'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 is...

The Lathe of Heaven is a very good book with a very important message, though it lacks a certain human element to it which is largely uncharacteristic of 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 that are driven by a desire change the world into a better place but are unrealistic in thei...

It took me a few chapters to warm up, but once the heat kicked in I was hooked!George Orr has been caught using prescription medications borrowed from others, and he’s in hot water. But George isn’t your run-of-the-mill pill-popper; he has dreams that frighten him and his attempt to escape these nightmarish visions has driven him down a drug-fueled road to ruin. Assigned to a voluntary therapy program with Dr William Haber, who specializes in sleep disorders, George spills his seemingly-preposte...

"The dream is the aquarium of night" —Victor HugoOneirophobia: noun. A fear of dreams.Nonentity pencil pusher, George Orr, increasingly worried that his dreams can alter past and present reality, has therefore become afraid to dream. Caught using another person's pharm card to obtain drugs to keep him awake, he's referred to dodgy psychiatrist, Dr William Haber, for an innovative course of dream therapy.The book started brightly and the first chapter promised much, a nice run of assonance fee...

Sometime in 1980 I caught a trippy sci-fi movie on television. It blew my mind with its psychedelic special effects and consciousness-altering ideas. But like so many psychedelic and consciousness-altering experiences, some of it impressed itself deeply on my memory while other details were quickly forgotten ~ like a dream upon awakening.I remembered that a man’s dreams rewrote reality. I remembered that the black woman he loved had turned gray along with the rest of the world. And I remembered ...

This is by far my favourite Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel (well, neck and neck with her novella The Word for World is Forest). Her most popular science fiction books (thus excluding the classic Earthsea fantasy series) tend to be The Left hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed, both of these are excellent books but The Lathe of Heaven is the most mind blowing. It is as if she was channeling Philip K. Dick, and according to Wikipedia it is actually her tribute to the late great author.The Lathe of Heav...

“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. LeGuin 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, LeGuin goes beyond an interesting concept and explores the ins, and outs, and what-have-yous of someone with God-like,...

For those new to or unaware of the wonders of Le Guin, this 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. Huber discovers George’s power is real and convinces him that intenti...

The Lathe of Heaven asks the reader - 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? If y...

Warning: contains major spoiler for A Wizard of EarthseaWhen I first came across this book as a teenager, I think I only really noticed the surface story. George Orr is a man whose dreams, literally, come true; he dreams something, and when he wakes up the world has changed. There's an unscrupulous psychiatrist who wants to exploit George's gift, a love story, some interesting aliens, and a good ending. I really liked it. I've read it three or four times since then, and each time I've appreciate...