Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 3: The Man In The High Castle

Hugo winner: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, 1963

My view: It's not nearly as affecting to me - an old PKD fan if there ever was one - as either Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said or Ubik, but his alternate history version of a US occupied by a victorious Axis is both plausibly realized and suitably ominous, although the most important aspects of this novel (as with practically all of his work) are the disturbed inner psyches of the lead characters. It's a truism: the more deeply you read into a PKD novel, the more you get the sense that the workings of outward reality itself against those characters is the real enemy. This is a good place for a novice to start before heading off to even more challenging fare like the aforementioned novels and the likes of A Scanner Darkly, BTW.

Nuggety? Aw, c'mon. Not even close.