The Dream Master [Hardcover]

Roger Zelazny (Author), Richard Powers (Illustrator), Ormond A. Seavey (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1976

Charles Render is a shaper, one of a small number of psychotherapists qualified, by his granite will and ultra-stability, to use the extraordinary device that enables him to to participate in, and control, his patients' dreams. But this is a dangerous therapy for the therapist and only his armour-plated integrity protects Render from too deep an involvement in the mental worlds of the damaged people he seeks to help. But then, Eileen Shallot, another therapist who is blind, asks him to help her 'see' by transferring from his mind to hers a world of colour and light. Render agrees but suddenly finds himself obsessed with Eileen and drawn into fantasies which, she controls.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) studied Elizabethan and Jacobean drama at Columbia University. He began publishing sf with 'Passion Play', which appeared in Amazing in 1962. Much of his very best work, including This Immortal, The Dream Master and Lord of Light, appeared in the early part of his career. He is also well known for his fantasy fiction, particularly the titles in The Chronicles of Amber. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 155 pages
• Publisher: Gregg Press (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0839823452
• ISBN-13: 978-0839823452
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,621,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master of the Dream Castle, September 10, 2004

By 

Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dream Master (Hardcover)

Ideas have always been the movers and shakers of science fiction. But because of this, all too often other aspects of good literature have been ignored or given short shrift by all too many authors. Zelazny does not fall into this trap.

The driving idea behind this book is the ability, with the help of some fancy technology, of a trained neuroparticipant therapist to directly monitor and control his patient's dreams. There is a downside to this: the therapist had better be very emotionally stable himself, else he runs the risk of having the patient take control and impress his thoughts and emotional problems on the therapist. Zelazny takes this basic concept and wraps it first in truly excellent prose; much of this work reads almost like a prose poem. He adds two strong characters, Charles Render, the therapist, and Eileen Shallot, a blind-from-birth woman who wants to be a therapist herself, but must first get over the problem of how to deal with the sights and visions that her future patients will have. Render (and I believe the name is significant, though this is a literary device Zelazny did not normally use) is a tightly controlled person, carefully bulwarking his emotional walls from the pain of the death of his wife and driven to over-protect his brilliant son. Though repeatedly warned of the dangers, he finds the challenge of introducing Eileen to the world of sight irresistible. Thus the stage is set for a trip through the world of dreams, dreams that are perhaps both simpler and more comprehensible than the garden variety most people have, but described with such excellence that it is almost like seeing a sequence of pictures, watercolors and oils in vivid colors.

The side characters also have important roles to play, from Eileen's talking seeing-eye dog to Render's nominal current love interest, Jill DeVille. Their actions precipitate the final action of the story, and indicate that the story is both carefully plotted and has a thematic depth that can only be seen when the play of irony surrounding these events and the careful allusions to certain legendary characters is carefully examined.

This story was originally published in slightly shorter form as "He Who Shapes", which took the Nebula award for best novella in 1965. With this expanded form, I think the final irony is more sharply defined, his main characters better fleshed out, but perhaps there are places where some unnecessary verbiage has been added. I would be hard pressed to declare which version is better.

The idea is only the kernel. Roger's layers of wrapping with all the elements of good storytelling is what makes this story a worthwhile read.


--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zelazny, the dream master, March 5, 2003

By 

Horselover_Fat (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dream Master (The Nebula Award-Winning Novel) (Paperback)

First let me start off by saying that I am a huge Zelazny fan and that would most likely make me extremely biased. But I also like Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, and Lovecraft - so I think I can be fairly open-minded and am somewhat well-rounded. Contrary to most of the reviews on this book, I thought that 'The Dream Master' was very very good. True the characters could've been deeper, but Zelazny's writing style is captivating in and of itself. There is so much happening in this novel and is at the same time almost without purpose. This, I would say, is a novel for the Zelazny fan who has already read (and liked) his Amber Series and 'Lord of Light' (also check out 'Night in Lonesome October' for a new avenue of Zelazny thought) - because I think that this novel is more like 'basking in the sunlight' of the style of a truely ingenious writer. So in that respect it succeeds and if you appreciate a writer's style and ability to interest (even without a major plot!) then you would probably enjoy this one.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fast, fun read, March 27, 2001

By 

mr smith (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dream Master (The Nebula Award-Winning Novel) (Paperback)

Zelazny's prose is always polished nearly to a poetic lustre, and once you jump into it, it carries you along so swiftly that it seems almost unsafe to get out until it comes to an end. He doesn't insult the reader's intelligence by overwriting or overexplaining. The drawback of that last trait is that in any work of his you're liable to find yourself speeding along only to slam into a brick wall raised by some arcane reference of the author's, leaving you momentarily dazed and wondering what you just read. Having said that about his work in general, I'll say that it's mostly true in this work too. Others have said it reads like a padded short story, and that's exactly what it is. It was originally published as the so-called novella "He Who Shapes," which won a Nebula award in 1965. It's better in that shorter form, but Zelazny did a passable job when he subsequently expanded it into this fuller version. Often short stories suffer when expanded like this (Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not" comes to mind), but in this case I think both versions are very good. If you haven't read the short story, you won't know what you're not missing when you read "The Dream Master." Still, if you're new to Zelazny, you're probably better off picking up a compendium of his short works or of Nebula winners that includes "He Who Shapes." His work is easier to digest at first in small servings.