Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Spectra (1999), 384 pages
Description
In a world dedicated to pleasure, one young rebel sets out on a forbidden quest. Published for the first time in a single volume, Tanith Lee's duet of novels set in a hedonistic Utopia are as riveting and revolutionary as they were when they first appeared two decades ago. It's a perfect existence, a world in which no pleasure is off-limits, no risk is too dangerous, and no responsibilities can cramp your style. Not if you're Jang: a caste of libertine teenagers in the city of Four BEE. But when you're expected to make trouble--when you can kill yourself on a whim and return in another body, when you're encouraged to change genders at will and experience whatever you desire--you've got no reason to rebel . . . until making love and raising hell, daring death and running wild just leave you cold and empty. Ravenous for true adventures of the mind and body, desperate to find some meaning, one restless spirit finally bucks the system--and by shattering the rules, strikes at the very heart of a soulless society. . . .… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ansate
Love love the world building, but it is strangely heteronormative for such a gender fluid society.
SPOILER, MILD
ends with some Nice Guy bullshit that I could really have done without.
SPOILER, MILD
ends with some Nice Guy bullshit that I could really have done without.
LibraryThing member Nickidemus
The Basics
In a world where the least desire is met, our heroine/hero is getting bored. They want something intangibly more that vast technological advances can’t meet. The questions becomes not whether they will find the answer they seek but whether society will let them.
My Thoughts
This is one of
The story also echoes the classic Brave New World, though from a slightly different angle. Where Huxley had an outsider appalled by what he witnessed in this supposed utopia, we have an insider who starts to see the sheen and glitter of their utopia tarnish. And in the most interesting way. Death is nothing in this world. Suicide is the norm, something people do so they can come back with a new body. Yet our narrator suffers loses. The path she takes (and most of her loses are suffered when she is in a female body) makes it so she witnesses death in a very personal way. So that by the time we reach part two of the story, she is now a he and pursuing an entirely different way of life than those around him. The heroine/hero’s narrative is so well-done that this transition feels entirely natural, and the character development is thorough and fascinating.
As you can see, this book is hard to sum up. It’s about a dystopia in sheep’s clothing. It’s about acceptance of the imperfect. It’s about facing death. It’s about gender identity. It’s also just an amazingly fun romp for all that. A future-world adventure with a narrator who starts out a shallow nuisance and becomes something their world has never seen before. It has a rich plot and a great main character. It’s worth the hype it receives.
Final Rating
5/5
In a world where the least desire is met, our heroine/hero is getting bored. They want something intangibly more that vast technological advances can’t meet. The questions becomes not whether they will find the answer they seek but whether society will let them.
My Thoughts
This is one of
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Tanith Lee’s most popular works, and having finally read it, I see why. Not just for it’s entertainment value, of which is has a lot, but for the chances it takes and the messages it sends. By today’s standards, what Lee does with the idea of gender swapping might seem tame, but for it’s day, I can imagine it was different, illuminating, and maybe even shocking to some. Characters in this world change appearance and gender on a whim. They get married and divorced within a week. There is a lot said here about sexual orientation, sex in general, gender identification, and so on. In many cases, the truthfulness of what’s said is debatable, like how our nameless narrator makes a very different man than she does a woman and what the implications of that are. But it can still be said that this book takes a lot of worthy chances by involving the idea of gender being transitory.The story also echoes the classic Brave New World, though from a slightly different angle. Where Huxley had an outsider appalled by what he witnessed in this supposed utopia, we have an insider who starts to see the sheen and glitter of their utopia tarnish. And in the most interesting way. Death is nothing in this world. Suicide is the norm, something people do so they can come back with a new body. Yet our narrator suffers loses. The path she takes (and most of her loses are suffered when she is in a female body) makes it so she witnesses death in a very personal way. So that by the time we reach part two of the story, she is now a he and pursuing an entirely different way of life than those around him. The heroine/hero’s narrative is so well-done that this transition feels entirely natural, and the character development is thorough and fascinating.
As you can see, this book is hard to sum up. It’s about a dystopia in sheep’s clothing. It’s about acceptance of the imperfect. It’s about facing death. It’s about gender identity. It’s also just an amazingly fun romp for all that. A future-world adventure with a narrator who starts out a shallow nuisance and becomes something their world has never seen before. It has a rich plot and a great main character. It’s worth the hype it receives.
Final Rating
5/5
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LibraryThing member mellowtrouble
just re-read this book today, i'd forgotten how much i liked it. (though the tag on the cover was so annoying and so jarring with the actual content of the book, i took a sharpie and blocked it out years ago.) this dystopian world lee creates seems at first totally alien but quickly you see the
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similarities to today's world and attitudes. the evolution of the main character over the years is sweet and sincere, both terms that would probably make the character wince. ah well. a very good book. Show Less
LibraryThing member SithCrow
"my friend hergal had killed himself again." or something like that; i don't have the book in front of me to doublecheck the quote but, really. c'mon -- how can you argue with that as an opening line? plus you can line up this book with "clockwork orange" for "best use of invented or unexplained
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slang". i didn't even realise there was a glossary in the front until i'd read the book about three times! Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Biting the Sun consists of two short SF novels from the 1970s: Don't Bite the Sun and its sequel Drinking Sapphire Wine. Collecting the two of them together was a good idea, as this is basically one complete story, and I don't think either half stands particularly well on its own. It's set sometime
This is a pretty familiar storyline now, and it was already a familiar storyline in the 70s. What Lee does with it isn't bad at all, though, and while there are definitely elements one can point to that are clearly a product of the 70s, it feels much less dated than a lot of SF from that era. I particularly liked her approach to world-building: it's very much of the kind that shows you a world from an inhabitant's perspective and expects you to figure it out without hand-holding. There are some interesting and surprising touches to the society she creates, too.
In fact, I think the fun of being immersed in that world and figuring it out as I went along was the best part of the book for me. Which, unfortunately, meant that once I had a good handle on it -- certainly by the time I got to book two -- I wasn't feeling quite as engaged as I was at the start. Which also meant that the things that didn't quite work for me started to bother me a bit more: a small but significant streak of religious mysticism, some ideas about gender that didn't sit quite right, one or two things that really could have done with a bit more description, and an important element towards the end that I found biologically improbable.
In the end, I can't say I found it completely satisfying, but it was worth the read, anyway.
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in the distant future on an alien world where humans live in domed cities, serious crime is non-existent, punishment is equally non-existent, all needs are provided for, death has been abolished, and the young are expected to live decadent, frivolous, carefree lives... within the bounds of certain social conventions. It's also a world without much in the way of meaning, creativity, or depth. Our main character, of course, chafes against this and, almost without realizing that's what she's doing, sets about looking for something more fulfilling in life.This is a pretty familiar storyline now, and it was already a familiar storyline in the 70s. What Lee does with it isn't bad at all, though, and while there are definitely elements one can point to that are clearly a product of the 70s, it feels much less dated than a lot of SF from that era. I particularly liked her approach to world-building: it's very much of the kind that shows you a world from an inhabitant's perspective and expects you to figure it out without hand-holding. There are some interesting and surprising touches to the society she creates, too.
In fact, I think the fun of being immersed in that world and figuring it out as I went along was the best part of the book for me. Which, unfortunately, meant that once I had a good handle on it -- certainly by the time I got to book two -- I wasn't feeling quite as engaged as I was at the start. Which also meant that the things that didn't quite work for me started to bother me a bit more: a small but significant streak of religious mysticism, some ideas about gender that didn't sit quite right, one or two things that really could have done with a bit more description, and an important element towards the end that I found biologically improbable.
In the end, I can't say I found it completely satisfying, but it was worth the read, anyway.
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LibraryThing member davisfamily
I really enjoyed this. I wish I could write articulate reviews....
This book was awesome on so many levels.
This book was awesome on so many levels.
LibraryThing member alaudacorax
I read Tanith Lee’s Biting the Sun in three days. I read a little bit one evening and again the next, intending to carry on like that, but I really got into it and spent the larger part of the next day finishing it. I couldn't help myself - it's a really absorbing read.
I believe that I read in
I suppose the idea of an ‘utopian’ city where everyone lives in pampered idleness is not at all original, but I doubt if many paint it as vividly or imaginatively as Lee. One of her great strengths is her ability to paint vivid and colourful images in the reader's mind.
The story concerns a heroine (basically a heroine – as so often with Lee, gender boundaries are fluid) who doesn’t fit in this utopia, and how she continually causes problems and eventually gets banished to the outside desert, and her life out there. I suppose it can be read as an allegory for the journey from dependent adolescence to self-reliant adulthood.
Obviously, from the above, I think this a very good novel, but the thing that is really astonishing me is that Lee can be so extraordinarily prolific an author and yet, as far as I’ve read so far, maintain her standards of quality and inventiveness. Good stuff.
I believe that I read in
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some article online that Tanith Lee is not a great believer in genres, but if I had to pigeonhole this I suppose I’d call it science fiction.I suppose the idea of an ‘utopian’ city where everyone lives in pampered idleness is not at all original, but I doubt if many paint it as vividly or imaginatively as Lee. One of her great strengths is her ability to paint vivid and colourful images in the reader's mind.
The story concerns a heroine (basically a heroine – as so often with Lee, gender boundaries are fluid) who doesn’t fit in this utopia, and how she continually causes problems and eventually gets banished to the outside desert, and her life out there. I suppose it can be read as an allegory for the journey from dependent adolescence to self-reliant adulthood.
Obviously, from the above, I think this a very good novel, but the thing that is really astonishing me is that Lee can be so extraordinarily prolific an author and yet, as far as I’ve read so far, maintain her standards of quality and inventiveness. Good stuff.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
One of the books I read in 2010, when I got horribly behind on reviewing and recording books. I had read a large excerpt from this book in my Gendering class in college and always intended to find the book and read the rest of it. I finally did. Many interesting ideas about gender, society, the
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value of work and the land. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1979 (omnibus)
Physical description
384 p.; 4.26 inches
ISBN
0553581309 / 9780553581300