Where does OSC even attempt to do so? He generally just leaves the actual sex scenes out of the books, to the best of my recollection. Would that Turtledove had shown similar restraint.
It has been a while since a read any Card but Folk of the Fringe included a really bizarre story about sex between a young white boy and an middle-aged native American. The Enders Game sequels almost all include ostensibly sexual relationships and he tries to describe aspects of that and moments when, presumably, the characters would be experiencing sexual attraction.
Ok, I was thinking more in terms of straight-out sex scenes, as in Turtledove, where the tab goes in the slot. I must say I didn’t find OSC’s writing on sexual attraction particularly awkward; what about it did you dislike so?
Sorry, really late reply. Was just looking over this thread and happened to see this.
Card’s writing that involves sexual attraction just comes off as asexual. I never got the sense that the characters were actually sexually attracted to each other; affectionate maybe, but not aroused. It’s like the way sexuality looks on tv, not the way people actually experience it. I recall reading Card himself say that he didn’t think he was very good at writing about sex or sexual attractions in an interview or something. It might have been in the Folk of the the Fringe book somewhere but I can’t find it in my library.
Ok, I guess I agree with that. He either cannot or will not write such that you feel the emotions associated with sexual attraction; it is an area where he tells rather than showing. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice based in his Mormon religion; he’s also rather down on porn. Either way, though, it seems to me that his stories rarely suffer from this. To take an example, ‘Empire’ is way worse than the Ender sequels, but it’s not because of the sex; indeed it has effectively zero sex in it, even of the kind you describe. Rather it suffers from being nearly-explicit propaganda.
Where does OSC even attempt to do so? He generally just leaves the actual sex scenes out of the books, to the best of my recollection. Would that Turtledove had shown similar restraint.
It has been a while since a read any Card but Folk of the Fringe included a really bizarre story about sex between a young white boy and an middle-aged native American. The Enders Game sequels almost all include ostensibly sexual relationships and he tries to describe aspects of that and moments when, presumably, the characters would be experiencing sexual attraction.
Ok, I was thinking more in terms of straight-out sex scenes, as in Turtledove, where the tab goes in the slot. I must say I didn’t find OSC’s writing on sexual attraction particularly awkward; what about it did you dislike so?
Sorry, really late reply. Was just looking over this thread and happened to see this.
Card’s writing that involves sexual attraction just comes off as asexual. I never got the sense that the characters were actually sexually attracted to each other; affectionate maybe, but not aroused. It’s like the way sexuality looks on tv, not the way people actually experience it. I recall reading Card himself say that he didn’t think he was very good at writing about sex or sexual attractions in an interview or something. It might have been in the Folk of the the Fringe book somewhere but I can’t find it in my library.
Ok, I guess I agree with that. He either cannot or will not write such that you feel the emotions associated with sexual attraction; it is an area where he tells rather than showing. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice based in his Mormon religion; he’s also rather down on porn. Either way, though, it seems to me that his stories rarely suffer from this. To take an example, ‘Empire’ is way worse than the Ender sequels, but it’s not because of the sex; indeed it has effectively zero sex in it, even of the kind you describe. Rather it suffers from being nearly-explicit propaganda.