The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)

A man finds that his dreams change the world and so becomes afraid to dream.

SciFi Review: The Lathe of Heaven is short, but has Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) enjoying herself by doing what she does best. She combines an undercurrent of humor with elements that work on a serious and moral level. This kind of gentle, good natured comedy was occasionally seen in Sixties science fiction (see The High Crusade or The Technicolor Time Machine), here with a completely and resolutely average, bumbling protagonist. At first the story seemed somewhat slight, even posed against the backdrop of disastrous climate change (published in 1971 but set around 2010). But the respite of humor fades amidst the darkness, chaos, and dreams become nightmares. Le Guin is willing to address the big issues, watching civilization collapse. In The Lathe of Heaven she looks at the law of unintended consequences: how attempts at social engineering can go wrong, how good intentions can go astray, how nothing turns out quite the way we want it to. How the world may be a mass of misery, but there's no instant remedy in any larger sense and could always be worse. As did Arthur C. Clarke in Childhood's End, she wonders if perfection becomes joyless. She reminds us that humans aren't capable of being God, but making a deal with the Devil provides no answer either. The story reminded of the three wishes of the jinn, when each wish somehow flips from what was wanted and turns wrong (see the movie Bedazzled (1967 & 2000)). As I read I wondered if our protagonist George Orr was a tip of the hat to George Orwell and the story was a nod to Philip K. Dick. The Lathe of Heaven is short, quick, interesting. When finished, the book continued to grow and kept percolating through my mind. Always a good sign in a book.  [3½★]