Don't Bite the Sun (1976) and the sequel, Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977), were written by Tanith Lee and were published together as Biting the Sun in 1999.

The books are set in a distant future where the protagonists live in a state of cossetted luxury, treated as children by a state unwilling to allow deviation from a lifestyle of hedonistic wish fullfillment. For example sex outside marriage is strongly prohibited, yet a marriage can be contracted for any period of time, from an hour to a month.

Synopsis

Don't Bite the Sun

The novel charts the development of the main (unnamed) character. Inexplicable unhappy in this future "utopia", she longs for something other than hedonism, without any knowledge of anything else.

In the novel characters cannot die or be killed; though they may destoy their bodies, a new one can be easily created. However, the protagonist sets a fashion for people to remain in the same body (with the advantage that friends can actually recognise one another) after her pet fails to recognise a new body.

As part of her search for something meaningful she also tries to have a child. Children are created by the state when the mother and father contribute their essence. By getting a female and then a male body and making separate appointments for this contribution the protagonist aims to have a child without finding anybody to parent the child with her. This has disastrous consequences.

Drinking Sapphire Wine

This book continues the story from Don't Bite the Sun.

Here the protagonist (now male) kills an estranged friend in a duel. Although nobody can ever really be killed, as it is an easy matter to produce a new body, the state determines that there was an intent to kill. Murder has not been committed for gererations (though strictly speaking it has not occurred now). Therefore the state offers the protagonist a choice of dissolution (death) or exile.

The protagonist chooses exile in the desert. Where s/he once found happiness.

A TV broadcast, prompted by public opinion, shows the protagonist living a life independent of the state. This prompts a number of people to follow her into the desert, founding a colony of people defying the state, and enjoying home grown food. Now that the people no longer exclusively eat city food, they find that their bodies are reverting to a state of nature. The lack of contraceptives in their diet means that the protagonist can finally have a child, the old fashioned way.