8.4 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist Brian Froud Language English Publication date 1976 Originally published 1976 Page count 158 ISBN 9780879974862 | 4.2/5 Goodreads Country United Kingdom Publisher DAW Books Media type Print Followed by Drinking Sapphire Wine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Genres Science Fiction, Utopian and dystopian fiction Similar Tanith Lee books, Fantasy books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don't Bite the Sun is a 1976 science fiction novel by Tanith Lee set in a utopian world which the main character comes to reject. The main character and her friends are wild, crazy "Jang" teenagers whose lifestyle is full of reckless behaviour, promiscuous sex, repeated suicide (on dying they are reborn), and a constant search for thrills. Over the course of the story, the nameless narrator fails to relate to her seven Jang friends but finds herself, feels emotion, and learns love.
Contents
Setting
On a desert planet in the distant future, humanity inhabits three domed utopian cities: Four-BEE, Four-BOO, and Four-BAA. Humans have no responsibilities; their daily needs are served by quasi-robots which even run the government through a Committee. Young humans known as "Jang" are rigidly expected to do whatever they please, indulge in various forms of drugs, have sex (as long as they marry first, even if it is just for the afternoon), and live for their own pleasures. They can visit, have their dreams constructed for them, buy or steal anything they want at will, and even sabotage the city (though the robots instantly repair any damage). Robots handle everything, and nothing is left for the humans to do. Nor can they die in any meaningful sense; when they do, they are resurrected in a body customised to their wishes.
Technology
In addition to being resurrected at will, the inhabitants of the city possess various future technologies. They can travel by bird plane or bubble or teleportation through a Body Displacer. Their children go to hypno-school to learn complex math that will never be used again, all while completely asleep. Their cities are completely climate-controlled. Outside the domes, however, lie uninhabitable desert, plagued with sandstorms, volcanic eruptions, and furry, long-eared beasts that wander the great expanses.
Plot
The book opens with the narrator visiting a close friend after his fortieth suicide-by-birdplane. Offended by his insensitivity, she kills herself, then, in a new body, embarks on a series of mundane attempts to amuse herself, including stealing a white fluffy desert animal that she keeps as a pet, programming elaborate dreams for herself, having unsatisfying sex with her peers, and employing a wide variety of legal drugs. Incapable of making emotional connections with anyone, she finds her life increasingly unsatisfying, though her demanding and difficult pet does interest her.
Soon after going through the mundane rituals of her life the narrator feels like she should not be a Jang teenager any more. However, the quasi-robots who run the city determine that she is not ready to become an older person. Soon she tries looking for a useful job, but to no avail: robots and computers perform every useful task. She then attempts to have a child, but is unable to find a suitable partner, tries to have a child with herself, and ends up causing the child to die. Unable to fill the emptiness she feels, she joins an expedition to explore the deserts outside the city. During this expedition, the narrator realises the beauty of life outside of the domes and she gains a strong emotional connection with her stolen pet. However, it is then accidentally killed, devastating her. Upon returning to the city, she is still unable to make lasting emotional connections with her peers. She considers death and wonders if she really belongs in the city or somewhere else.
Jang
Older people
Other
Context
Tanith Lee wrote Don’t Bite the Sun in the early 1970s, and it represents the New Wave of science fiction, in which feminist writers played a substantial role. Fantastic fiction can be a way of describing an imperfect world that can provoke social change. Women writing science fiction as part of the New Wave “recuperate[d] female archetypal roles that have fallen into stereotypes; … recover[ed] a lost matriarchal tradition in myth and history … deal[t] explicitly with woman-centered issues such as rape and gender inequality … and … reenvision[ed] traditional fantasy from a feminized perspective of caring and community.” Don't Bite the Sun formed part of a projected trilogy (with Drinking Sapphire Wine and an unwritten third novel); such long novels and multibook series became increasingly common during the 1970s. Don’t Bite the Sun features considerable technology developed in the 1970s, including robots, game rooms and virtual reality, and compact computers.
Tanith Lee also credits feminist writers such as Elizabeth Bowen and Angela Carter as significant influences during her early career. While she did not consider herself a feminist author during the period in which she wrote Don't Bite the Sun, she later acknowledged her feminist influences The New Wave fascination with soul-crushing dystopian worlds is apparent in Don't Bite the Sun but is subverted into an apparent soul-crushing utopia.
Reception
Don’t Bite the Sun has received largely positive reviews on online sources such as Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and Goodreads. The standalone book Don’t Bite The Sun has 4.2 of 5 on Goodreads with 228 ratings, with reviewers citing its light yet fantasy-rich storyline and referring to it as a "comfort book" that readers like to escape to, although some consider it challenging for a first-time reader. It has 4.5 of 5 stars on Amazon with 11 total reviews to date. The omnibus edition Biting the Sun, which includes the sequel, has 4.23 of five on Goodreads with 813 ratings, 4.8 of 5 stars on Amazon with 40 reviews (only five rate it less than 5 of 5), and 4.5 of 5 on BarnesandNoble with 15 ratings. Biting the Sun is the 22nd most popular item on alibris.com for work authored solely by Tanith Lee and her highest-ranked Amazon title. Review bloggers have described Don’t Bite the Sun as "a fun, addictive read" "written in a wonderful vernacular style."
Editions
There are three available editions of Don’t Bite the Sun. The book was originally published in February 1976 by science fiction, fantasy, and horror publisher DAW Books as a mass-market paperback with a front cover by English fantasy illustrator Brian Froud Don’t Bite the Sun was re-released by DAW on 7 August 1979, again as a mass-market paperback, this time under a new cover by Spanish artist Enrich Torres. In 1987, Starmont House Inc. published a hardcover offset of the 1976 DAW Books edition. The illustrator is unknown and not credited. All three editions differ only in cover illustrations and publishers.
In 1999, Bantam Books combined Don’t Bite the Sun and its sequel, Drinking Sapphire Wine (originally published by DAW Books in February 1977) in a single volume, Biting the Sun.
Publishing history
Don’t Bite the Sun, as well as Biting the Sun, is one of the many books Tanith Lee has written that has been translated into different languages and published in other countries. In total, Don’t Bite the Sun and Biting the Sun has been translated into 8 different languages including English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Swedish.