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.
Few writers in any genre can claim to have had the range and influence of Ursula K. Le Guin. Championed for her ground-breaking works of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin’s work was diverse and wide-ranging, encompassing more than short stories, novels, poetry, essays, books for children and works of translation.
She remains best-known for her landmark series Earthsea – a wise and stunning saga of a world where wizards and dragons mutually coexist – which gradually evolved to become a singular touchstone of imaginative fantasy. Simultaneously, Le Guin forged an enviable reputation within science fiction, hoovering up prizes, including numerous Nebula and Hugo Awards, and establishing a vital feminist foothold in a traditionally male-dominated discipline. Her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, set on a genderless planet banked in ice, is regarded to this day as a profound exploration of imagination and our understanding of society and identity.
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 9781857989519
Number of pages: 192
Weight: 180 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 16 mm
Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power - OBSERVER
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 - GUARDIAN
Le Guin is one of the singular speculative voices of our future, thanks to her knack for anticipating issues of seminal importance to society - TLS
Her worlds have a magic sheen . . . She moulds them into dimensions we can only just sense. She is unique. She is legend - THE TIMES
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 - NEW YORK TIMES
[Le Guin had] the heart of a poet who knew all too well the difference between miracle and eureka, revelation and revolution - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Le Guin's storytelling is sharp, magisterial, funny, thought-provoking and exciting, exhibiting all that science fiction can be - EMPIRE
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 - DAILY TELEGRAPH
I don't know how it took me so long to hear about this novel. I previously knew Ursula Le Guin through her Earthsea series but this is a very different beast. The closest comparison I can think of is Philip K... More
I had read this many years ago, and felt the urge to read it again now, in this particular moment of climate crisis, political chaos, and violence. Le Guin's premise here is simple; in a collapsing world, driven... More
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