Don't Bite the Sun [Paperback]

Tanith Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1976

It's jang to be wild and sexy and reckless. It's jang to change your body, or your gender. It's jang to do daredevil tricks, and even get killed a few times..you can always come alive again. And it's jang to try to sabotage your robot-run world. But when the madcap chase for pleasure begins to drag and you start looking for a real life to live, you find the robots have left you nothing worthwhile to do. Searching for a way out of this pointless existence you make a lot of painful and stupid mistakes. But you fight your way free and start a new life - in exile. ..and you find you have to cope with sightseers and hangers-on, all uninvited and now exiled with you - and finally come face to face with the greatest and most deadly threat of all.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: DAW (February 17, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879972211
• ISBN-13: 978-0879972219
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,527,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Search for Meaning in a Meaningless World, May 8, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Arlington, Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don't Bite the Sun (Starmont Hardcover Collection, No 1) (Hardcover)

Together with it's sequel, Drinking Sapphire Wine, this is one of the best books I've ever read. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where all work is performed by robots and androids, citizens are expected to spend their entire existance (which will last however long they want it to) sampling meaningless experiences and having fun. The predominiately female heroine (you can change your sex, body, appearance, etc. anytime you choose to) finds herself bored and searches for something that will give her life meaning. In the process, her discontent manages to alienate her from society, with its extremely rigid unwritten rules of behavior underlying an "anything goes" appearance. The robots (who are programmed to serve humanity's needs) are at first confused by her desire to do something important and ultimately threatened by her antisocial behavior. In the end, our heroine (we never learn her name) succeeds in escaping the sterile environment of the mega-city and recreates a new world for herself in the process. Tanith Lee (my all-time favorite author) offers a scathing satire of today's emphasis on fun and games, while writing a startlingly sensitive account of one woman's attempt to give her life meaning. You will be amazed by the simplistic beauty of Lee's writing, with prose that often reads like poetry. With just a few, well chosen words, she paints a vivid picture that you will never forget. Lee's style in these books is light and gay, fitting the world her heroine is expected to conform to. The ultimate message of the books lurks palpably just below the surface of the words, waiting for the reader to discover it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book One: Life in Four Bee, November 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Don't Bite the Sun (Starmont Hardcover Collection, No 1) (Hardcover)

"Don't Bite the Sun" is the first book in this series. It pretty much illustrates life in Four Bee, the domed city where the nameless protagonist and her circle of Jang (teenage) friends live. (She might have a name, but I don't recall ever seeing it.) Here you can assume any gender or body just by "suiciding". Nothing's taboo in Four Bee--well, almost nothing. Murder, for one, is against the rules--and if it's forbidden, then this daring Jang will certainly find a way of committing it (...).

There are a few other no-no's besides murder in Four Bee. For starters, you can only kill yourself so many times before you're put on "probation". (Poor Hergal.) Just like in our own society today, teenage pregnancy, casual sex, and even May/December romances are frowned upon. After awhile, Four Bee doesn't seem like such a hedonistic place; it feels more like a prison or a bubbled cage.

If you like Tanith Lee's writing style (and especially her sci fi novels), then I would recommend this book. But I wouldn't recommend the sequel, "Drinking Sapphire Wine"; it's not as good as this one.

You can find these two novellas ("Don't Bite the Sun" and "Drinking Sapphire Wine") in one complete edition: "Biting the Sun".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stays With You, April 15, 2005

By 

Melissa McCauley (North Little Rock, AR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Don't Bite the Sun (Paperback)

I first read this years ago, but still remember the world of "jang"(hedonistic teenagers) that is the focus of this book. The unnamed protagonist's journey to self-reliance is the ultimate rebellion against a society that encourages and rewards mindless pleasure-seeking, vanity and consumerism. The sequel, DRINKING SAPPHIRE WINE, is amusing, but not as good as DON'T BITE THE SUN. A classic in the sci-fi genre, no bookshelf should be without a copy.