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Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

> I really wonder how my life would be different if someone told be that the US, which for me was as close to a paradise as it gets, will go down the same road in the future - I think it would shatter quite a lot of my dreams of a better life.

That reminds me of one of the things that stuck with me from The Man in the High Castle (the book). The main story is an alternate timeline where the Nazis/Japanese won WWII and conquered America. Then there's an alternate-timeline-within-the-alternate-timeline where America/Britain won WWII, but it's not our timeline (and it's hinted there that the liberal US was eventually defeated by a British Empire gone full authoritarian). Everything passes away. The good guys sometimes win, but eventually they lose too.

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Wow, thank you for the effort in typing out that this synopsis! Seems like quite the compelling read.

I have already retrieved the book & will start it tonight.

It's a great book. Phillip K Dick, there is no author like him.

It's a fantastic book, highly recommend to read.

There is also a TV series based on it (on Amazon Prime I think), but as usually, it's not as good as the book.

I also enjoyed the TV series equally.

It diverges much from the book but it's enjoyable and terrifying at some points. I just really don't like ending - it felt rushed and way too open like they'd still had hopes for another series.

Personally I'd kept Dick's basis of this series and incorporate Robert Harris "Fatherland" novel that would set action for a longer while in Europe. It easily could provide action for at least 2 more seasons.

That alternate alternate timeline sounds like what leads to V for Vendetta.

Heh, I was watching the series two days ago. That reminds me that I have to buy both Ubik and The Man in the High Castle, preferabily cheap but commented (with footnotes) ones in Spanish. PKD it's very tedious to readin English for non natives. And sometimes in Spanish too.

Ubik is a mindbender inside a mindbender. Try to read it consistently. If you put it down for a couple of days you will be lost and rereading the last page will not help much.

There's a similar feeling story in a later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book* where it's a history of England in that universe. The part that really stuck with me was the description of the government from 1984 as just another strange period in history. Eventually, Big Brother just falls and the next government takes over. Compared with how the system in 1984 feels hopeless and eternal it gives me a strange kind of hope.

* The Black Dossier

Funnily enough I got the same type of hope from Julia, the 1984-from-Julia’s perspective tome that hints at… well, you’ll have to find out :)

There is a somewhat plausible in-universe explanation for Big Brother feeling eternal while not being eternal: the constant rewriting of history

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