Call Me a Dreamer

As a follow-up to my last post, The Devil's in the Details, you may also find the article, Worldbuilding: Constructing a SF Universe, by S. Andrew Swann, interesting. One thing I noted was his recommendation that any alterations to the world the readers know be explained. I'm not sure I agree entirely with this. In general, I'd say that if the difference can be shown and is not so extreme or strange that it will confuse readers or throw them out of suspension of disbelief, then you shouldn't explain, unless it's crucial to your story. At the same time, I know that many science fiction novels have a lot of technical information in them and there are many readers for whom this technical detail is very important. So, maybe that's a matter of knowing your audience.

One of the topics we discussed during the most recent bittercon was Authorized Cruelty over on sartorias' journal.

In one of my comments I left out a mention to a writer whose works I've found compelling, because I didn't want to mention two different authors whose names and book titles I was blanking on. I still can't remember the author mentioned in my comment, but Jenny Rappaport, whose blog Lit Soup I read through her RSS feed comfort_soup, happened to mention the other writer's name: Jacqueline Carey.

Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series goes far past what I thought was my threshold for violence, especially violence in the context of sexual activity, yet I couldn't read them fast enough once I'd started. These books examined the fine line between pleasure and pain, as well as giving a graphic depiction of a character for whom pain is pleasure. But don't make the mistake of thinking that these are simple books with a single focus. The world-building and characterizations are complex, and the voice is outstanding, with the end result that the story is compelling on multiple levels. (As an aside, you may be interested in the discussions going on right now on sartorias' journal: Voice or worldbuilding? and Is voice more important than worldbuilding? over on pjthompson's journal, which look at what makes books work for people.)

This got me to thinking about Laurell K. Hamilton's work. A friend introduced me to Hamilton's Anita Blake series several years ago and I started out enjoying the series. However, what I saw as the series progressed was an apparent pattern in which the violence and sex would become a bit more graphic as the series progressed, then ratchet back down for a book, only to creeps leap back up in the next. Eventually, I no longer felt that the sex and violence were a consequence of the plot and characterization, but that the plot and characterization existed only to provide an excuse for the sex and violence. At which point, I lost interest in the series. I've never been able to get into her Meredith Gentry series either.

So where's the line? When has an author gone too far? When are sex and violence appropriate to the story, and when are they gratuitous?

Edited to add: In a really, really big oops, I realized that the discussion I was thinking about was the one sartorias linked to: Is voice more important than worldbuilding? over on pjthompson's journal, so I added that info inline, as well as here. My apologies.