The Lathe of Heaven
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The Lathe of Heaven is a 1971 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It has been adapted into two television films. The novel was nominated for a Hugo Award and won the Locus Poll Award for best novel in 1972. It first appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories, before being published in paperback in 1973; a paperback edition was reprinted in New York by Eos in 1997 with ISBN 0380791854.
The novel is set in Portland, Oregon at some near future time when overpopulation is a major problem. However, this is soon revealed to be only one of many future worlds that have been literally dreamed into existence by the main character, George Orr, whose subconscious mind has an inexplicable power over reality. An ambitious psychiatrist, William Haber, discovers this power and seeks to use it to change the world; his experiments produce a series of increasingly intolerable alternate worlds, based on an assortment of utopian and dystopian premises familiar from other science fiction works.
Though technology plays a slight role, the novel is largely concerned with philosophical questions about our desire to control our destiny, with Haber's positivist approach pitted against a Taoist equanimity (the title is a reference to Chuang Tzu). Due to its portrayal of psychologically-derived alternate realities, it has often been described as Le Guin's homage to Philip K. Dick.
The 1980 adaptation—generally faithful to the novel—was produced by the public television station WNET, directed by David Loxton and Fred Barzyk. It starred Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, and Margaret Avery.
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A second adaptation, retitled Lathe of Heaven, was produced for the A&E network in 2002 and directed by Philip Haas. It starred James Caan, Lukas Haas, and Lisa Bonet.
See also
External links
- Template:Imdb 1980 version
- Template:Imdb 2002 version