[Salt-Man Z]

Oh, and Shardik and Watership Down by Richard Adams.

[Use Of Weapons]

I recommend Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy: The Secret Hour; Touching Darkness; Blue Noon. Excellent fun, clever plots, and great writing. Westerfeld is an excellent writer, one to watch. I also loved his The Risen Empire, though that's not YA, and is SF rather than fantasy.

[Abyss]

Stackpole's Dragoncrown series is fun and relatively sex-free tho iirc someone sheboings an elf at some point which barely counts.

CS Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy. Entirely adult, some off'scene refs to people who may have bumped uglies at points but no actual sex and the series is brilliant. There are no elves to make the sex with.

Brooke's Shannara could not be any more chaste if its characters all removed their genitalia and took oaths of celibacy but it's otherwise solid fantasy for the most part. If you haven't already read it be warned that the first book Sword of Shannara is painfully LotR derivative. I'd actually suggest starting with Elfstones, then go back and read Sword, then the rest in order. Elfstones is not a pun btw but if any elfsex happens its offscreen and you only find out about because they have a kid two or so books later.

Feist's Magician series is very very chaste. Opinions vary on the later works but the first four are classics and there are some veiled references to elfsex but you don't have to read about it.

- Abyss, ...won't get into anything written by Laurell K Hamilton...

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 20 September 2010 - 02:05 PM, said:

Feist's Magician series is very very chaste. Opinions vary on the later works but the first four are classics and there are some veiled references to elfsex but you don't have to read about it.

By 'first four', are you referring to the first book being in two parts? Because otherwise, I'm confused. I'd also argue that the two sequels are classics but that's by-the-by. Though the Empire trilogy certainly is.


But anyway, TC should be careful on that rec. The early books are indeed chaste but there is at least one book later which very isn't (it was part of the Serpentwar, but I can't remember which).

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 20 September 2010 - 03:31 PM, said:

Abyss, on 20 September 2010 - 02:05 PM, said:

Feist's Magician series is very very chaste. Opinions vary on the later works but the first four are classics and there are some veiled references to elfsex but you don't have to read about it.

By 'first four', are you referring to the first book being in two parts? Because otherwise, I'm confused. ... The early books are indeed chaste but there is at least one book later which very isn't (it was part of the Serpentwar, but I can't remember which).

Yep - back when i read the Riftwar series it was 4 books - Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master, then Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon.

You do make a good point re the later books so i'll add that i restict my point re chastity to RIFTWAR only. I seem to recall the mediocre Princes of the Blood was also heavy on the sexual tension.

[Sanctume]

DragonLance main series that started with Autumns of Twilight, had a small undetailed sex part about Riverwind and the cleric-goddess, and the rest are pure adventure.

[lobo the wolfman]

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's The Death Gate Cycle also had very little to no sex, and are decent reads as well.

[HoosierDaddy]

Ulrik, on 19 September 2010 - 12:55 PM, said:

Aptorian, on 19 September 2010 - 12:29 PM, said:

Harry Potter.

Sorry, but that sexual tension between Ron and Hermiona was almost unbearable.

Huzzah for adults recognizing what was patently detailed as teenage-angst.

I'll assume it is a bad joke, made in bad taste.

[stone monkey]

The Stephen Hunt books; The Court of the Air, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, The Rise of the Iron Moon, Secrets of the Fire Sea are all pretty much without sex (it's mentioned, but not dwelled upon), there's no conventional swearing either... Admittedly the "fate worse than death" that threatens the orphan Molly Templar in the early stages of the first one is being sold off to a brothel... And they are pretty brutal in other respects; for example, the Revolution in Quatershift uses automated, steam driven, mechanical execution machines on its hordes of dissidents... If your tolerance for violence in fiction is higher than that for sex then they'll probably do for you. It does seem like curious place to draw the line, though; but each to their own...

That said, you probably shouldn't read Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains or Joe Abercrombie's The First Law sequence; they'll put you right off your tea

Given the premise, I'd disagree with the suggestion about a large portion of Orson Scott Card's work; for example Hart's Hope has a core of, fairly explicit, sexuality running through it. And Songmaster, Wyrms and The Worthing Saga have some very sexual elements... The Alvin Maker sequence is firmer ground, if you can put up with the Mormon apologetics larded throughout.

Another suggestion would be His Dark Materials; yes it is YA, but it's written very well and doesn't talk down to the reader.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 21 September 2010 - 09:29 PM

[Binder of Demons]

It's been years since i read them, but I don't remember any sexual component to THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER by ROGER ZELAZNY, or THE EARTHSEA SERIES by URSULA LeGUIN. Certainly nothing graphic.