The Lathe of Heaven

The Lathe of Heaven is a 1971 science fiction novel by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first serialised in Amazing Stories. It won the 1972 Locus Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1971 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1972.

The novel is set in Portland, Oregon in and around the late 1990s and early 2000s. George Orr's ability means that each dream rewrites the world, and because only he retains the previous version, the changes are invisible to everyone else. He tries to suppress the dreams with drugs and is eventually sent to a therapist, Dr William Haber, who has built a device called the Augmentor for recording brain patterns during sleep.

Haber works out that he can use the ability to change the world, and the consequences are both beneficial and frightening, locally and globally. Orr seeks help from a civil rights lawyer, and the novel explores positivism, Taoism, behaviourism and utilitarianism. Two television adaptations were produced, one for PBS in 1980 and a remake in 2002, which reflects how often the book has been treated as a study of unintended consequences.