Quote:
Originally Posted by tponzo
The Lathe of Heaven bu Ursula LeGuin. The protagonists dreams constantly reshape reality for good and bad, even to the point of alien invasion.
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I met Ursula K. Le Guin as a kid and sat in on one of her classes when I lived in Portland, Oregon. At that time, she wore single-piece black dresses and had short silver hair that terminated in points -- that's how she seemed to this then-fourteen-year-old observer anyhow.
Le Guin seemed to have emerged from an Edward Gorey drawing. She looked like one of his ladies in furs and flapper dresses, the kind who tilt impossibly long cigarette holders at their mustached admirers in derbies.
She made a big impression and, yes, of course I know Lathe of Heaven. That book's idea is different from mine. Consider how each idea comes into play, its specific effect and emphasis.
Her take on the general idea of dreams becoming real is collaborative and often willed. As the daughter of an anthropologist, dreamed reality means something very specific to her -- something concretely related to collective development. Since you seem to be an intelligent person, I doubt you have any difficulty in seeing the application as
unique to her. This despite the fact that everyone has wondered what it would be like if their wishes and dreams came true.
Again -- my idea isn't collaborative but disruptive. It isn't about wishes but rather about the thoughts you try to repress. The effect is unscheduled, immediate and impossible to control.
You seem to be making reductive connections between concepts intended for entirely different ends -- concepts which might share a certain lineage but are fundamentally disparate.
No matter how much the creators of The Matrix prate about Schopenhauer, many people think the premise, worldview and even surface details were stolen from Philip K. Dick. In that particular case, I tend to agree.
Beyond pointing out
finished works which are that detailed and that inclusive in their pilfering, I tend to agree with Yeats, who said "Masterpieces grow vague in many minds before they crystallize in one."
It was my mistake (for many reasons) to bring up an idea for a story here at all, but that doesn't explain why you'd continue to make comparisons after I asked you to refrain. What exactly is the payoff for you? Are you the sort of individualist who stands up and yells "Nobody tells me what to do"?
If you said you wanted to build a house and told me the location of the project, I wouldn't immediately drive to that spot and plaster it with photos of someone else's house. I'd respect your creative intent and leave you alone to do what you intended.
Better to make a suggestion that avoids the familiar or the cliche than tell someone their idea has already been done.
Here's a challenge for you: Instead of listing the books of which my idea seems to remind you, why not tell me about a detail or variation which, to your knowledge, none of those other books contains?
Bonus points if what you add is disturbing as well as unique.