The Lathe Of Heaven Audiobook By Ursula K. Le Guin cover art

The Lathe Of Heaven

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The Lathe Of Heaven

By: Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrated by: Adam Sims
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'Her worlds have a magic sheen . . . She moulds them into dimensions we can only just sense. She is unique. She is legend' THE TIMES

'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER

George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality - and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.

Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help. At first sceptical of George's powers, he comes to astonished belief. When he allows ambition to get the better of ethics, George finds himself caught up in a situation of alarming peril.

Accolades & Awards

Locus Award
1972
Alternate History Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Locus Award Psychological Science Fiction Dream

Critic reviews

Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power
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 (Zadie Smith)
She is unparalleled in creating fantasy peopled by finely drawn and complex characters
Le Guin is one of the singular speculative voices of our future, thanks to her knack for anticipating issues of seminal importance to society
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 (Roddy Doyle)
A rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion
[Le Guin had] the heart of a poet who knew all too well the difference between miracle and eureka, revelation and revolution
Le Guin's storytelling is sharp, magisterial, funny, thought-provoking and exciting, exhibiting all that science fiction can be
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart (David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS)
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 (Michael Chabon)
Le Guin writes tellingly of different kinds of society . . . and of the individual's response to them
Le Guin neatly and eerily conveys the bad-dream civilization which is George's everyday world
The most exciting book of Le Guin's . . . Easily the most fun of her novels, it's also one of the strangest, and Le Guin seems to take joy in this
All stars
Most relevant
The underlying idea is intriguing and the of the world-building well thought out. Unfortunately the book lacks subtlety. Most points are conveyed in a very obvious, borderline cheesy way. The main character is unbearably annoying, while the psychiatrist is cliche but entertaining. All in all recommended as far as you are not looking for a masterpiece

Good ideas, blunt execution

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I have been fascinated by this story since I first saw it on film in 1980. I think I saw it twice and read the book and now the audiobook. I think it’s one of my favorite stories of all times the unbound imagination of the author. It’s been over 20 years since the last time I read this book and I find it amazing that the author way back in the 70s predicted the global warming event that we are all living through now in the way this is her imagination become reality like George’s dreams. I can’t recommend this book enough. I’m sure I will read it again.

A story I’ve experienced 4 times

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