Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 16: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

[the_archfiend]

Hugo nominee: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick, 1975

My view: I suppose this was a sign of things to come in terms of my tastes in SF; it's been decades since I've read this, yet the feel of the novel's oppressive atmosphere has remained in my mind since I read it and was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

The nightmarish alternate world that Jason Taverner is thrust into after a failed murder attempt embodies the word "Kafkaesque" with a vengeance, but unlike PKD's earlier works the usual sense of paranoia is leavened by certain degree of empathy that points a way out of the maze Taverner has been thrust into no matter how dark his personal universe has become. It seems like PKD was becoming something of a humanist (albeit a very odd version of one) in his later years, and this novel is strongly indicative of that fact.

Nuggety?: Not even close.