1960s California, alternative history where Japan and Nazi Germany won WWII and have divided the world between them - If Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been assassinated in 1934, how would the world be different. 
 In the former US, the Pacific zone is controlled by Imperial Japan, the east coast by the Nazis and these are separate by a mid-western neutral zone 
 Hints at continued technological progress (intercontinental rocket travel, colonisation of Moon, Mars, Venus, nuclear arsenal) and continued atrocities (Jews, Slavs, a catastrophe in Africa) on the part of the Nazis, where a power struggle is ensuing. 
 Most of the action takes place in the Japanese colonised Pacific zone. 
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 Frank Frink, a forger of civil war weaponry, part of an large-scale forgery industry to meet the demand for authentic American 'historicity' from the Japanese upper class. Becomes a jewelry maker, a new American craftsman 
 Robert Childan, an antique dealer of Americana, adopts mannerisms and cultural sensitivities of Japanese ascendancy, but is internally conflicted and disgusted with these compromises, in particular in his attempts to build relationship with a young upwardly mobile Japanese couple, gets an inkling of redemption through Frank's jewelry, showing for him that there is continued value in American culture post war. These pieces viewed in Japanese context as embodying Taoist concept of 'wu' 
 The other example of continued vibrant creative American culture is the underground literary sensation, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy written by 'the man in the high castle' 
 This depicts an alternative world where the allies won the war and Britain and US are the world powers 
 Both these authentic cultural items allow the characters glimpses into another world/timeline, perhaps more real or authentic than their own 
 Underlying this is a dependency in Japanese sphere of influence on referring to I-Ching hexagrams to understand life, to make decisions, to perceive future. 
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 fascinating