I generally don’t read a lot of erotica or romance; I tend to lean toward sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and mystery. Recently I reread a series of books that I started reading back in high school, the Mageworlds series by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. They’re sort of a cross between Star Wars (which existed when they were written) and Firefly (which did not). I bought the first one, The Price of the Stars, solely on the cover image and text, and I enjoyed it so much that I kept reading new ones as they came out. There are seven books in all, and unfortunately the second main story arc that started with book six was never completed. I idly wonder if the authors have an outline for that final book or not.

For what it’s worth, I highly recommend the series. At least the first three books, although books four and five are stand-alone and can be read once you’ve finished the initial trilogy. Books six and seven are good, but they can be a little disappointing if you know there’s no conclusion to read.

Sci-fi in the 90s and 2000s didn’t focus much on sex, except for stories that were specifically sexual in nature, which these books aren’t. In fact, they faded out quite a bit when it came to sex scenes. However, as a teenager in the 90s whose parents thought that reading anything I wanted was perfectly fine, I devoured my monthly Science Fiction Book Club catalog and would buy almost any book that promised adult situations or graphic sex. I read a lot of terrible books that way, and a lot of good ones too. I somehow managed to make it through Anne Rice’s Lasher, although I remember almost none of it; I also read Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland, which won an Arthur C. Clarke award but which I just remember for the one nude scene with the main character. I read A Dark and Hungry God Arises by Stephen Donaldson, and I didn’t care for it, but I do remember there was a scene where a stripper mutilated herself as part of the show and this was taken as normal by the other characters in the book.

These days, I don’t go specifically looking for sex scenes in books — perhaps because I’m no longer a horny teenager seeking outlets. When I come across one, I read it and move on. Unless they’re particularly egregious, like the one in William Shatner’s The Ashes of Eden (a Star Trek novel), where Carol Marcus tries to arouse an aging Captain Kirk using her hand. Or the moment in the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where the author (purportedly Gene Roddenberry, but I think it was actually Alan Dean Foster) used the phrase “a pressure in his genitals” when Admiral Kirk thought about his ex-wife. Or perhaps the most egregious one, from Children of Dune by Frank Herbert, which I’ve written about in the past.

As someone who writes erotica and also genre fiction, I know the power a good sex scene can have. Just, if you’re going to include one, make it make sense to the plot. Gratuitous sex is just that, and readers know it.