A Real Sky
Series: Four BEE 3 fan fiction
Reviewed date: 2018 Nov 2
A Real Sky is a fan fiction book that continues the story told in Tanith Lee's Don't Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine. The writing is excellent and mimics Tanith Lee's style convincingly. Our nameless heroine is back, but a great deal of time has passed. She has apparently lived out her normal lifespan in the desert outside the city, and has gone through Personality Dissolution and been revived as a new person in Four BEE. She's Jang, and although she remembers nothing of her previous life, she's every bit the rebel she used to be.
On a whim, she becomes male. He meets an intriguing young man named Saz, and the chemistry is immediately obvious. But Saz is only interested in our hero if he's a man, not a woman. And because being gay is apparently verboten (the quasi-robots will permit anything except murder and homosexuality, it seems) the relationship and friendship is a real minefield to navigate.
Meanwhile, our hero is beginning to remember fragments of memories. Memories of another life, a life outside the dome, under the real sky. A life of dirt and sun, rough clothes, wrinkled hands, and an old body. Just as the book starts to get really interesting, it ends.
It's unfinished. The last update was in 2013, so it's unlikely to ever be completed.
Even unfinished, it's a worthy attempt at continuing the story. Thumbs up.
Link: A Real Sky [archiveofourown.org]