townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-5.9
Originality-6.3
Plot-5.8
Merit(whatever that means)-4.9
Overall-5.7

I know it's been a long time since my last review. Sorry, I've been pretty busy. Plus, I just haven't felt very bloggy lately. Sooner or later you're bound to ask yourself, 'Who gives a shit?' The answer is inevitably, no effin' body. But what the hell, I kinda like having this record of what I've read. Plus I usually forget what the hell a book was about a few months after having read it, so now I can go back and jog my memory. In fact, the other day I picked up my copy of 1876 by Gore Vidal and tried to remember if I've read it yet or not. I'm pretty sure I have, but I can't remember one damn thing about it.

Anyhoo, on to The Lathe of Heaven. Another book that I probably won't remember a year from now if not for this blog entry. It's pretty standard sci-fi fare. Trying to be smarter than most, but not really having anything substantial to say.

The plot sounds so cliche that it feels weird even talking about it seriously. There's a dude who dreams stuff and the dreams come true. Problem is, it's not that easy to dream good stuff and keep bad stuff from happening. And even when he does dream what he wants to happen there are horrible unforeseen circumstances. Imagine!

Now, I'm a Le Guin fan. See my Dispossessed review. That book was thought-provoking. This isn't, at all. It's like a bad episode of Amazing Stories. Wait every episode was bad. You get my point.

The books is short though. Almost novella sized. So at least Le Guin recognized that there really wasn't enough there to work with to warrant more pages, which is something many novelist don't recognize.