Reviews

Definitely the best thing that I've read from Zelanzy so far. The Dream Master follows Charles Render, who works as essentially a psychologist, but one that has been tried with the tools necessary to enter his patients dreams, sculpting them to create psychological breakthroughs. Render is looking for a greater challenge with his work, and that's when he meets Eileen Shallot, another psychologist who is looking to get into the field of dream shaping, the catch being that Shallot is blind and thus has no concept of what things look like. Despite the hazards involved and the recommendations of his peers (a breakdown of the patient mid-dream leads to a break of the psychologist as well, as their minds are melded together), Render decides to expose Shallot to the sights of the world, and breakdown her anxiety surrounding sight.

Behind these characters is a post-scarcity, globalized world that seems to be devoid of human ambition, love, or care. There's a lot of detachment between characters and a general sense of unease behind a lot of technological advancements, including the autonomous cars that race around the city on pre-programmed routes, and speaking dogs that are a reflection of the dread within society. Even more foreboding is the rise of suicides of all types, that goes at odds to the supposedly advanced society that creates them.

The prose itself is excellent. By far the best writing that I've seen from Zelanzy. There's some fantastic description and evocative moments during the dream sequences, especially when Render models a dream after a Walt Whitman poem. Yet at the same time, there's still a certain sense of 'up-his-own-ass' that I haven't ever liked. At least here, he doesn't poke holes in the forth wall all the time, or use 70's lingo. It's a tight, fast paced read that you could theoretically finish in an afternoon, but unless you're exceptionally well-read when it comes to mythology, psychology, and poetry I doubt you'd understand a lot. Hell, I took several days to read it, and I'm still left with holes in my understanding.

As the story progressed the structure of the narrative begins to lose cohesion, and we start getting short focal interludes from other perspectives, including the talking dog. I loved this part of the book. I though the beginning and the end were the best parts, even though the end left me rather confused and searching for meaning. I could see someone disliking The Dream Master because it doesn't really have a strong central conflict too, even though I personally think it works that way. Zelanzy spends a lot of time rambling about Freudian psychology theory too, which fleshed out the main technology involved, but also played against the dream-like prose style.

I enjoyed the short story He Who Shapes a slight bit more, but I honestly really enjoyed this expanded version about the same. This one is definitely a keeper in my long-term collection.