Imagine that the Nazis were ousted by the Communists in the 1930s. Then imagine Hitler flees to England where he becomes a private detective. This is the kind of High Concept fiction Philip K. Dick used to write. In this alternate reality, Hitler (now going by the name “Wolf”) is hired by a Jewess to find her missing sister. Plenty of sex and violence result. A Man Lies Dreaming was published in England in 2014. It was published in the U.S. a few months ago by Melville House. If you’re in the mood for something similar to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (where Germany and Japan win World War II), then A Man Lies Dreaming might just be your ticket. GRADE: C+
I liked it better than you did. I would have rated it higher. Closer to a B+.
Steve, I may not have been in the mood for an alternate history featuring Hitler.
George, neither am I … 🙁
Did I write already about my father’s connections to Hitler?
He was for some time part of the defenders of Hitler’s headquarters – the outer perimeter, the inner was of course handled by the Waffen-SS.
And the stories he told me – like his surprise when he was allowed in for R&R and heard jazz music saw the Nazi leaders drinking chapagne and whisky/whiskey and in the cinema was aUS film playing …
And after I was born (his first son) and Hitler congratulated him and also gave him the Knight’s Cross for defending the German troups’ retreat – my father already knew that the war was lost, but he was a soldier …
As a German I shudder to think what might had happened if the Nazis had won – on the other hand I know that it was next to impossible because they had almost the whole world against them and the remaining scientists did everything to slow down the development of real superweapons like the atom bomb, luckily.
Wolf, you have a most vivid Life! The closest I came to Greatness was when John F. Kennedy flew into the Niagara Falls Airport in 1960 during his run for President. My mother was a big JFK fan and made my brother, my sisters and myself get all dressed up (I even wore a suit and tie!) for the trip to the Airport to see JFK land. About a 100 people were waiting for JFK when he came down the stairs of his plane. He passed about three yards from me and was gone into a waiting car.
Wow. That’s something. Well, Hillary came to Jackie’s school and met with her, as the union chapter leader. (Now Mayor de Blasio was her campaign manager when she ran for Senator and took her around.) We’ve seen a few Presidents (Carter, Clinton) and candidates (Humphrey, Dukakis) but not up close.
Jeff, I regret not being more aggressive when Hillary came to Buffalo for some fund-raisers. I could have gone and met her. Still, I’m disjointedness in the Democratic Party for being so sloppy with their computer systems and email. If someone told me a year ago that the 2016 Presidential Election would be affected by email and Russian hackers, I would have laughed at them. Not so funny now.
As a fan of Dick’s book, I tried it but had a hard time getting into it and returned it unread.
Jeff, Philip K. Dick was a wildly uneven writer. He wrote classics and he wrote crap. Some of his works are hard to get into. I prefer the PKD work from the Sixties.
It’s no MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.
We’re watching the Amazon series now.
Jeff, I may start watching THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE Season Two later this week. I liked Season One, but now they’re going to have to go beyond PKD’s book.
Me Too, George!
There was this “sense of wonder” in his early stories, they were so different from the other DF being written at the time. I remember that in the middle sixties there was a bookstore in the university town that got regular (but small …) shipments of paperbacks from some US distributor – and you could also order books by their serial number, just had to wait a month or more for delivery via “snail mail”, ship …
They were relatively cheap so I ordered quite a few, some but not all of them arrived, sometimes I got the wrong book – but no problem!
Wolf, I loved Philip K. Dick’s titles: CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON, DR. BLOODMONEY, VULCAN’S HAMMER, THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ALDRICH, and SOLAR LOTTERY. Philip K. Dick was very original, though very uneven in his output.
Too close to reality to read now for me.
Patti, I had mixed feelings while reading A MAN LIES DREAMING.
I remember reading Dick’s short stories first in the magazines and they were always fabulous!
His first (!) published story already made a splash – I just remembered the “wub”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Lies_the_Wub
Unbelievable!
Why make Hitler the, for want of a better word, hero. In an alternate reality, the greatest mass murderer of the 20th Century doesn’t possess the traits or the beliefs that made him that very thing? I expect we’re going to have to be waging an ongoing battle for the next four years to stop the soft-soaping and legitimization of neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic views and the last place I want to have to deal with that is in reading I do for pleasure. Ugh! I’ll pass.
/Dismounting soapbox, but would be mildly interested in seeing the pretzels this author twists himself into to justify “normalizing” Hitler. Again, sometimes I wish I were a drinker.
Deb, alternate universes come in a variety of flavors. A MAN LIES DREAMING didn’t knock my socks off, but it was a solid effort to project a different Reality. Alcohol in all forms makes me sleepy.
Me too! It’s stress eating I have to avoid!
Deb, if I over-eat, I’m headed for a “food coma.” Not a comfortable feeling. Diane, fortunately, keeps me on the Right Path.
Cheers! Since it’s half past 6 pm here I’ll have another beer!
I was just browsing through wiki and found something about Dick’s early stories (won’t link …) and one which I really think is marvelous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenders_(short_story)
Robots are really better here than humans!
Wolf, Philip K. Dick specialized in stories about odd drugs and smart robots. Just look at BLADE RUNNER.
Based on your plot description, I would give this a D- and not go near it. No, that’s not giving the author or book a fair chance, but then if the author chooses to write about this character/plot combination, I don’t feel I need to give a fair chance, despite having liked his THE BOOKMAN.
I’m afraid that one didn’t grab me either.
Jeff, I occasionally enjoy steam-punk SF. THE BOOKMAN was entertaining.
Rick, THE BOOKMAN led me to A MAN LIES DREAMING. I found it they were apples and oranges.