Jump to content

Recommendations: SF/F books without sexual assault triggers


Lies And Perfidy

Recommended Posts

Hey, Westerosi. I'm compiling a list of spec-fic without sexual assault triggers, to recommend to people for whom that's a non-starter. Basically, good books where nobody gets raped or almost-raped or threatened with sexual violence. I figure general violence is kosher - that's kind of a staple of genre lit anyway - but just not that specific trigger. YA is perfectly fine.



Any suggestions are much appreciated!


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that's most of SFF. I tried it on the stickied rec thread list, and only mentioning those I read (as far as I can remember of the story):

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

Blindness – Jose Saramago

The Book of the New Sun – Gene Wolfe

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The Chronicles of Amber – Roger Zelazny

The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis

The Dark Tower – Stephen King

Discworld – Terry Pratchett* [see Note]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick

Dune – Frank Herbert

The Dying Earth – Jack Vance

The Earthsea Trilogy – Ursula K. Le Guin

Ender's Quartet – Orson Scott Card

The Farseer Trilogy – Robin Hobb

Fictions – Jorge Luis Borges

The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov

Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling

His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts – Douglas Adams

The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien

Hyperion – Dan Simmons

I Am Legend – Richard Matheson

The Iron Dragon's Daughter – Michael Swanwick

The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin

The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay

Little, Big – John Crowley

Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny

The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien

The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein

Le Morte D'Arthur – Thomas Mallory

Neuromancer – William Gibson

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell

The Silmarillion – J.R.R. Tolkien

Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson

Watership Down – Richard Adams

Take some random pick: I don't know, like Gaiman, Bujold, Abraham, or even KJ Parker and you're likely to get a book without sexual assault. I think, if I remember stuff correctly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Folding Knife, there is war and murder and betrayal and, heh, honour killing, but no rape that I can remember, but fair enough, I've not read those in a long time. Anyway, the point was that recommendations covering the whole of SFF is just too vague and vast a task, you can pick up almost anything and have a good chance that there won't be any sexual violence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm sure it doesn't appear in all of her books, and to be fair I don't think it is ever depicted or even described. More along the lines of "and then medieval warfare happened, and there was rape, or something."



I'm not triggered by anything, so I don't know what does or doesn't qualify.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of those books have sexual assault stuff. Dark Tower for sure, pretty sure Robin Hobb stuff has sexual violence, and The Silmarillion has rape and incest, doesn't it?

Pretty sure New Sun has some weird stuff going on in it too, but just trying to remember all that at once is hurting my head.

KJ Parker hrmm, I don't remember any of that stuff in the stand alones, but there's some gruesome, GRUESOME stuff(The Hammer, I'm thinking of you).

Edit: I guess a question would be, does incest count as a trigger?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay

Ouch no. There is a very descriptive passage of a hugely pregnant woman who got her fetus aborted by way of sword stuck up her privates to kill her and her unborn child. If you have anyone even near squeemishness, for the love of everything holy, do not recommend this book to anyone not looking for trigger warnings of extreme sexual violence.

The novel is great, but it should not come without that warning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Silmarilion there are some side stories, one of the guy (living alone in the forest) who had/forged one of the meteroic ore swords who took a wife against her will. It's probably more old-fashion bride-stealing but implies more or less rape. And I think there are some more stories like that hinted at. Morgoth is lusting for Luthien but this is only from afar I think.

Turin and his sister is unforced and unknowingly incestuous, I think.

I have not read the Kay you mentioned but both the Fionavar cycle and Tigana have a few slightly odd sexual encounters. The latter more or less a rape in a cupboard and I do not remember exactly Fionavar but one of the guys becomes the lover of some sex goddess or so and one of the female leads is the object of the lecherous philandering prince. Nothing brutal but some bits might offend the sensitive ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ouch no. There is a very descriptive passage of a hugely pregnant woman who got her fetus aborted by way of sword stuck up her privates to kill her and her unborn child. If you have anyone even near squeemishness, for the love of everything holy, do not recommend this book to anyone not looking for trigger warnings of extreme sexual violence.

The novel is great, but it should not come without that warning.

It's been a long time since I read it, but isn't there also a sex scene which is written in a way that makes the reader believe it is a sexual assault/rape, but after a few pages it is revealed to have been consensual all along?

How well was that list checked?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's been a long time since I read it, but isn't there also a sex scene which is written in a way that makes the reader believe it is a sexual assault/rape, but after a few pages it is revealed to have been consensual all along?

How well was that list checked?

No offense to EB, but I don;t think it was checked at all, although there's certainly a few on there that are fine. The Hobbit, for example.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How well was that list checked?

It was not checked, hence why I included the caveats about faulty rememberance. You expected me to have re-read all that one hour after the thread was created? I am flattered.

And no offense taken at all, dr2.

I expected to be corrected by fellow boarders if I got one wrong, and it got the ball running on more than the usual suspects, I feel, so it was not useless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Silmarillion, the dark elf Eöl weds Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, the wilful sister of Turgon, against her will. That’s the only place I can think of, and might deserve a very mild trigger warning at best.



Great idea for a thread, by the way!


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series has no sexual violence in it as far as I remember. There are some oblique references to it, but nothing on the pages, no conversations about it and no characters get threatened by it as far as I can recall.



Lovecraft also works quite well. Has a lot of creepy stuff, but it's as far as I can recall more of the tentacled horror variety than the rapetastic kind.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pretty sure New Sun has some weird stuff going on in it too, but just trying to remember all that at once is hurting my head.

Yeah, New Sun definitely has a rape in it. Although, like most things going on in a Gene Wolfe story, you kind of have to read between the lines to pick up on it. Urth of the New Sun makes things explicitly clear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why limit yourself?

And dune has sexual violence in it EB. Both in threat and in practice. Hell, they try to kill the baron by implanting a poison dart in a sex slaves thigh. And Jessica is the product of rape.

Ya. Not sure why you'd limit yourself in your reading, but if you are, you're going to have a very small list, and dune shouldn't be on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...