‘Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.’- ZhuangziA few years ago, I was listening to Margaret Atwood on NPR discussing how for every person’s idea of a utopian society, there is someone who would find it to be a dystopia, and vice versa. Dystopian sci-fi has been quite popular in the past few decades and champions the spirit of rebellion and resistance, but something I find so charming about Ursula K. Le Guin ...

The Lathe of Heaven is a very good book with a very important message, though it lacks a certain human element, which is largely uncharacteristic of Ursula K. Le Guin’s fiction. Let me explain: this is a book of ideas and idealisms. It is deeply philosophical and intelligent, exploring themes that question the nature of human morality and progress. Its main concern is consequences—the consequences of actions driven by a desire to change the world into a better place, but which are unrealistic in...

It took me a few chapters to warm up, but once things got going, I was completely hooked!George Orr gets caught using prescription meds that weren't his, and he's in deep trouble. But George isn’t just some average pill-popper; he has dreams that scare the living daylights out of him, and trying to escape these nightmarish visions has led him down a drug-fueled path to destruction. He's assigned to a voluntary therapy program with Dr. William Haber, a sleep disorder specialist. George spills his...

"The dream is the aquarium of night" —Victor HugoOneirophobia: noun. A fear of dreams.George Orr, a nobody pencil pusher, is increasingly worried that his dreams can alter past and present reality, so he's become afraid to dream. After getting caught using someone else's prescription card to get drugs to stay awake, he's sent to Dr. William Haber, a shady psychiatrist, for an innovative course of dream therapy.The book started strong, and the first chapter held so much promise, with a nice fl...

Sometime around 1980, I stumbled upon a mind-bending sci-fi movie on TV. It completely blew me away with its psychedelic special effects and consciousness-altering concepts. But, like many psychedelic and consciousness-altering experiences, some parts stuck firmly in my memory, while other details faded quickly – like a dream upon waking.I remembered that a man's dreams could rewrite reality. I remembered that the Black woman he loved turned gray along with the rest of the world. And I remembere...

This is hands down my favorite novel by Ursula K. Le Guin (well, it's a close tie with her novella The Word for World is Forest). Her most popular science fiction books (excluding the classic Earthsea fantasy series, of course) tend to be The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed. Both are excellent books, but *The Lathe of Heaven* is the one that truly blows your mind. It's as if she channeled Philip K. Dick, and according to Wikipedia, it's actually her tribute to the late, great author.*T...

“To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
 Must give us pause.”Ursula K. Le Guin delivers a riveting but simple tale of a man whose dreams can affect and alter reality. Told with an Arthur C. Clarke-like elegance and minimalism, but with her signature mastery of the language, Le Guin goes beyond an interesting concept and explores the ins, the outs, and the what-have-yous of someone with God...

For those new to or unaware of the wonders of Ursula K. Le Guin, *The Lathe of Heaven* is a short book about George Orr, a man who has been taking too many drugs in an attempt to stop dreaming. Some of his dreams become true–not in the prescient sense, but in the reality-is-reordered sense, and George is haunted by the changes. In his highly regulated society, his drug deviance results in a mandatory visit to a psychologist and his dreaming machine. Dr. Haber discovers George’s power is real and...

The Lathe of Heaven asks a vital question: is it ever okay to play God? You have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough. Who would you normally root for? A guy with the power to change the ugly dystopian world but is unwilling to do so? Or a guy who actively tries to harvest this power to change the world for better? I...

Warning: contains a major spoiler for A Wizard of EarthseaWhen I first read this book as a teen, I think I only grasped the surface story. George Orr is a guy whose dreams, literally, come true; he dreams something, and when he wakes up, the world's been altered. There's an unscrupulous psychiatrist who wants to exploit George's gift, a love story, some interesting aliens, and a satisfying ending. I really enjoyed it.I've reread it three or four times since then, and each time I've appreciated i...