Imagine you could change reality with your dreams. Sounds sweet, right? You'd make the world a better place, end suffering, and get a little bit of the good life for yourself while you're at it. So far, so good.

But now imagine that you can't control it: your dreams never quite turn out the way you want them to, and sometimes you even end up killing people.

Well, now you understand why it sucks to be George Orr.

The Lathe of Heaven appeared 1971, and in it Ursula K. Le Guin explores just what would happen if someone who can change the world with his dreams—like George Orr—fell into the hands of someone as power-hungry as Dr. Haber. George's dreams end up changing reality more times than we can count; they even indirectly lead to the end of the world.

Not exactly the awesome free pass you expected, huh?

The plot of the novel was probably influenced by its historical context. It comes out of an era defined by civil-rights issues, Vietnam War protests, and a generation of hippies. Some of the big issues in this book—race, warfare, Eastern religions—are pretty familiar to anyone who knows a little bit about the Sixties.

Even though Lathe of Heaven is not as popular as Le Guin's Earthsea or Hanish Cycle, it's probably her most famous work outside of those series. It was nominated for the 1972 Hugo Award and the 1971 Nebula award, and it won the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1972. Its popularity was so lasting that it was adapted into a film not once (1980) but twice (2002). And that's despite the fact that Le Guin thought it was an unfilmable book.

Now if we could only dream of a sequel…

"If I ran the world, things would be awesome."

Okay, so how many times have you thought that? Hey, we've thought all about it, too, and it's probably something that's sneaked into almost everyone's minds. We see people with great power and we wonder how they manage to mess things up over and over again. It seems impossible to be that bad at your job, right?

Seeing how Dr. Haber can't fix the world no matter how hard he tries in The Lathe of Heaven might make you rethink the idea that you could make the world perfect if you just had the power to do it. Maybe it's really hard, even when you're trying your best, to make things perfect. Maybe it's even impossible.

Still want all that power? Read on and make sure.