![]() Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven” by Noah Berlatsky, We Are the Mutants (9 December 2020) “ What Good Can Dreaming Do?” by Annie Howard, The Boston Review (13 January 2022) Sensitive, moving and shocking-and containing in George Orr one of SF’s greatest characters, The Lathe of Heaven will stay in your mind long after you’ve put it down. “Whichever way you approach it, this book is wonderful. ![]() The story can be enjoyed as a struggle between a man and his therapist to ‘make a breakthrough,’ as a SF parable about the dangers of becoming a God, or simply as a page turner, full of twists and shocks. “ The Lathe of Heaven is a psychological thriller in every sense of the term. The author has produced a rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion.” “Le Guin brings reality itself to the proving ground. “Le Guin neatly and eerily conveys the bad-dream civilization which is George’s everyday world.” What if one really could create one’s own reality, the book asks? What kind of hell would that be? What kind of insanity would it bring on?” “In The Lathe of Heaven she summons the city itself, spinning a tale of a Portland man whose dreams shape reality, and the psychedelic consequences that result when that power is exploited by a nefarious doctor. Only a great work of literature can bridge-so thrillingly-that impossible span.” ![]() When I read it, more than 25 years later, it breaks my heart. “When I read The Lathe of Heaven as a young man, my mind was boggled. ![]()
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