What are some clean science fiction books?

Back to the topic: of recent authors, Allen Steele's books might fit the bill.

Try Coyote or Clarke County Space.

Mark
 
Might I suggest an alternative approach allowing even the most sensitive souls to enjoy a wider variety of science fiction. One could begin by devoting a painful week to reading the complete works of William Barton. I do not know if we have a William Barton thread but the flavour and many titles can be found at http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2010/06/spotlight-on-william-barton-dark.html. Undoubted this will try your endurance to close to its limit. However, the result of this unpleasant experience will surely be that most of the remaining works of science fiction can subsequently be read without noticing any alarming sexual ideas.
 
There are lots of reasons why people want to read/not read SF with sex. The remit here was quite clear, so William Barton isn't what was required.

It's worth pointing it out, but I don't think the debate here is 'Why should we read SF without (or with) sex?'

It would be wrong of us here to tell people what to read: it is a personal choice.

Mark
 
Indeed. Sometimes it's actually refreshing to not read a book with sex.

I suppose I could recommend at least the first book of David Weber's Honor Harrington series. No sex, and it's not too dark/gloomy, but it is a little technobabble heavy at times.
 
Zenna Henderson's stories of The People are pretty vanilla. IMHO that would fit the bill nicely. NESFA has the collected People stories in a single volume collection.
 
I don't know what the problem is with sex. There was a big thread about this a while ago, and the consensus seemed to be that sex is like anything else in literature - it's either good or it's gratuitous.
 
pox said:
if anyone has any suggestions as to sci-fi that doesn't feature eating at all I'd be most grateful actually.
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Tony Ballantyne's Penrose series? I don't think they have eating in them, being about robots and stuff. I think they have the equivalent of robot sex, though.
 
Yes! It's one of the opening scenes in Twisted Metal! I'm pretty sure two of the characters are... uh... replicating?

I really don't like Jon Sullivan's covers for them, though. They're really odd looking and amongst his poorest work. When you compare those to the ones he did for Pyr's release of Shadows of the Apt and the Warhammer books (I've forgotten the series, but it's the one with Heldenhammer - Time of Legends?), they're shocking.
 
Saturns children was chock full of both! poxy mucky robots.

WHearth, under no circumstance read The Gap Series by Donaldson. Really bad for it. I can also only think of dark muck when trawling my head for titles. Darn my reading preferences.
 
How dark is dark? SF without sex is easy. Cheerwell mentioned the Honor Harrington series which is 99% without sex but how do you escape darkness? What is you definition of darkness? Do you want nobody to die in your books? No war? No peril? Or is it more that you want to avoid books with dark characters? Characters or situations that plumb the worst of human or alien nature?

My mind keeps coming back to older SF. The Voyage of the Space Beagle or ACC/Asimov's earlier work but people do die. I enjoy Andre Norton's earlier SF although it's for a slightly younger audience. No sex although again, people do die.
 
yeah read it.
Neal Asher does some pretty heavy duty eating scenes too.

:)

Jack McDevitts Alix Benedict novels are pretty in the clear aren't they? There's like maybe one slightly suggested thing happens and no real peril to speak of.
 
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Cheerwell said:
No-one has said there's a problem with sex in literature.
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Somebody asked for "clean" science fiction, meaning without sex. Clearly, that person has a problem with sex in literature, or at least in science fiction.
 
Chekhov said:
Somebody asked for "clean" science fiction, meaning without sex. Clearly, that person has a problem with sex in literature, or at least in science fiction.
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No, it doesn't. You're looking for problems where there aren't problems. The OP could simply want to read a book without sex, which is fair enough. In the past I've asked for violence/combat-free books, but it doesn't mean I have a problem with violence or combat in literature.
 
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