High – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

November 24, 2019

The Man in the High Castle (Review)

o this isn’t the sixties you know, not your Summer of Love, no. In this version of reality, the Nazis and the Japanese (and sorta the Italians) won the Second World War. In this world, the western states are owned by Japan, the eastern by the Germans, with the central states as a sort of powerless buffer zone. The Russian steppes are a sort of Slavic reservation and Africa has been churned into lifeless ruin by the Reich. The story follows a number of characters – a Japanese business leader in San Francisco, and antiquities dealer, a guy trying to […]

October 19, 2025

High Rise (Review)

ead this one, half on a train, half at my mom’s mountain lair. It’s written by J.G. Ballard (famous for Empire of the Sun) and is the story of a mixed-class forty story (or is that “storey”) high rise residential building in London, specifically out on the Isle of Dogs. And how, when the social order breaks down, how bad it can get. The story centers on three people, each representing one of the social classes. Richard Wilder, a documentary-maker down on the lower ten (the lower class). Then in the middle-reaches is Dr. Robert Laing. And up on the […]