The Lathe of Heaven

George Orr is a very ordinary man with a problem. His dreams reshape reality. He wants to stop, but an encounter with an unethical psychotherapist sets Orr and the Earth on a dangerous course, as Orr’s dreams are used again and again to “improve” the world, finding solutions to dangerous problems. There’s a lot of joy watching Le Guin shuffle her dystopian setting cards-overpopulation, plagues, war, alien invasion, a megalomaniacal tyranny. There’s some interesting stuff about dreams, power, what changes and what is invariant. An odd book, but short enough not to wear out its welcome.