a pretty bad fantasy book

[Ice fyre]

Well I dont mind sex in books so long as there is a reason, its like violence, if it serves no purpose except to give the author a thrill, I just find it dull. It does show in the writing, you can just tell.

 

[Prefx]

Err... I don't know where you got that impression, but it is hardly accurate. Fantasy traditionally has had that as one small branch, but it certainly hasn't been true of the whole, or even the majority, even with "epic" fantasy fiction.



Again, I suppose this depends on what you mean by "overly violent" -- I can think of quite a few heroes of fantasy (classic and otherwise) who were quite violent, often maliciously so; and the vast majority had a fairly strong libido, going back at least as far as Howard's Conan. (True, there were no graphic descriptions of sex, but that is true of most literature until well after the Modernist revolution, and sexuality was a very strong component of those stories, and certainly of the Cimmerian's character; as opposed to, say, Kull.)

And on the subject of violence -- Elric was not only violent at times, but perverse, malicious, and cruel; outright vicious on occasion. Erekosë destroys the human race. Jerry Cornelius is both strongly sexual and perversely (and arbitrarily) violent on occasion. Airar Alvarson (Pratt's The Well of the Unicorn) casts a spell on someone he is enamored of and basically rapes her by such means. And so on....

All of this predates Martin & Co. by some years (or decades)....

I think you made an excellent point by touching on the sexual revolution. Although not strictly limited to the 1960s - plenty of books before then had rape and bloodshed - the adaption of such sexual and violent themes into mainstream fiction was catapulted during this time period simply because society changed. Romance went from the overtly Victorian-esque references to gay erotica sub-genres. However, for some audiences, there still remains a large taboo around sex (mostly, I assume, from the Abrahamic religions), especially in young adults books.

 

[Lobolover]

Well,I kinda dont like it in my books.I just dont want it in there is all.

 

[Clansman]

I strongly disagree with this ever being a bad thing!

I have noticed, when reading reviews on amazon, that it seems a lot of fantasy readers are very opposed to sex in their books, which I found odd.

I only said if the sex or violence was GRATUITOUS. I.e., just there 'cuz the author felt like it. For instance, the Red Wedding was very violent, but it was crucial to the story. Therefore, it was not gratuitous. I found some of Martin's excessive description of sex scenes gratuitous, (two and a half pages is a bit much, because I didn't buy the thing for erotic titillation) but never the event itself, which always added to his story. These are minor complaints on my part, and the books are excellent.

Anything in a book that is gratuitous is bad, because extra junk does not add to the story, but rather takes away from it. Less is more, after all.

 

[hypocriticHarkonnen]

simply put, if a story, any story, called for the use of sex and violence, then i wouldnt mind, seeing it there. For instance, in Herbert's Dune series, since Duncan Idaho's character is pretty much described as a womanizer (more or less), then a description of him sleeping with another character would be quite natural.

 

[soulsinging]

I only said if the sex or violence was GRATUITOUS. I.e., just there 'cuz the author felt like it. For instance, the Red Wedding was very violent, but it was crucial to the story. Therefore, it was not gratuitous. I found some of Martin's excessive description of sex scenes gratuitous, (two and a half pages is a bit much, because I didn't buy the thing for erotic titillation) but never the event itself, which always added to his story. These are minor complaints on my part, and the books are excellent.

Anything in a book that is gratuitous is bad, because extra junk does not add to the story, but rather takes away from it. Less is more, after all.

I've grown to love Martin, but I have to say that if we're going to say extra junk that doesn't add to the story is a bad thing, Martin's got a lot of far worse faults than his descriptions of sex. He's good, but he does quite a bit of padding!

And I stand by what I said, gratuitous or not. You're entitled to your opinion and I completely understand it and think it's reasonable. But I personally did 13 years in the Catholic school system and seem to have emerged permanently stuck in the pervy adolescent state of mind