Another spectacular bit-o-bling arrived on the doorstep of SF Signal HQ recently: it’s the Folio Society edition of The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

Featuring wonderfully vivid illustrations by Shan Jiang of Shotopop and an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin, this has to be the definitive volume. This beauty, as with other Folio Society editions, comes packaged in a sturdy slipcase, which sports one of Shotopop’s illustrations.

See below for some hi-res images of the book and illustrations.

Here’s how Folio Society describes the book:

In 1962 Philip K. Dick conjured a new vision of our world – a twisted simulacrum in which the Axis Powers have won the Second World War. America is now divided: the eastern United States is the puppet of a maniacal German Reich, while the western Pacific seaboard is governed by a militaristic, yet spiritual, Japanese dictatorship. Amongst the complexities of this new existence, a group of unremarkable people – an American- Jewish craftsman, a judo instructor, a Japanese diplomat – play out their everyday lives, each striving to uncover a remnant of goodness in the shadow of a gathering evil. As their narratives intersect, Dick poses larger metaphysical questions concerning the authentication of history, perception and the building blocks of destiny. The Man in the High Castle is considered to be Dick’s greatest novel, and was awarded the Hugo Award in 1963. With it, he jettisoned the traditional trappings of science fiction that had defined much of his previous work. Gone were the spaceships, strange worlds and telepaths; what remained were the ideas that had begun to set him apart as a significant thinker of the age. As Ursula K. Le Guin discusses in her new introduction, the text’s innovation and skill took some of the first steps in dismantling the traditional barriers between science and mainstream fiction: it would become ‘the first big, lasting contribution science fiction made to American literature’. This edition features the work of Shanghai-born Shan Jiang, lead illustrator at design company Shotopop. His graphic images, strongly influenced by Japanese manga and comic book art, channel the text’s melding of cultures.

Hi-res images of the this awesome edition and some of the included illustrations follow…

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