The Lathe Of Heaven
‘Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable – gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country – and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their centre … Literature will miss her. There’s no one like her’ Zadie Smith
‘Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power’ OBSERVER
Through his dreams, George Orr can make alternate realities real – but who is controlling him?
War rages and global warming wreaks havoc on the quality of life everywhere as seven billion people jostle for living space and food. For George Orr, a mild and unremarkable man, the world is overwhelmingly difficult. But George is different: his dreams can change reality – although he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.
Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help, directing George to dream a world without racism. But as ambition gets the better of ethics, no one can predict the devastating consequences.
‘Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power’ OBSERVER
Through his dreams, George Orr can make alternate realities real – but who is controlling him?
War rages and global warming wreaks havoc on the quality of life everywhere as seven billion people jostle for living space and food. For George Orr, a mild and unremarkable man, the world is overwhelmingly difficult. But George is different: his dreams can change reality – although he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.
Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help, directing George to dream a world without racism. But as ambition gets the better of ethics, no one can predict the devastating consequences.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart
Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable - gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country - and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their center ... Literature will miss her. There's no one like her
A rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion
Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power
Le Guin is one of the singular speculative voices of our future, thanks to her knack for anticipating issues of seminal importance to society
She is unparalleled in creating fantasy peopled by finely drawn and complex characters
Her worlds have a magic sheen . . . She moulds them into dimensions we can only just sense. She is unique. She is legend
I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin
Le Guin's storytelling is sharp, magisterial, funny, thought-provoking and exciting, exhibiting all that science fiction can be
[Le Guin had] the heart of a poet who knew all too well the difference between miracle and eureka, revelation and revolution
Le Guin writes tellingly of different kinds of society . . . and of the individual's response to them
When I read The Lathe of Heaven as a young man, my mind was boggled; now when I read it, more than twenty-five years later, it breaks my heart. Only a great work of literature can bridge - so thrillingly - that impossible span
