Reviews

Don't Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee

belgian_fantasy_fan's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

pugloaf's review against another edition

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4.0

What a unique atmosphere this book has. The world it builds and the characters are such as I've never really seen before. Particularly the thought processes of the characters: what they do and how they react is so alien to how I think a person can act and only the disposition towards preferences has any overlap. Not something I burned through but so interesting a space that I can't help but like it and the way it lays out its story.

The fact that characters don't really get mad at each other; don't harbor any sort of grudges or deep differences, treat things so matter of fact as well as if nothing matters lends itself to bizarre situations. Even from the opening where the main character tells another they are cut from their friend group holds no real consequence to either; in fact they call and hang out normally as if it didn't mean anything.

And that seems to be the crux of the book; a drive for real consequences. In this utopian world (not even one that can be seen as fake or twisted into distopia: purely genuine) the characters have no real frame of reference for consequence- for 'real' experience. Changing bodies and sex casually, killing themselves casually, 'marrying' and 'annulling' casually- nothing has consequences beyond immediate pleasure, desire, or fancy. The main character stealing is another good example, you can pay or not pay if you don't want to- steal if you want to. There are no consequences or even punishments in this utopia.

I see the evolution over time of the wants of our protagonist as they naively try to figure out what they are missing- to find something that can fill this burgeoning drive (that they can't even articulate/understand well). Being and Older Person, having a kid, the expedition- all is to find some way of having that genuine experience. And she does- through the desert and the pet. Through its wild realness and ultimately the real loss. Real consequence. And we see that she's not the only one trying to clumsily work towards this. Hegel with using real pain to find real experience. Hattie through real love. But these real experiences require real consequences which in this utopia cannot exist. The Q-R seem to understand and are sympathetic to this end but its a hard pill to swallow. Biting the Sun, trying to find some portion where the utopia does not shield real consequence, may be futile but we see that these humans that still have the spark of life still seek it even it they do not know what it is.

carmiendo's review against another edition

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4.0

kind of slow, but that's also kind of the point. really like the narrative style

raxus's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is so timely that I was shocked as I read it. It’s underrated, underappreciated, and underread. Don’t Bite the Sun is one of the undiscovered New Wave masterworks of science fiction that has missed the radar of the masses.

Imagine, if you will, a perfect utopia. Death has been defeated. You can do whatever you want, too. You can steal, kill, and destroy all you want with no ramifications because autonomous robots will undo the damage and fix it like it never happened. This is a perfect world that humanity has dreamed of. Would could be unhappy here?

Perhaps you feel it. Something’s wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it. This is a world where nothing is done for yourself. The robots do everything, and humans trick themselves into having a sort of freewill. 

Sure, you can work pressing buttons. But if you don’t press the button at the right time, a robot will do it for you. Art! You can do art, but the robots will tell you what to do and even give suggestions.

This is a book about purpose and identity. The narrator wants to discover what she’s missing—what this society has stolen from her. And it’s this journey that we join her on, in this world so strange yet so familiar.

wunder's review against another edition

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5.0

This is just soaking in glam, but that is really the surface layer. Beneath all that, we get glimpses of what is really going on, with our protagonist figuring it out a little after we do. In this first book, we only get hints of what underlies the endless fun and dedicated decadence.

Tanith Lee found her forever home in fantasy, but I'm a little sad we don't have more science fiction from her, because this is so well executed—laying on the glam like a heavy layer of pancake makeup, then small glimpses of the machine underneath.

Wisely, the next book takes a different storytelling approach. This could get to be too much, pretty quickly. But you can put on Ziggy Stardust and enjoy this book for what it is and when it was written.

anomie's review against another edition

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5.0

A woman's search for meaning in a meaninglessly hedonistic world.

shendriq's review

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

lark42's review

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adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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haramis's review against another edition

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4.0

I have a weird soft spot for Tanith Lee, probably because I first read her at a very impressionable age. I think her deeply inappropriate books were some of the first I got from the adult section of the library. Don’t Bite the Sun is…an experience. I don’t know how else to put it. It is vivid and weird and dreamy, and occasionally lurid. I love it for how loopy it is and how devoted it is to carrying the book’s concept to fruition. Also reading it in original 70’s paperback is a real treat, seeing as you get to tout that weird cover wherever you go (finished this pre-Covid-19 isolation, obvs). Watching the (mostly) heroine bump her head and hands futilely against the barriers that society has built around her is at times funny, sad, and infuriating. This book is like a lovely time capsule of a specific era, and I think I’ll always love it.

uranuz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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