Biting the Sun
by Tanith Lee

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Book Reviews of Biting the Sun

Book Review: You CAN do anything - can't you? =Derisann=, absolutely!
Summary: 5 Stars

I have many of Tanith Lee's books in the original DAW editions, and often I couldn't keep myself from reading the second book [or later] in a series precisely because they were so excellent - it was too much to wait to find the one[s] before! That's how I fell into the dystopia =ooma= lives in, by reading _Drinking Sapphire Wine_ first. It's one of my all-time favorites of Tanith Lee, next to _The Silver Metal Lover_.

Of the two novels enclosed in _Biting the Sun_, I much prefer _Drinking Sapphire Wine_. _Don't Bite the Sun_ somehow isn't as good to me, perhaps because it's when =ooma=, the hero/heroine, is less mature, less happy, not yet realizing why the womb of the Fours isn't right for him/her. I identified hugely with =ooma= as a teen, and still do now - trying to find or make a place in the world, struggling to be or to explain choices to others. All this makes me sound pretty dull, because I'm not focusing on the trappings of the book, the mesmerizing imagery, the zaniness, the witty repartee. =grin= Yes, you can talk about how they can change their bodies like we do clothes, about how the cities are playgrounds in a sterile wasteland - that arid world which is very probably ours in the distant future... and you will be describing the way the Jang feel about life as well as how they live it. Which will let you understand how =ooma= could fall into crises of the soul, love, life, of - boredom? Yes.

I've loved Tanith Lee's writing for a long time, and I'm glad others are getting a chance to try the earlier works which won me to her. For a taste of her early fantasy, I recommend _Cyrion_ - imagine Sherlock Holmes' mind meshed with a beautiful angel [possibly the diabolic kind] and Conan's warrior deeds. Or her Flat Earth books, about the Masters of Death, Wickedness, Delusion/Madness... and much like the feel of Arabian Nights, but with some twists you would only find with Tanith Lee! Since _Biting the Sun_ is contemporary with these books, they'll give you some alternate tastes to compare, contrast and further enjoy =ooma= with. The neat thing about =ooma= is that the wit and scenery you expect in Tanith Lee's books makes this a fun and wild read. Yet if you take it soberly, you find that =ooma= learns about being able to live with oneself, needing others, the value of life and death. All the things you need to handle society, whether your society is decadent and messed up or not.

I'll leave you with this truth, which is an echo of what the Silver Metal Lover implies: "--how the body was a joke, that it was the inner something which mattered...". And leave all of what Tanith Lee does best for you to discover firsthand, with delight. :>

Summary of Biting the Sun

The far future has brought freedom not only from material want but also from rules, responsibilities, and risk. You can change bodies and genders like clothes, make love with whomever you want, live forever, and kill yourself as often as you like. You can have everything, except a meaningful life. Then one day a restless soul discovers an act so shocking and terrifying that human society has forgotten its existence. --Cynthia Ward

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