PS Power Books • Forum

Sex is one of those things that has to be handled very artfully; Like religion and politics, it has deeper meaning to some than to others.

For me, sex in a book is something that should be used to progress the story. It should have meaning. If it doesn't move the story along or at least help develop the characters then it should be removed.

For example:

In Elliott Kay's Good Intentions and Natural Consequences, sex actually has meaning (although it's a bit more graphic than needs be). It's used to help the main character bound with the angel and demon in his life and to become a more well-rounded person.

On the flip side, in many of Niall Teasdale's books, Aneka Jansen and Thaumatology being the most prevalent, sex scenes are used as filler. They don't really do anything other than kill a page or two.

And then there are trash novels where paper thin plot hints are pulled over lots of sex scenes, because people want to see youngish white women get it on with incubi and less than perfect sex deprived guys score with women who look like playboy cover girls.

Seriously though, just leaving sex, desire and all that out leads to silly one true love stories after the first meeting that had nothing special at all about it, yet two chars are hopelessly in love ever after with no actual relationship, neither physical nor emotionally complex, going on.

I found this author by reading the EB series first, OP next, AP after that and still HAVEN'T read any of the KT stories. (What can I say? I've been side tracked by the DE/VGM series instead.)

However, there are fairly consistent themes running through the ones I have read - early abuse in childhood, often of an extreme sexual, mental, and physical nature. (The forced cannibalism in OP1 did squick me out just a bit!)

One of the main things I found interesting about this was how the characters responded - they all became murderous. The Zachs in AP & OP 'killed off' the emotional content of their memories' ability to harm and disturb them, while Eve actually did kill her mother and the others involved. Since these incidents occurred in an 'Author Lord Universe' (i.e. NOT REAL) this is probably as mature of a result as could be expected from people as young as these ones are supposed to be. I am sure that IRL there are many who wish this option were open to them.

The next interesting thing was the characters resulting hyper-sexuality (ITRW this is often an actual response to these types of abuse, so kudos to Mr. Powers for 'keeping it real', so to speak.) and the way they chose to handle it. AP Zach becomes a bit of a hound dog, eventually falling into the start of a pattern of perpetuating abuse himself in AP3 but Kaitlyn has apparently put the kibosh on that though and it looks like things will improve in the hopefully soon-to-be upcoming AP4. Eve removed her physical desires and usual sexually inappropriate responses by becoming a vampire, which will now force her into finding other ways to deal with people and especially men, leaving OP Zach, now an acknowledged Greater Demon, to spend a lot of time making deals for sex without actually seeming to have a bunch of it - though the scene with Keely in OP3 was quite tender right up until he killed her. It left me with the over-all feeling that they were Working On Their Issues and that Things Are Looking Up.

I do plan on hitting the KT books soon-ish because I've enjoyed the other series so much, though since I understand they are Young Adult oriented I haven't exactly been rushing to pull them off the shelf. I dealt with too much teenage angst and too many vindictive cheerleaders when I was in school to be in a hurry to go through all that again...



I also would like to agree with some of the earlier posters re: sex scenes. I feel that sex and sex scenes - even explicit ones - are perfectly acceptable parts of a writer's tools. They can move a storyline along, add to less obvious plot points, or flesh out an author's world-building. Even Louis L'amour, an American writer of classic westerns, had sex scenes in his books. Barbara Cartland and Agatha Christie, as well - though not much because that would have been vulgar. However I think there is also a flip-side of that. Yes, Virginia. There IS such a thing as too much.

For example, I used to love reading Laurell K. Hamilton's stuff - Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter was one of THE ground-breaking series of its time, with no sex at all for the first 6 books or so - just unrequited attraction. The sexual content gradually ramped up book by book going from deliciously naughty to totally red-hot. Unfortunately in later books, as the sex became more-and-more the storyline became less-and-less. It's now to the point that there is less sex in a porno. (Not to mention more plot!) It finally became too much for me. Where I once had all of her books pre-ordered in hardcover I haven't even bothered to read the last two and the one before that I pirated.

Hmm, looking back over this post I might be going on a bit. Sorry. However, I would be interested in hearing other people's opinions on this. When does 'just enough' become 'too much' for you? Or is it a case of 'too much is not enough'? Please let me know what you think...

Don't worry about cheerleaders in KT, Darla's a demon, so... You know... Much nicer!

There isn't a whole lot of angst, at least not in the way you'd expect of a YA novel.

Hey O.L D. ( this should be my acronym, sorry I didn't think of it first) I liked your analysis of Dale' s characters and agree with David's advice. And find it hard to understand how readers can make sense of a series when reading out of order.
As to your asking about our thoughts on sex in books? For myself, I find it exciting the first time through, but often start skimming by a lot of pages to get back to the plot. And if I find myself 're-reading a book I invariably skim. I think we get inured after a bit due to repetition and become bored. Not to say sex is boring, our sex drive is just too strong for that. It's just that, as in real life, sex isn't all there is. Sex, to me is gratifying, but not fulfilling. It takes more than that to make a book, or a life. But as the "dirt-old-man" I am, I certainly don't mind a little gratuitous sex occasionally.

I just finished the latest Anita Blake book. Less sex (some, but it's not choke to death on it). *lots* of interpersonal interaction, a lot less on the mystery/bad guy fighting sub plot. I enjoyed it, and it was well written, but I would have liked to see more involving finding/fighting/defeating the bad guy. To give you an idea of how bad it was, the first 10 percent was setup for the bad guy and the last 10% was dealing with the bad guy. She doesn't even figure out who it is, she basically gives them a psychic bloody nose then is surprised when they show up mad about it.