Anti-hero: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

In our September 2023 Introvert Book Club selection, an ordinary man resists the pressure of an extroverted manipulator. Someone lacking the heroism of bravery, nobility and strength saves the world.

In a historical era somewhat more disastrous than our own, a resident of Portland, Oregon named George Orr discovers that his dreams change reality.  After he dreams of a galloping horse, for instance, a wall hanging that had depicted Mount Hood instead shows a champion thoroughbred after he wakes up.  Orr seeks medication to suppress his disturbing dreaming, whereupon he falls into the clutches of an ambitious psychiatrist.  The doctor attempts to harness his patient’s uncanny power for what he sees as the good of humanity.  In the 1971 science fiction novel The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula Le Guin describes how George Orr hangs back as best he can from cooperating with Dr. Haber out of his own desire to let events take their own course.  In the end, Orr’s reticence triumphs over Dr. Haber’s interventionism.