AuthorTanithLee
- 2. Basic Information Born Sep. 19th 1947 in Still alive today London, England
- 3. Family Parents were ballroom dancers (Bernard and Hylda) Mother told her many fairy tales as a child Didn’t learn to read until she was eight and her father taught her Married British writer John Kaiine in 1992 Lives in south England with husband
- 4. Education Grammar school education until she was 17 At 25 attended art college for a year, but gave up for a writing career
- 5. Genres and Awards Writes science fiction, fantasy, Gothic and horror Awards: - World Fantasy Award – best short story in 1983 and 1984 (The Gorgon, Elle Est Trois) - British Fantasy Award – best novel in 1980 (Death’s Master)
- 6. 3 Books Lee, Tanith. Biting the Sun. New York: Bantam, 1999. Print. Lee, Tanith. Red Unicorn. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1997. Print. Lee, Tanith. Forests of the Night. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1989. Print.
- 7. Favourite Book – Biting the Sun Foreign world and environment, yet still possible to connect and relate protagonist and other characters still human One of the first books of hers that I read Relevant to teenagers now finding meaning and maturing Rich description, imagery
- 8. Passage 1 My friend Hergal had killed himself again. This was the fortieth time he had crashed his bird-plane on to the Zeefahr Monument and had to have a new body made. And when I went to visit him at Limbo, I was wandering around for ages before the robot found him for me. He was dark this time, about a foot taller, with very long hair and these silly wings growing out of his shoulders and ankles. “Attlevey, Hergal,” I said. “Attlevey,” said Hergal, and flapped his wings about. . . . “I do wish you’d pick somewhere else to crash down on top of. It gets rather monotonous, always the boring Zeefahr. I mean, how about trying the Robotics Museum?” . . . “Er,” he ventured then. . . . “Who are you exactly?” “Well, I mean, I’d had it flashed all over the city that my body was pale and slim, with knee-length silver hair and antennae. He just didn’t try. . . . I was so depressed I went and drowned myself, for the tenth time, in my bubble. Perhaps I could even get a duplicate of Hergal’s body and really drive him crazy.
- 9. Passage 2 Robots trundled up and sort of threw it at my feet, this big rough block of impossible- looking stuff. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and they were standing around gawping at me. I took aim. There were no easy magnetized markings here, but the rush with which the chisel-tooth started nearly took my arm off. And I found I’d gone right through to the other side. I tried another shot and this time nearly went right through the block after the chisel. I flicked my hair back and had another go, and managed to join the two chasms together with a thin swooping arc. I’d got something. I hacked and scraped away at the thing for ages, chips flying off into the magnetized pans in the floor, and soon I was crawling about inside the cavities, drilling and bashing. . . . I stood back and wiped my hand across my brow, forgetting the paint on my fingers. I didn’t care anyway. I was proud. I could see it now, high in the Sun Gardens of the Fourth Sector, or gracing some glassy walk beside a waterway, reflected softly in the tide. . . . I went up to it and brought my hand down on the top, a sort of pat on the head for my lovely stone pet. The minute I touched it, it made this ghastly sound and the whole lot, drooling uncemented paint, collapsed slowly and with filthy finality, inward, inward, until it was just a heap of rubble. They dug me out.
- 10. Passage 3 It came coiling about the side of the ship, born on the dawn wind. It came like a rope of silver on the air. Green-silver. For a second I was dumbfounded, trying to place that unique and magic scent. Then I knew. I tore around the ship, narrowly avoiding collision with a placidly ambling robot still intent on repairs. Tore round, and pulled up too fast and fell prone. ... Green shoots blowing like fine green hair before that morning wind. Green shoots thickly massed over half a square mile, like slender soldiery in some fable. And the scent of them, the smell of their sap, and the oxygen they expired. Some in bloom – little flowers or buds that might turn out to be anything, except that there wouldn’t be time. The generating life of the sands, dormant, brought to fruit prematurely and by accident. And in an hour or so the sun would be draining the soul from them. By sunset they would be black and withered in this waterless place. By dawn tomorrow you could safely offer a prize to anyone able to detect their ruined dust among the other dusts of the land.
- 11. 5 Things To Learn Evocative , poetic description and imagery for effect Varied vocabulary Insight into universal aspects and feelings of people, no matter the time or place Creating a very different world and making it relatable and real Different interpretations of classic fairy tales, stories
- 12. Bibliography Lee, Tanith. Biting the Sun. New York: Bantam, 1999. Print. Lee, Tanith. Red Unicorn. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1997. Print. Lee, Tanith. Forests of the Night. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1989. Print.