain alive.

But John Smith is trying to get another young person, Joe Blake, into the position of a special agent but it is difficult because when Joe Blake was sent to Canon City in Colorado he came across Juliana and another Nazi agent who had the order to get the film she was transporting and kill her. Joe Blake saves her and the result is the death of the Nazi agent and the delivery of the film (in fact two because Joe Blake was also transporting one to enter in contact with the resistance) to the resistance represented locally by a black man, Lem Washington. And after that “encounter” entirely based on unshared secrets they go their separate ways though the next mission of Joe Blake will take him to San Francisco to recuperate another film and he will escape the Japanese police thanks to Juliana who manages him to be taken on a boat to Mexico, and he will escape the resistance thanks to a Nazi bribe of the resistance people on the boat who are transporting him to Mexico, but the bribe delivered by air is poisoned and the black people on the boat will all die, both as criminals and as black people, hence duly eliminated from the surface of the earth. The Nazis seem to be waiting for the death of Hitler to seize power, or rather to start fighting to seize power. Himmler started too early so he is killed by Smith. But Hitler does die and the power chase starts.

Berlin is of course the heart of the Nazi Reich and we discover it by following Joe Blake there. He is summoned to Berlin by his father, the main minister of the Reich, and he discovers little by little who he is. Not only the son of his mother who eloped to New York with him, but the genetically selected son of both his parents who could have been raised in a special institution to produce the next generation of SS fighters if his mother had not escaped away from Berlin, probably though not entirely clear with the assent of the father who was already an important character in the Nazi regime. He thus discovers his birth place and early infancy institution (closed by then in 1962) with his father, who he hates. But his father puts a young woman his age and coming from the same selective program as him, and the chemistry of hormones and common experience brings them together and though at first he wants to go back to New York where he has a life partner and a son, he decides against his father’s will, after he had been appointed acting Chancellor waiting for the official announcement of Hitler’s death, to stay and be sworn into the SS. He thus endorses the role he was playing in one of the films he has actually viewed and delivered to the Nazis: in this film he is an SS officer who shot the surviving resisting people after San Francisco is flattened by an atom bomb, and among those he shot there was Frank and several other people we have met.

In our present times of tension between the USA and Asia (not only North Korea but the whole of Asia, including Russia of course) the debate about the use of nuclear weapons to conquer the half of America either the Japanese or the Nazis have or do not have is particularly welcome. In the film the Germans already have atom bombs, but the Japanese have to build one and they received the blue print of such a device from a German high-ranking officer who betrayed the Nazi Reich, in the name of equilibrium, peace and the deterring power of nuclear weapons, under a fake British identity and then a fake Japanese diplomatic visa. He was captured in New York by John Smith. The series is slightly light on the question of the use of nuclear weapons that have not been used yet in the dystopic world, though the Japanese Trade Minister in his “trip” to our real world in 1962 discovers about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They deal with nuclear warfare in the dystopic world as a matter of need: strike first and conquer the Pacific States, first meaning before the Japanese have a nuclear weapon of their own. Of course the real world of 1962 and the possible use of nuclear weapons against Cuba is set in parallel with the dystopic world. There is a peace movement in the USA against the use of nuclear weapons in Kennedy’s time, but there is no peace movement in the dystopic world, just a resistance that is not really concerned by the use of nuclear weapons and on the Nazi side the inner conflict to seize power after Hitler’s death.

We have to think twice about this debate. Only terroristic and dictatorial regimes can actually use nuclear weapons in the TV series, and yet it is the USA who used such weapons twice in our real history. True enough Truman had not been elected President but only Vice-President under Roosevelt. But will a fully elected President of the USA use nuclear weapons against a country that has managed to develop such nuclear weapons and the ICBM necessary to deliver them who knows where? Will a fully elected President of the USA take the risk of a nuclear war just because one little country is challenging his narcissistic authority? I will not answer these questions. Only history will answer them though it is obvious for anyone who is not a narcissistic person that negotiating is always, absolutely always better than using force: think of Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria to wonder what two wars started to answer a foolish terrorist attack from Al Qaeda have led to. Certainly not a viable and sustainable democratic and peaceful situation and the coming decade or even decades will not solve the “problem” and bring things back to “normal.”

In short then a visionary novel turned into a deeply reflexive series that we should all watch to just ponder on the question of the use of force and forceful ideologies to conquer the world rather than the use of negotiations to develop and improve the same world.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

I'll give "The Man in the High Castle" a four-star rating because three-and-a-half stars isn't an option, and because overall, the series is worth watching for its provocative ideas--which seem to me to be perfectly timed for our current political climate.

One of my creative writing professors once asked those of us in her workshop whether we prefer "idea books" or "character books," the implication being that most stories prioritize one of these elements over the other. A lot of science fiction and fantasy puts characters into play to explore how human beings will act and react in unfamiliar settings, ultimately positing ethical and moral questions and offering readers challenging objective views of who we are. I probably side a bit more toward "idea books," and this story falls clearly into that category and excels in that space (for a while).

Idea-wise some of the best-explored questions and theoretical answers that "The Man in the High Castle" gives us relate to a lot of "what ifs" that many of us have considered and others that most of us probably never have considered. Since World War II, every generation of Americans has been taught that the Nazi genocide was the greatest known atrocity in the history of humankind, and many students of history have been asked and wondered on their own "what if the Nazis had won World War II?" This story gives us a version of that reality that doesn't always take the easy way out: it lends at least a little bit of human dimension and moral ambiguity to Nazi officers and especially Japanese ones, which is a relief given an obvious temptation to present these people as soulless, merciless monsters. Yet despite adding complications to these people's characters, the Nazi characters still approach comic book supervillainry. That's excusable and probably inevitable to an extent given the history. More revealing and interesting explorations involve the day-to-day life of an occupied United States. I'm certain others have thought much more about this than I have, but the show embarrassed me as it made me realize that I've never really thought about the day-to-day lives of people whose countries have been occupied by invading forces, such as India during its British occupation. Seeing American people subjugated by overseers in this way is for me the greatest strength of this show. While I am a fan of George Orwell's prescient novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, its greatest weakness is nuance, and in the novel daily life feels so forcefully orchestrated by the authorities that people aren't free to live out minor human dramas, which after acclimating to a new world order, most people are going to end up doing. This story focuses on both the big questions and the smaller dramas--concerns for the protagonists' families, down to a worrying mother, etc.--which don't always seem like they're there simply to move the plot along. This in turn makes the overall drama more compelling, and the "what if" questions more resonant because we can see how the answers to those questions affect real life. The specific idea that works best for me in the series is the relationships among occupiers and those whose freedoms have been compromised.

"The Man in the High Castle" is anchored by human relationships, and they are to the story's credit complex in ways that sometimes defy expectations, which is a better representation of reality. The couple at the heart of the story, for example, are shown to love one another believably, but also believably, this doesn't mean that either sacrifices everything he or she believes in to save the other one. Rather, they have romantic feelings for others, they honor other friendships that may compromise their personal safety and thus hurt the other one, etc. In that sense, this series is a character-driven story; however, the characters for the most part, as in all "idea stories," tend to follow the plot, taking actions that will lead to answers and more questions that the story demands. Despite some unexpectedly complex relationships as described above, the characters many, many times throughout the series make decisions that almost any thinking person would not make, essentially put into "checkmate" situations, and getting out of them by, for example, potentially condemning their loved ones to torture and death--but making these decisions with the seeming confidence of superheroes who are confident they'll be able to find a way to save them despite their decisions. One of the primary characters makes such a decision early in the series and in doing so makes the ultimate sacrifice--which is fulfilled, and which set very high stakes for the characters from the beginning...but these consequences aren't shown consistently after this early tragedy, and so the story starts feeling a bit comic book-y after a while.

Speaking of which, a couple of characters are decided caricatures of human beings, and I'm torn about how I feel about this decision. The characters to whom we are closest are for the most part nuanced, complex people who suffer endlessly and whose heavy emotions are palpable. They're well realized, which isn't always a given in science fiction/fantasy genre stories. But then a couple of villains, particularly a bounty hunter who has a major supporting role through the middle of the first season, may as well be androids who are sent to kill, as they show none of the complicated ethical concerns that most of the other characters do...and that bounty hunter. I can't decide whether the actor made the choices or whether he was directed to act the way he does in the series, but his appearance is jarring, as if a Batman villain were dropped into the middle of a serious human drama. He really threw the tone of the show off for me, and the reason I'm torn about the effect of this is that some of this show feels real enough to warrant the insertion of a little over-the-top preposterousness to comfort viewers and remind them not to become totally paranoid as a result of watching this series.

Trying not to include spoilers here isn't easy, but I have to note (semi-spoiler) that the show's abrupt shift at the tail end of the series is a primary reason (along with pacing...some of it really dragged for me) for lowering the rating I would give it otherwise. I really don't mind that the show questions the nature of reality; in fact, I'd welcome more of it to lend greater dimension to the questions being explored by the slow-burning plot. But the way this element is suddenly introduced, and particularly where it's placed, right at the end of the story, brought up a great deal of questions whose answers aren't even touched on. These questions don't work for me as an end-of-season cliffhanger because they are all new and never were presented as an aspect of this alternate reality before the end. It feels like one of those movies that throws in a plot twist at the end in order to be "clever," which is usually self-defeating when the twist isn't cleverly tied to the story that has been told. Obvious examples of these types of twists would be the films "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others," as well as "Mulholland Drive." These twists work because they make you question what you've been watching, and then you can rewatch with a sense of marvel as you see the story play out in an entirely different way. Watching "The Man in the High Castle" over from the beginning, the story wouldn't be shifted or illuminated by the way the plot was shifted at the end. Doing so just makes the plot even more confusing and makes us ask if we should have invested at all in the story as (huge spoilers on the way--sorry; I tried to avoid the inevitable!) it may not be real at all. Hitler's appearance is interesting since this monster of a man is so iconic to us, but we've been told throughout the season that he is dying of Parkinson's disease, and he shows no sign of the disease when we see him. He's focused and still and meditative. From what I've read about the original story, and presumably what's to come in the series, despite Hitler being shown as living in a castle on top of a mountain, he is not the Man in the High Castle, as we'd suspect given that he seems to be the holder of the alternate realities. And since he does seem to be the orchestrator of these things in the end of this season, I couldn't help being left with some inevitable resentment that the series essentially makes Hitler a superhero/supervillain in this world, whose powers are unexplained but implied to be omniscient and omnipotent--in other words, godlike. Hitler-as-God is just a ride I can't get on, no matter how much I like challenging myself. I have a great deal more empathy for the Japanese Trade Minister, as he's made out to be perhaps the most ethically admirable character in the show, but his ending, too, failed for me. What's the merit of showing him waking up in our reality of post-war San Francisco? Are we to think he may have imagined everything that came before--wondering while meditating what life would be like had Japan and Germany won the war? There's no indication. He seems surprised at first when he opens his eyes, as one might when coming out of a dream, but as with dreaming life, he seems to be relieved and adapt immediately to the new reality around him. So has he been there the whole time? I don't know and I hate to write this because of the hours I spent watching the series, but I don't really care that much because the twist isn't tied at all to the earlier plot in any way I can discern.

The show also has some details that, like the bounty hunter, just seem like overkill. Everything--everything!--in the Greater Nazi Empire is branded with swastikas. Even the dials on the telephones. The way the camera closes in on this is just too self-conscious for me, and it contributes to a comic book-style "evildoer" perspective that feels out of keeping with the ways most of the characters are made out to be complex and unpredictable. It's serious overkill for me. To the complete contrary, all the Nazis seem (and this is in conflict with history, so this is probably a personal issue with accepting people could be this collectively evil) to be super-demonic, ready to kill--and especially preying upon children anytime it's convenient to do so--which is a stark contrast to the Japanese authorities who seem as ruthless in the beginning but slowly become more and more human. The primary Nazi officer never feels more than one note, even when the tables are turned on him and his son is put in imminent danger. That feels like a plot device more than something that will change his character; and again, with Hitler essentially coming out as the all-knowing, all-powerful superhero at the end of the season, this absolute and superficial depiction is too stark a contrast with the complexities of other primary characters.

Having been compelled to read about the book after watching this season, I know that some of these issues will be resolved as the series progresses, but given the very slow plotting and the abrupt tonal and plot shifts a the end, I feel like the series writers would have better served their storytelling obligations by forgoing their own fantasies about a long-lived series and instead compressing some of the plot to make the start and the finish more cohesive. Just ten minutes less of characters' brooding and moping in the dark per episode, and the twist could have been moved up two episodes and had a chance to play out a bit before ending on a different, or the same but more understandable and story-serving, note.

Great shows like "Game of Thrones" and "The Sopranos" maintain a consistent tone and make great sacrifices throughout, not sparing primary characters and never showing the writer's hand as the story is being spelled out for viewers. One character gets away at the end of the series who really, in my opinion, deserved (given the story's overall sense of ethics) to face the consequences of his actions, because he seems to be a pretty good guy despite having been a murderer in service to the Nazis, and although I came to accept him as an "overall good guy," I felt no relief when he escaped. Given that he was a multi-dimensional character who got involved with the wrong side, it would have been painful but felt right to see him sacrificed as a result. It would have given me greater investment in his romantic interest's character, as well, had she not helped him escape. But I can accept that the source material told this story this way, and therefore the show was faithful to it.

At the same time, while I know that "The Man in the High Castle" has a novel to which it must be relatively faithful, the overall direction just feels too disparate and distracted in some ways that could have been improved. Truly atrocious and shocking events occur early on in the series, but then all the heroes and heroines who show any ounce of humanity are spared as the season progresses. The film reels present a really compelling "what if" scenario, but with only two, and both in stark contrast to one another and then an "AHA!" revelation that Adolf Hitler himself is the keeper of the movies doesn't add up to anything at all as far as I can discern, and therefore isn't an effective season-ender. I think the writers and director could have made different choices with the source material to make the season more coherent and thought provoking.

In the end, my four-star rating is based on the story's overall big-picture thinking, which is provocative in 2015, when the U.S. is engaging in a war of world views with people across the globe, and when presidential candidates are garnering ever-greater support from the public as they amp up hateful, sometimes unabashedly racist and violence-promoting rhetoric that feels to me dangerously close to that of Hitler, in a way I never thought could come to pass in this country. Exploring the outcomes of a world in which eugenics and military force rule is something we need in the world right now. On a storytelling level, I would give the show three stars because of tonal incongruities and a plot twist that not only feels forced into the season but which also simply isn't explained and doesn't explain any of the events that preceded it--in my mind, the primary successful function of any plot twist.

By Laura B.

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
-Rene Descartes

"The Man in the High Castle" is a great vehicle for pumping more bogus holocaust propaganda down your throat. At about 15 minutes in, a beautiful woman commiserates with her true love about the unfortunate fact that he is one quarter Jewish, and the danger that poses if they should have children together. Now, I'm a fan of Philip K Dick but I just can't take anymore of that nonsense. If you haven't gotten enough brainwashing about gas chambers, deliberate extermination, and 6,000,000 murdered by now then you must have been living under a rock your whole life. Never mind that there isn't one piece of verifiable evidence to support these propositions. Never mind that the gas chambers have been proven to be phony. Never mind that the Nazis who confessed to gassings were forced to do so through torture. Never mind that the red cross visited the concentration camps and found no evidence of deliberate extermination. Never mind that deadly typhus epidemics were the actual cause of the horrific photos that were taken by the allies at the end of the war. None of that matters, because the masses, the sheeple, don't care about facts or logic. THEY BLINDLY FOLLOW AUTHORITY FIGURES. But it wasn't always that way. Here's some food for thought..

"To know what you know, and to know what you do not know. That is true knowledge."
-Confucius

Formal/Classical Logic was invented by Aristotle in ancient Greece (circa 350 B.C.). It is a remarkably versatile and effective system of "rules for reasoning" that anyone can use to good effect. Devised as a systematic method of evaluating evidence and language arguments to (1) insure correct reasoning within the limitations of the existing evidence, and (2) effectively reveal erroneous or deceptive reasoning, it was soon to govern and define the measured thought of the leading rulers and intellectuals of the ancient world. Alexander the Great was only the first of a very long line of adherents of formal logic that would dramatically alter the course of history. To this very day, utilized in virtually every field that requires accurate and objective reasoning from archaeology, astronomy and medicine, to law, politics and war, more so than any other intellectual tool, formal logic has been responsible for laying the foundations of our civilization. Curiously, formal logic contains one common historical thread that has always been true. Niether the ancient Greeks, nor the Romans, nor the old antbellum American South ever considered it wise to teach formal/classical logic to common slaves, for obvious reasons. The teaching of Classical logic was removed from the U.S. public school system over 150 years ago, and has been systematically suppressed by our media for exactly the same reasons ("The Underground History of American Education" by John Gatto, his "Ultimate History Lesson" on YouTube, "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers, "The Prussian School System", and "Operant Conditioning", all online). If you doubt this just ask some average U.S. high school graduates sometime to tell you the difference between a "formal" and an "informal" logical fallacy; or, how to determine if an argument is both "valid" and "sound" (i.e., very basic and essential knowledge of formal logic). You'll find that they have no idea. The vast majority couldn't even tell you the difference between "deductive" and "inductive" reasoning. As you will soon see, this is no accident.

The following is a concise and effective method of using formal logic and is the essence of that ancient system of reasoning (adapted from a definition given in Howard Kahane' s book "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric", 1976).

"All instruction given or received by way of argument proceeds from pre-existent knowledge."
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics

"We ought in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts: nothing, therefore, should matter except the proof of those facts."
-Aristotle, Rhetoric

Cogent (logical) reasoning, reasoning designed to strongly appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions, should meet 3 conditions:
1. It must be derived from premises that "you know" are true. (These are true propositions that are either; (a) "self-evident"; (b) verified by your own personal direct experience; or (c) well supported by solid verifiable evidence. There is no fourth way to "know" that a premise is true.).
2. It should contain all of the known relevant evidence. (The suppression, or improbable absence, of relevant evidence is a good indication of deception. Relevant evidence is any evidence that would tend to make an argument more likely or less likely to be true.)
3. It should be properly structured, so that it comes to a conclusion which logically follows from the premises. (In the case of valid deductive arguments this conclusion would "necessarily" follows from the premises. In the case of very strong inductive arguments it would follow "beyond a reasonable doubt". In both cases it would be free of contradiction and consistent with the facts.)

When an argument meets these conditions (ie. verifiably true premises, all relevant evidence, and properly structured) it is said to be sound or cogent, and very likely to be true. When an argument does not meet these conditions it is said to be fallacious (faulty/deceptive reasoning).

"Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four."
-George Orwell, 1984

"The province of Logic must be restricted to that portion of our knowledge which consists of inferences from truths previously known; whether those antecedent data be general propositions, or particular observations and perceptions. Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence. In so far as belief professes to be founded on proof, the office of Logic is to supply a test for ascertaining whether or not the belief is well grounded."
- John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic

"Aristotle devides all conclusions into logical and dialectical, in the manner described, and then into eristical. (3) Eristic is the method by which the form of the conclusion is correct, but the premises, the material from which it is drawn, are not true, but only appear to be true. Finally (4) sophistic is the method in which the form of the conclusion is false, although it seems correct. These three last properly belong to the art of Controversial Dialectic, as they have no objective truth in view, but only the appearance of it, and pay no regard to truth itself; that is to say, they aim at victory."
-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy

(Very helpful in analyzing the relationship between premises and conclusion is the following taken from the book "Logic and Rhetoric" [1968] by James Johnston. "The hypothesis most likely to prove right must do the following: 1. Include all known facts; 2. Not over-emphasize any part of the evidence at the expense of the rest; 3. Observe the laws of probability as established by previous investigation; 4. Avoid logical contradictions; 5. Stay as simple as possible without ignoring any part of the evidence. Hypotheses which violate any one of these requirements are Forced Hypotheses.")

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
-Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld at a press conference Febuary 12, 2002

Two years later Rumsfeld offers us a "fourth kind" of knowledge about which people who would one day like "free" systems of government to actually exist should be keenly interested.

"Febuary 4th, 2004
Subject: What you know
There are known knowns.
There are known unknowns.
There are unknown unknowns.
But there are also unkown knowns. That is to say, things that you think you know, that it turns out you did not."
-Donald Rumsfeld, from the Errol Morris documentary "Unkown Knowns"

Here's what Donald Rumsfeld won't say.
An effective understanding of classical logic is indispensable in the identification of "unknown knowns". That is why it has been suppressed.

"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance."
-George Bernard Shaw

Now, on to a bit of rhetoric with the informal logical fallacy:

"Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men."
-Plato

Professor Madsen Pirie most aptly defines a logical fallacy as anything one can say or do that breaks down or subverts reason. The ancient Greeks discovered over 200 different logical fallacies. Here are some commonly used "informal" logical fallacies taken from the book "The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric" by Sister Miriam Joseph Ph.D..(In his book "Logic For Lawyers" Ruggero Aldisert defines the formal logical fallacy as an "error in the logical form of an argument" and informal logical fallacies as those that "deal with the content and context of premises." When an argument meets the three conditions of cogent reasoning it does not contain any formal logical fallacies.)

"ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM
Argumentum ad hominem ( literally, an "argument to the man") fallacy confuses the point at issue with the people concerned. Attacks on the character and conduct of people and personal abuse or praise are substituted for reasoning on the point at issue. Argumentum ad hominem seeks to persuade by unsound ethos. In rhetoric ethos means establishing the speaker or writer as one worthy of making an argument."

"ARGUMENTUM AD POPULUM
The argumentum ad populum fallacy arises from substituting an appeal to the passions and prejudices of the people for logical reasoning on the point at issue..."

"ARGUMENTUM AD MISERICORDIAM
The argumentum ad misericordiam (literally, an "argument to pity") fallacy replaces reason with a plea for sympathy."

"ARGUMENTUM AD BACULUM
Argumentum ad baculum is the appeal to the "big stick." The issue is ignored in an attempt to inspire fear of the consequences of adopting a proposed opinion or program, or of allowing a movement branded as dangerous to gain strength. The threat of social ostracism or loss of position might be used to deter a person from exposing fraud..."

"ARGUMENTUM AD IGNORANTIAM
Argumentum ad ignorantiam is the use of an argument that sounds convincing to others because they are ignorant of the weaknesses of the argument and of the facts that stand against it."

ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM
Argumentum ad verecundiam is an appeal to the prestige or respect in which a proponent of an argument is held as a guarantee of the truth of the argument. This is unwarranted when reasoning about an issue is required and only the authority of its upholders or opponents is given consideration. It is perfectly legitimate to supplement reasoning with authority (Argumentum ad auctoritatem ), but it is fallacious to substitute authority for reasoning in matters capable of being understood by reason."

SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE
"The fallacy of suppressed evidence is committed when an arguer ignores evidence that would tend to undermine the premises of an otherwise good argument, causing it to be unsound or uncogent. Suppressed evidence is a fallacy of presumption and is closely related to begging the question. As such, it's occurrence does not affect the relationship between premises and conclusion but rather the alleged truth of premises. The fallacy consists in passing off what are at best half-truths as if they were whole truths, thus making what is actually a defective argument appear to be good. The fallacy is especially common among arguers who have a vested interest in the situation to which the argument pertains."
-Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic (1985)

A very helpful tool in understanding effective rhetoric is Aristotle's three primary pillars of persuasion; (1) Ethos (authority), (2) Pathos (emotion), and (3) Logos (logic). To believe an argument that is supported by Ethos alone is to be manipulated by authority. To believe an argument that it is supported by Pathos alone is to be manipulated through emotion. Aristotle advises rather, that we take great pains to avoid being manipulated, and allow ourselves to be only truly persuaded by logos (i.e., logical arguments that are correctly reasoned and well supported by evidence).

CONCLUSION
Therefore, when testing "any" argument one should ask if the three conditions of cogent reasoning have been met and if logical fallacies have been used.

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; The real a tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
-Plato

9/11:
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
9-11 Missing Links
Dr Alan Sabrosky, former Director of Studies at the US Army War College

The Holocaust:
Bishop Richard Williamson
David McCalden
David Cole
Mark Weber
Germar Rudolf
Ernst Zundel [...]
Sylvia Stolz

Cancer:
Linus Pauling
G. Edward Griffin
Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez

AIDS and HIV:
Dr Kary Mullis (winner of the Nobel Prize)
Dr Robert Willner (author of "Deadly Deception the Proof that Sex and HIV Absolutely do not Cause AIDS")
Dr Peter Duesberg (author of "Inventing the AIDS Virus")

JFK assassination:
Jim Garrison
Michael Collins Piper
Benjamin Freedman

Sandy Hook shootings:
Wolfgang Halbig

The Moon Landing:
Bill Kaysing
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon" by Bart Sibrel

All can be found on youtube

From TheGamingGang.com:

This past Friday subscribers to both Netflix and Amazon Prime had a bit of a dilemma on their hands. Netflix launched the highly anticipated Jessica Jones while Amazon unleashed the equally hype worthy The Man in the High Castle so viewers needed to decide which to binge watch first. I chose the Amazon offering and you can look forward to the Netflix series review shortly.

The Man in the High Castle is loosely based on the classic Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. It’s an alternate history tale in which the Allies lost WWII and the United States has been partitioned between the two main Axis adversaries: Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Germany controls the Midwest and everything east while Japan rules over the west coast. A lawless demilitarized zone, known in the novel as the Rocky Mountain States and in the series as simply the Neutral Zone, provides a buffer between the two conquerors as both have descended into a Cold War of sorts.

The Man in the High Castle 1 (Amazon Studios)Fans of the source material may be a touch disappointed in how the book has been translated to the small screen. Truthfully, the novel within a novel aspect of the tale would probably be impossible to film let alone present in a way most viewers would comprehend with ease. There are lots of other changes from Dick’s original work but suffice to say the main drive and theme of the story remains intact even though much of the mysticism and the overtly SF trappings (no mention of a Nazi colony on Mars) have been dropped.

How would the United States look under the twin heels of fascism and imperialism? Who would trade the American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if it meant safety and security that carries the price of supplication under tyranny? Is history set in stone even if the participants and particulars aren’t the same? Amazon’s series not only asks these questions of itself but nearly demands the viewer to ask these questions of our current world around us.

The Man in the High Castle 2 (Amazon Studios)The Man in the High Castle succeeds best when dropping the viewer into this bleak dystopian landscape. From swastikas and Nazi propaganda plastered wherever you look in the American Reich to Japanese culture bleeding through into daily existence within the Pacific States, seemingly no detail was too small for the creators to include and major kudos must be given to producer Ridley Scott, showrunner Frank Spotnitz, and their team for bringing this setting to dark and gritty life. Even when the series drags, and it certainly does early on, there’s plenty to catch your eye and contemplate in nearly every scene.

The series mainly focuses on three primary characters: Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos), Frank Frink (Rupert Evans), and Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank). I like to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible – otherwise why would you want to watch in the first place – so I won’t delve into the character dynamics of the trio but suffice to say the actors do fine work with what they’re given. Dick was never known for his character development in the first place but thankfully our main protagonists aren’t completely one dimensional, although it’s Evans’ character that is the most multifaceted of the three.

The Man in the High Castle 3 (Amazon Studios)The Man in the High Castle is much stronger in its approach to the secondary characters, especially Obergruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell), Japanese Trade Minister Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), and Inspector Kido (Joel de la Fuente). The series isn’t populated by standard black hatted, mustache twirling villains either and viewers will surprise themselves rooting for characters they wouldn’t have imagined doing so at the onset. In the pilot, Sewell’s Obergruppenführer Smith comes across as the one-note Nazi baddie but by series end I think it’s his character that actually turns out to be the most complex of all and I give a big thumbs up to Sewell’s performance!

I did mention the series drags and sorry to say it’s early in the proceedings. Whereas the pilot draws you in and the second episode raises the stakes, the third and fourth episodes are no doubt the weakest. Here we find Julianna and Joe in the Neutral Zone and the show feels like it’s just spinning its wheels at this point. I found myself hoping for the action to switch back to the secondary characters in New York or San Francisco and that’s usually not a good thing. Luckily, the series recovers and by the time the fifth episode credits run you’ll be chomping at the bit to watch what comes next. The final four episodes are excellent and will certainly lead to some serious binge watching!

The Man in the High Castle 4 (Amazon Studios)I can’t say The Man in the High Castle is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Those who like to turn on the old tellie while turning their mind off or require a handful of fast paced action sequences every sixty minutes are bound to be disappointed. Understandably just the premise of the series itself will be difficult for some folks to stomach as well; we realize what horrors the Nazis and Imperial Japanese inflicted and it isn’t as if the series creators have softened these ideologies or waxed over the atrocities committed in order to make the setting more palatable. A world under the thumb of those monsters would undoubtedly be unspeakably bleak and grim.

I can certainly empathize why some people would take a complete pass on watching.

Yet I was engrossed by The Man in the High Castle on a lot of different levels. I’m a big history buff and I found the series to be a fascinating example of well thought out and believable world building. I also found myself wondering not only about the fictional setting of the story but the state of America today. Even days after watching the final episode, I’m still amazed by the number of questions I find bouncing around. I can’t say what questions might pop into anyone else’s head – I think that has more to do with the individual watching – but I can certainly say this is a series which demands the viewer to think.

And isn’t that what the best of science fiction is all about?

What would the world we live in be like if the Nazis and Japan had won World War II and had gone on to occupy the US, dividing the country between them? That's the surface question of THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, a book I read thirty years ago and now a TV series on Amazon Prime. It broke all of Amazon's records for viewings on the release date. Ten episodes have been released and I went through them over last week. It is really masterful, well acted, abundant believable detail, it's really created an alternate universe. On a deeper level, it's about what it feels to live in a tyranny, the choices people make, and ultimately how people understand what is real and what is fake. It seems to express that there are certain trends/tendencies that will inevitably happen in history no matter the details, and so there are events comparable to the Cold War and the Kennedy assassination, as though these kinds of events are deeply impressed into humanity's destiny, no matter an individual's choices. It presents a certain moral theme (that was more present and developed in the book), centering on Chinese mysticism - the I Ching. In many ways, one shares the depression and futility of life that all of the protagonists must endure living in a totalitarian state, in that sense, it's a bit morose. It's about a society in which no one can trust anyone else, not one's parents, not one's lover, not one's best friend. The result of such tyranny is the corrosion of trust among people. It's about moral compromises, honesty and what honesty really means as a value to most people. The editing and cutting is downright aggressive, but the result is, I think, pretty high art, and an extremely entertaining result. It is extremely fast-paced with cuts to another story line exactly at a moment of tension - and the viewer must keep three or four simultaneous plot lines in mind at all times. That becomes easier after watching a few episodes. The effort really is worth it. It's visually excellent, like cinema. Very highly recommended. I hate to shill for Amazon, but it's worth going through an Amazon Prime membership to see this series for no additional cost. And then, if you wish, cancel the free trial membership.

Though it's been 30 years since I read the book, I do have the impression that the book only describes life in the eastern US under the Nazis vaguely and I don't remember any action actually being set there. If I'm wrong, my apologies, but I just remember scenes that dealt with Japanese occupation in the Western States and the overall motif centered on Japanese culture as imported under occupation. However, this serialization spends just as much time dealing with the Nazis and much important action and many important characters are Nazi. If this observation is true, and my memory right, you can chalk it up to the incredible money-maker that Nazism is in our media. The AHC seems to stand for the Adolf Hitler Chanel, inasmuch as it's quite rare for any two to three hour block of time to go by on that network without a depiction of the Fuehrer or the mention of his name, same for H2 and the others. Nazism makes more money today than it ever did in the Thirties. Americans seem powerfully drawn to it. This series doesn't argue about that. It seems to exploit the interest, pandering to it, and creates plotlines that I think don't exist in the book. Maybe I'm being unfair. It all does work and it's not gratuitous. The plots and characters are all there for a purpose. It's just that I don't think Phillip K. Dick was as interested in them as the script writers here are,and this may surprise some viewers who also read the book.

The special effects depicting the main East-West Axis in Berlin, centering in the area around the Victory Column, with view of the Speer-designed, but never built Hall of the German People are simply fantastic. Down to the lantern standards that Speer also designed. I don't know how they pulled it off if they didn't actually film on location. It's perfect. It's not inconceivable that they actually put up the Nazi banners. I was in Berlin while Valkyrie was being filmed and I saw the Nazi banners in place on the Clay Headquarters building while the filming took place. But that's easier to hide from the ordinary people than the Victory Column in a turnabout in the Tiergarten.

Many thoughts will come to you - a better appreciation of the horror that was life under the Stassi in East Germany - the life of a Pole between 1946 and the downfall of Communism or anywhere in Eastern Europe controlled by the USSR - and what it felt like to be a German or Japanese civilian during Allied occupation. Maybe even what it felt like to be a recovering Rebel in the South during Reconstruction. It's all kind of sad and grim, but there are a few flickers of hope. And whether or not one is justified in hope for change against evil is a subject that this series touches lightly, maybe too lightly. Adolph Hitler enters series at the very end, in a scene that is sure to shock viewers - who then must ask themselves whether Hitler, in the end, is the Man in the High Castle? If he is that, as he appears to be, it's a fundamentally different idea than the book presented. There is no castle depicted in this series except his, somewhere in the Austrian Alps and he seems to live there in solitude. Oh, as a spoiler, he's not suffering from the final, mind-destroying effects of the third stage of syphilis. He's smart, cogent, and cagey as ever, and he steals the final scene.

This series is nothing short of amazing. For starters, the production value is outstanding. Every single scene, from the costuming to the set design, and the props to even the freaking lighting make me feel as though I have been transported to an alternate 1962 where The Axis won the Second World War. They could not have done a more fantastic job with the visual world building.

On all the other things that make television great, this series excelled. Acting, casting, cinematography, directing, score, and writing:
-Everyone they cast so perfectly acted their parts that the story I watched of these characters seemed entirely natural to me, and added to the immersion brought on by the production value. Some people seem to have issue with these two points, but personally I think those issues come from the concept of living in constant fear of an oppressive totalitarian state not translating to everyone watching, and as a result some people are missing part of the performances.
-Whoever is directing these episodes, and whoever is finding the shots for them to convey their vision have created material worthy of academic analysis. The imagery perfectly conveys what I'm suppose to be feeling while simultaneously telling me what the characters are as well, even if those two things are at odds; but more on that later.
-The score is impeccable, if I'm keeping it short. I barely even notice it unless I'm listening for it, and that is solely because at any time it has a job to do, it's doing it, and I am entirely wrapped up in the show.
-The writing is great. Admitantly, this is probably the weakest of all of these categories, and where I have seen some other people complaining. And yes, it's not always perfect and some people might find the show a tad bit slow. But there were maybe only two things in all 10 episodes that I found to be illogical for either the character or the story, but they weren't necessarily unbelievable. That said SPOILERS AHEAD, the ending is open ended, and this being a recent trend in movies I am sad to see it making its way into online-binge series. HOWEVER AND END OF SPOILERS, the series is good enough as a whole that I personally overlook this aspect because I so desperately want them to make a second season on par of quality with this one. And to address the people who perceive the show as slow, I personally think this is because shows these days tend to be paced too quickly. The show deliberately takes it's time to build tension, not only for each episode, but for specific story-lines, and the ten episode show as a whole. All major plot points have thoroughly engaging climaxes, with except perhaps SPOILERS AHEAD the overall ending, which isn't bad, but only adds more questions, END SPOILERS and the show merely takes it's time to get us to those points.

Combining all of these aspects, I'd like to say that they are done so well, and so frequently well, that the show has several-what I would call-perfect scenes. In a perfect scene, all of these things (acting, casting, cinematography, directing, score, and writing) blend perfectly and convey whatever the scene is suppose to. If I'm meant to be on the edge of my seat, I'm about a centimeter from falling off. If I'm meant to feel incredible anguish, I do. And it's not once, or twice either. Thinking back quickly after having just recently watched the entire show in about two days, there were no less than 5, probably 8, and as many as 10. This show deserves so many awards.

Finally, and I save this for last because I think it may be something that could rustle someones feathers, the show is an incredible example of the grey areas in life, much like Game of Thrones. If you're not interested in seeing swastikas or Nazis, the Rising Sun Flag or constant totalitarian brutality, this show is probably not for you. But there's something more here if you're willing to watch. In the show's first 50 minutes we're given a clear conveyance of good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, and we're given this through the main characters who've spent their lives oppressed. Not surprisingly, these notions match up pretty well with how we in our world think. HOWEVER, by the end of the first episode, the colors seem to be muddled a little more than when we set out; there's some grey we can't help but notice. As the series progresses, there's more and more mixing going on. Are the good guys bad, in some ways? Are the bad guys good, in some ways? Why am I upset with the protagonist? Why am I rooting for the antagonist? They're not questions we may all be comfortable asking, considering the subject matter, but the show does an unbelievable job of asking them anyway.* By the end of season, it's almost as if we're looking at a piece of slate with dots of black and white sprinkled across it.

*To be clear, the show in no way promotes or condones Fascism, Nazism, Dictatorships, or even Imperialism. This comment in my review is only in reference to the character's in the show, who they are, and how they handle the interactions in the world around them.

The Man in the High Castle depicts a world in which Germany won WWII, and the USA lies under German and Japanese occupation. This classic work of history rewritten was first published in 1962, and has recently been reinvented as an Amazon original TV series, which is how I first experienced it. The book imagines an America in the sixties that goes through daily life accepting the fact that Germany occupies the East Coast, while Japan holds the West. Tensions exist between these former Axis allies, however, and with the death of Hitler and some in his higher ranks (due to natural causes), uncertainty reigns. The Japanese fear that the new leadership will do unto Japan as has already been done to the continent of Africa, which was wholly slaughtered in the Reich's racist killing sprees.

While the entire concept of the book and television series may appear morbid or unthinkable, the concept is fascinating. Those who have grown up since the Greatest Generation defeated Naziism can take it for granted that we are able to live free lives without further Holocausts or global wars. The book makes us see just how close the Allies were to losing the war and plunging the entire world into a madman's paradise. However, just as today we take it for granted that we won the war, the characters in High Castle take it for granted that Germany won, and that they now rule the world. The characters go throughout their daily lives pretty normally, with only the occasional reminder of the reality of the oppression under which they live. For example, in the TV series, Joe Cinnadella stops briefly on his cross-country delivery journey, and wonders at the snow falling near a local hospital. The officer, to which he must show his papers to continue his journey, comments offhandedly that it's not snow, but ashes: "On Tuesdays, they cremate the old and infirmed. Drag on society!"

The title itself is a curious one, and you have to read the entire book to meet the actual man in the high castle. In both the book and the series, this man is an artist who depicts a world closer to our reality, in which the Allies won WWII. This twist creates a humorous self-commentary by the book's author, as he wonders why nobody else thought to write it before. In the book, the man is an author, and in the TV series, the man is a film producer who makes secret film reels that show America winning the war. But the way I understand the title has to do with out perspective on history and on eternity. I see the man in the high castle as someone who is able to view both possible histories, like a man living in the present who weighs his decisions based on potential outcomes, only in the past tense. I have heard of God being compared to a man in a blimp riding high over a parade. The casual observer on the street level can see only the brief segment of the parade that is currently passing him, as we humans only observe the present. However, the man in the blimp can see the cars passing the man on the ground, but also the bands that have already passed him and the cars that have yet to pass him. Likewise, God exists above history, able to see past, present, and future in a way we humans can barely conceive.

The conclusion of Man in the High Castle appears to be that both histories are perhaps true. This intersects with my reading and writing of dystopias, as I observe that many dystopias, including my own, illustrate worlds very different from our own but similar in haunting ways. High Castle suggests, strikingly, that maybe we do live under Nazi rule. When our nation makes deals with Israel's enemies and releases billions in funds to Iran, then I can believe that perhaps we are a little closer to the principles of Hitler than we were just after the war. No, we're not in another Holocaust, and no American politician is Hitler reborn (sorry to disappoint your Trump or Clinton comparisons), but we see tiny aberrations of things we once fought against popping up in our world every day. Dystopias have a way of revealing these in startling ways, and High Castle's history rewritten draws it out in a fresh, fascinating manner.

Duane Shaw Moderndaydystopia@wordpress.com
Author of Equality or Death (dystopian novel on kindle scout)

I enjoyed this series. I definitely hope it will be continued. As usual, I have not read the book. I either watch the film and not read the book, or read the book and not see the film. It's a personal choice. The scenery was stunning and the stage settings should absolutely be nominated to receive awards. The telephones were perfectly designed to be older in the Pacific regions, yet restyled to be more advanced in the Nazi Territory. Little things, like Magazines called "Ranger Reich" being read by a young man in the Hitler Youth. The cars in the Pacific Territory were older and the newer ones (although gorgeous mid century beauties) were in the Fatherland. I have some issues with the costuming as I knew we were supposed to be in the early 1960's, but the clothes worn by Juliana and most of the characters appeared to be from the 40's, even the Nazi wives looked more 50's than 60's. The suburban subdivisions were so "Americanized" you were surprised when the neighbors greeted each other with a friendly neighborly "Sieg Heil". Now to the story and acting. Please STOP here if you want to avoid spoilers. The character of Juliana has to be the most annoyingly selfish woman on earth. After being given a film from her half sister,Trudy, who asks Juliana to get it to Canon City for her. Trudy is shot and killed by the Japanese occupiers. Juliana and her husband Frank watch it and discover the film shows a different reality than the one they are living. Instead of the Japanese and Germans losing the war, the Allies did. Frank thinks they have to turn the film into the Govt., but, of course, Juliana, thinks otherwise, and runs off to Canon City without telling Frank, or anyone else for that matter were she is going.Here, she meets Joe Blake, A Nazi double Agent, who also has a film. Both of these films need to get to The Man in the High Castle. Both of them think this is the leader of the Resistance. At this point the series takes a turn to a sorry waste of time until you get to episode 6. I was excited knowing that Ridley Scott had control of the reins and expected much more. There should have been a better script with more talented actors to get thru those episodes. An exception was Rupert Evans (Frank Frinks) using his Shakespearean resume and working his way thru a limited script very well. There were moments of genuine heartbreak, the death of Franks sister and her children at the hands of the Japanese while trying to extort information from Frank. Then, Frank's visit to an underground Jewish family, who said a prayer for the dead while Frank finally allowed himself to grieve for Laura and her children. Commencing with episode six, the series picks up, Rufus Sewell as SS officer John Smith and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Trade Minister Nobusuke Tagomi provide
excellent performances as an sharp eyed killer Nazi officer, who loves his family and a thoughtful, introspective and peace loving man, respectively. As Trade Minister, Hiroyuki-Tagawa he has a touching scene with Juliana giving her directions and a Chrysanthemum. Finally, Rudolph Wegener played by Carsten Norgaard transforms our series into the Nazi/Japanese spy story that ratchets up the interest in this series. He too, is a peace loving man working against the Reich to help Imperial Japan maintain as much military strength as the Reich. He and Tagomi have worked to provide nuclear bomb blueprints to the Japanese Minister of Science. However, Wegner is caught by Nazi forces who want to have Hitler (who is still alive and suffering from Parkinson's Disease) killed. Since Wegner is well acquainted with Hitler, they feel he can get close enough to shoot him. As Wegener drives up a mountain we see the Man in the High Castle is indeed Hitler, who has been collecting all the films for some time and has a library full of them. Hitler manages to escape being shot. There are subplots I haven't addressed. I will leave something for you to enjoy. In ending, I have always loved stories about different versions of reality. What if I hadn't met that person? What if I'd made that choice instead? Despite it's bumps and hiccups for this first season, I really hope they will make a second one.