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For a novel about Nazis taking over the world, this book is awfully concerned with the I Ching and jewelry.

I mean, it's concerned with truth, as usual. Dick, as close as we get to an American Borges, is always about truth and counterfeit and authenticity. (You may have heard about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) In this book, a character holds up two Zippos. "One was in Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket when he was assassinated," he says; "And one wasn't. One has historicity...one has nothing. Can you feel it?" You cannot feel it.

So for the worlds: in ours, the Allies won World War II; in this book's, the Axis won; in a book within this book, the Allies won again, though not in the same way. Which one is correct? asks the book, and in an expanding universe this question isn't academic; all three are real to someone. This world, like that historical Zippo, has as much value as you choose to give it. None of it is intrinsically real. What is real is good - and evil. "There is evil! It's actual like cement," says Dick in one of his finer moments.

But in order to explore all this we need a guide, and the I Ching makes a poor Dumbledore; there's too much involved. (Or too much wu, if you'd rather. It was, btw, consulted during the writing; Dick actually let the I Ching make plot decisions. It worked out about as well as can be expected.) This book has intrigue and assassination plots and some sort of wizard of Oz, but it also spends a fair amount of its time off the rails, rambling about the I Ching and antique watches and jewelry; it's not terribly focused. Ubik is a better novel, but Dick is at his best writing short stories.