Novel Review: Paprika

Paprika
Author: Yasutaka Tsutsui
Vintage
342 Pages (paperback ed.)

When prototype models of a dream-invading device go missing at the Institute for Psychiatric Research, it transpires that someone is using them to drive people insane. Threatened both personally and professionally, brilliant psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba has to journey into the world of fantasy to fight her mysterious opponents. (Source: Vintage)

Some spoilers for the novel's story are within.

Scientists are finding new ways to treat mental illnesses every day. Some treatments border on the science-fiction. So what about a device that enters the dreams of a patient, can let the person treating them directly access the other's subconscious world and alter it? When the line between reality and dreams blur, where will science stand? Paprika, the basis for the Satoshi Kon film of the same name, tackles these massive issues and somehow manages to come out on the other side intact. If anything, Paprika is a battle to control reality as we know it.