#tanithlee — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #tanithlee, aggregated by home.social.
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Short Book Reviews: Tanith Lee’s Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977) and Edmund Cooper’s All Fool’s Day (1966)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Tanith Lee’s Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977)
- Don Maitz’ cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
In 2019, I read and mostly enjoyed Tanith Lee’s Don’t Bite the Sun (1976). The sequel Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977) follows the same nameless narrator of the first volume. It’s set in the same post-scarcity future replete with advanced technology where youth, the Jang, are encouraged (and “taught” via hypno-schools) to engage in all forms of excess. The narrator, sometimes female and other times male, attempts to find life’s purpose in a society without need. In cities surrounded by desert sand and the hidden ruins of ancient habitation, humans deploy technology to satiate all their whims. Society falls into three groups: The Jang, or the youth. In Limbo, new bodies are made for the Jang who commit suicide and others who want a change in costume or gender. Old People, the post-Jang state, are allowed to have children and pursue simple jobs (of course, backed up entirely by machines!). They too are able to change gender and create new bodies… The third and final “human” state are Quasi-Robots, who are humanoid androids and care for every human need.
Drinking Sapphire Wine follows the maturation of N (the nameless narrator). While in mournful male poet form, N spends their days in the History Tower reading old records. They learn about duels and soon a rival named Zirk challenges them to one. With almost all the city’s Jang watching, N kills Zirk (albeit, in self-defense), the first intended murder in six thousand years (I find this hard to believe) (30). N enters new territory as the city’s QR guardians conduct the first trial in centuries. N, now in female form, is sentenced to exile with as many supplies as she might need. Severed from the guaranteed immortality promised by life in the city, N must figure out how to make the life she always wanted. She grows plants with a water reclaimer and eats the first food grown by hand in generations. And others from the cities soon leave their urban cocoons and join her.
Beneath all the Jang jargon (which I found unnecessary and distracting) and silly excess, Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977) and Don’t Bite the Sun (1976) successfully channel the dark undercurrents of youth dissatisfaction and struggle. The youth in this world yearn for connection and meaning. This is a book about navigating depression and suicide. This is a book about the small choices that keep you alive in hard times. This is a book about love and community. I’m just not sure I bought into the talking swans and baboon bodies and the sheen of it all. I should also note that there’s a ton of material on gender and sexuality in both these volumes for serious study.
If you’re new to Tanith Lee’s brand of science fiction, I recommend the superior Electric Forest (1979) first.
2. Edmund Cooper’s All Fool’s Day (variant title: All Fools’ Day) (1966)
- Uncredited cover for the 1967 edition
2.75/5 (Bad)
As readers of the site should know by now, I am relentlessly entranced by the post-apocalyptic, especially in the post-WII British mode (shaped in part by psychological impact of an empire irrevocably weakened).1 I’ll happily suffer through the jarring Catholic apology of Lewis Gibbs’ dismal Late Final (1951) or the comical and grotesque adventures of a one-time Playboy bunny in Emma Tennant’s The Time of the Crack (1973) on my misguided quest to chart the lay of the charred and denuded landscape. And thus, this volume by Edmund Cooper (1926-1982) came into my possession. Cooper contributed quite a few angry and “dyspeptic” novels to the subgenre–Deadly Image (1958), Seed of Light (1959), The Overman Culture (1971), Slaves of Heaven (1974), The Cloud Walker (1973), etc. He also infamously known for his anti-Feminist streak.2
All Fool’s Day (1966) imagines an UK grappling with the profound suicide-causing effects of solar radiation. The story follows Matthew Greville, a wannabe novelist roped into a life as an adman. Greville, already depressed due to his cheating wife and failed career goals, attempts to drive his car off Chelsea Bridge. After serving his sentence for manslaughter and dangerous driving, Greville exits prison to find a UK transformed. Soon even local governments collapse as “Radiant Suicide” spreads. An unusual pattern emerges, those of a creative persuasion (“transnormals”) and those classified as sociopathic or psychotic seem to be spared Omega radiation’s wrath (21).
In a classic dystopic landscape with packs of wild dogs, polyamorous collectives, hordes of rats, bands of religious fanatics, and insane British nobles seeking to resurrect feudalism, Greville spends his days reading novels in an almost Gothic locale–a house of some mournful long-dead poet on an island replete with graveyard. On one of his scrounging expeditions, Greville comes rescues Liz, an escaped sex slave for one of the many deranged cults wrecking havoc, from a pack of animals. While Cooper deliberately renders Greville a violent man willing to kill his wife, it’s hard to escape the sense that Cooper revels in Liz’s suffering. There are numerous unnerving scenes of domestic violence. He falls in love. As forces gather strength, will it be possible to escape cycles of violence?
Why did I keep reading? Despite the novel’s profound problems, Cooper has his moments. He often effectively renders humanity’s earthy, drunk, grimy, and disturbed tendencies. It’s angry. It veers into dark comedy at the oddest moments. In one instance, Liz and Greville are rescued by a criminal who pretends to be a priest (with all the rituals of benediction) and takes over a convent and trains all the nuns to wield weapons. Cooper’s pen lashes out at all the traditional targets: nobility, boarding school boys, priests, etc. A bit of praise seeps into his description of a community of radical acceptance: “We don’t give a damn whether people are homosexual or Hungarian. We don’t give a damn whether they are sex-crazed or schizophrenic. So long as they do their whack and don’t bust up the furniture” (166). Unfortunately, the narrative swings wildly and the story doesn’t ponder what new form of social order might counter ingrained cycles of violence.
If you’re hankering for more satisfying British post-WWII dystopias, check out Dave Wallis’ Only Lovers Left Alive (1964), John Christopher’s A Wrinkle in the Skin (variant title: The Ragged Edge) (1965), M. John Harrison’s The Committed Men (1971), Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978), Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967), J. G. Ballard’s oeuvre, and Martin Bax’s experimental The Hospital Ship (1976). I can only recommend Cooper’s All Fool’s Day (1966) for unusual people like myself.
- Chris Foss’ cover for the 1973 edition
Notes
- Check out Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). ↩︎
- The adjective and description of his work comes from the SF Encyclopedia entry. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1960s #1970s #bookReviews #EdmundCooper #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #TanithLee #technology -
while cleaning up my old place i was not using for ages, diving through old junk i found two gems and one curiosity: #robertehoward 's "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth" and "Volkhavaar" from #tanithlee. i still love output of both authors. don't judge, but there is also "The Cold Flame", #yukiomishima 😅 #bookstodon
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#HumbleBundle currently has offers for two #sciencefiction authors: One by #TanithLee , and the other one by #JohnScalzi .
What are your thoughts and recommendations on these?
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/tanith-lee-collection-daw-books-books
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/john-scalzi-collection-old-mans-war-more-tor-books-books -
Never respect years, only deeds.
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British author
Drinking Sapphire Wine, Part 3, ch. 6 [Narrator] (1977More about this quote: wist.info/lee-tanith/83782/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #tanithlee #results #accomplishments #age #deeds #elder #maturity #record #years
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Was für eine Novelle!
"Die Nacht, in der sie Avillis einnahmen, war eine Nacht des Blutes und der blutroten Flammen." - "Nachts schwamm der Mond auf den Wolken und warf sein hartes, kaltes, schattenloses Licht auf den [verschneiten] Pfad."
Zwischen diesen beiden Sätzen kehrt ein Soldat ins Zivilleben zurück, und für diesen Weg braucht es mehr, als einfach nur heimzuwandern.
Kein Wunder, dass #TanithLee mich damit vor 40 Jahren tief beeindruckte. Wie rund - und wild - sie erzählen konnte!
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Gleich mal bestellt. In der Ausgabe, die ich vor nunmehr vierzig Jahren auch gelesen habe.
Mehr dort: https://berlin.social/@frankboehmert/115626129412955522
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@nisjasper Huch? Ich dachte, sie wäre genau wie Vance und Wolfe viel gerühmt und wenig gelesen ...
Ihre Erzählung "Companions of the Road", deutsch "Weggefährten", habe ich aus meiner intensiven Fantasyphase Ende 1970er, Anfang 1980er immerhin als eine der essenziellen Fantasygeschichten in Erinnerung - könnte ich mir direkt mal wieder besorgen. 🤔
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13 𝑫𝙖𝒚𝙨 𝙤𝒇 𝑯𝙖𝒍𝙡𝒐𝙬𝒆𝙚𝒏: "𝙋𝒊𝙣𝒆𝙬𝒐𝙤𝒅" 𝙎𝒉𝙤𝒓𝙩 𝙎𝒕𝙤𝒓𝙮 𝙍𝒆𝙫𝒊𝙚𝒘 𝒃𝙮 𝙏𝒂𝙣𝒊𝙩𝒉 𝑳𝙚𝒆
2025 Theme: Decades of Horror
1984, UKhttps://youtube.com/shorts/SrpThNnR6Ks
#shortstoryreview #halloween #horror #horrorstory #13DaysOfHalloween #books #bookreviews #bookworm #readreadread #shortstory #tanithlee #pinewood #shortstory #feministhorror
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Reprint of the 2009 Wildside Press anthology, Tempting the Gods: The Stories of Tanith Lee, volume one. The ebook and softcover are reasonably priced, and even includes a soundtrack! If you’re new to the spellbinding wonder of Tanith Lee’s writing, this is a great place to start.
#TanithLee #Kickstarter #Fantasy #Horror #Books
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildsidepress/the-stories-of-tanith-lee
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Treating me to some Tanith Lee short story collections. I've not read enough of her writing, but hugely enjoyed those books I read. I also very much enjoyed her two Blake's 7 TV episodes. Her writing is so richly imaginative. I'm looking forward to diving into these short story collections. #Books #Bookstodon #Fantasy #TanithLee #Blakes7
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“There are authors who stick to what they know, carving out careful niches for themselves. And then there are the ones who obliterate boundaries.
Tanith Lee was in the second camp (…) But with such a vast body of work, where do you begin?”
https://www.nytimes.com/article/tanith-lee-books.html?unlocked_article_code=1.704.tduB.WEti4EyxHXsE
#tanithlee #fantasy #sciencefiction #sff #ukwriters #womenwriters
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Even though some concept are close, the Sandman’s story is really different from the one in Tales from the Flat Earth. Legitimate anger about Gaiman’s abuses doesn’t really substantiate a plagiarism assertion in this case.
But if it’s the occasion to emphasize a wonderful book series by a great author who did struggle at the end of her career, it’s great ! I recommend these books wholeheartedly !
Quoting @nikki: https://sunny.garden/@[email protected]en/113828837766687972 #retoot
#neilgaiman #tanithlee #fantasy -
@herhandsmyhands Thanks for the info.
As a long reader of Gaiman's work, since the early 1990s, i never heard of that relation between #TanithLee work and The Sandman.
Shame on me.
I will read Tales from the flat Earth.
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#NeilGaiman #TanithLee #Plagiarism #Exploitation
Because misogyny knows no boundaries, and abuse takes many forms.
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Ok, so now I read that Gaiman has been plagiarizing Tanith Lee.
I remember reading something by Tanith Lee when I was a kid, but it was most likely a French translation, and fuck me if I remember the title.
Source: https://mstdn.social/@Illuminatus/113831139526237222
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NARROW WAY (1984)
Acrylic on Canvas - 30" x 20"The greatest measure of my satisfaction as an illustrator comes when I produce an artwork that reflects my artistic concerns just as much as it illustrates the book. This painting is one of the best examples of that happy condition. 1/4
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RED AS BLOOD (1982)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 30" x 22"I have fond memories of the cover art for Tanith Lee's novel RED AS BLOOD simply because the act of creation was so enjoyable. I still regret selling the painting. 1/3
#fantasy #fantasyart #horror #horrorart #sff #illustration #tanithlee
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This #tanithlee anthology coming out soon looks amazing. #books She is such a cool writer and it will be fun to see what other authors come up with inspired by her work https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/essentialdreamspress/storyteller-a-tanith-lee-tribute-anthology
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Late to the party as usual…
Tanith Lee #TanithLee
Philip K. Dick #PhilipKDick
Dorothy L. Sayers #DorothyLSayers
Ray Bradbury #RayBradbury
Ursula K. Le Guin #UrsulaKLeGuin
Neil Gaiman #NeilGaiman
Nnedi Okorafor #NnediOkorafor
Michael Moorcock #MichaelMoorcock
Leigh Brackett #LeighBrackett
Harlan Ellison #HarlanEllison -
Anyone read any #tanithlee? I really enjoy it and the range of styles she wrote in. #books #essentialdreamspress is putting together an anthology of her work. Look for a kickstarter soon!
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VOLKHAVAAR (1977)
Acrylic on Masonite - 28" x 18"Cover illustration for VOLKHAVAAR by Tanith Lee (DAW)
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I wrote some thoughts about Tanith Lee's great short story "The Gorgon", about narcissistic male fantasies, and the intersections of myth and meaning:
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ANACKIRE (1983)
Acrylic on Illustration Board - 28" x 18"Cover illustration for the book by Tanith Lee (DAW)
