Annal:1975 John W. Campbell Award

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Philip K. Dick

• 1975 Campbell 1st
• 1975 Hugo-Novel nominee
• 1974 Nebula nominee
• Score: 22.25

On October 11 the television star Jason Taverner is so famous that 30 million viewers eagerly watch his prime-time show. On October 12 Jason Taverner is not a has-been but a never-was—a man who has lost not only his audience but all proof of his existence. And in the claustrophobic betrayal state of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, loss of proof is synonyms with loss of life.

Taverner races to solve the riddle of his disappearance”, immerses us in a horribly plausible Philip K. Dick United States in which everyone—from a waiflike forger of identity cards to a surgically altered pleasure—informs on everyone else, a world in which omniscient police have something to hide. His bleakly beautiful novel bores into the deepest bedrock self and plants a stick of dynamite at its center.

The Dispossessed

Ursula K. Le Guin

• 1975 Hugo-Novel winner
• 1974 Nebula winner
• 1975 Campbell 2nd
• Score: 28.25

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. he will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.