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…