The Lathe Of Heaven

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

For new wave writers the world is never a fixed, absolute, unchangeing place, but is, rather, ever changing and ever changeable depending upon how it is perceived, and those perceptions can be altered by changing circumstances or by drugs. One prime example of this attitude towards reality is Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. In this story, George Orr's dreams change reality. He takes drugs to stop himself dreaming (one of the rare examples of drugs being used to stabilize rather than alter reality) until he is forced to undergo psychiatric care for his drug abuse. The psychologist, Haber, attempts to manipulate the dreams to improve the world, but in a classic case of “be careful what you wish for”, the alterations never quite work out the way they were intended. When Orr tries to abolish racism, he turns everyone grey; when he tries for peace, he unites the world against an alien invader; when he wants to end overpopulation, he unleashes a terrible plague. The novel ends ambiguously, as a new wave novel must, with shattered minds and fragmented realities. Why it's on the list: The Lathe of Heaven won the Locus Best Novel award, and demonstrates how skilled Le Guin is at blending new wave ideas with more traditional literary forms to create a story that is fresh, complex, engaging and mind-blowing.

Books in Hainish Cycle Series (8)

The Left Hand Of Darkness

Rocannon's World

City Of Illusions

The Dispossessed

The Word For World Is Forest

Four Ways To Forgiveness

The Telling

The Dispossessed