Jo Clayton

Some of the 12-volume Diadem series: Diadem from the Stars Lamarchos Irsud Maeve Star Hunters The Snares of Ibex Quester's Endgame

Diadem From The Stars first published 1977 March by DAW, Lamarchos first published 1978 January by DAW, Irsud first published 1978 September by DAW.

Charles Daney's Being and Nakedness site provides information about Jo Clayton and her Diadem series of novels. I hadn't read any of Clayton's books, so kept an eye out for them, and finally picked up a copy of Diadem from the Stars.

As you can read in the extracts, while there is (non-sexual) nudity in Diadem from the Stars, it is either for the purpose of bathing (alone), or for ritual. While the descriptions are non-titillating, in my view they only hint at naturist attitudes. Heroine Aleytys enjoys washing off the dirt and dust of travel, or the sweat of a hot day's travelling, and doing so with no encumbrance from clothing, but she doesn't seek out opportunities for nudity. Note that Charles Daney only lists seven of the twelve Diadem books, and none of her other series or one-off books, indicating that nudity is probably incidental throughout Clayton's work.

The writing is fine, and the book lays down a solid base for what is clearly an extensive saga. However, I didn't feel inclined to seek out the other volumes in the series. This is not because I prefer sf&f sagas to have masculine leads, nor because I am averse to series works. I just didn't get particularly gripped by this one.

Having claimed that I wouldn't look for any more Diadem books, I couldn't resist picking up Lamarchos when I came across it, as it has a striking nude on the cover (see right). While SF books often use nudity in their cover art, usually with only a tenuous connection to the text, the picture used for this story is a faithful depiction of a scene from the end of the book. As with Diadem from the Stars, the nudity is ritual, not social. However, this episode of the Diadem saga closes with an indication that there could be a lot more nudity in Irsud, so I went looking for that third volume after all.

Irsud does indeed open with a fair bit of nudity. However, it is solo nudity, and definitely not social. There's more nudity from time to time later on in the book, but all is either sexual or purely to do with bathing or changing clothes. Sadly, my copy of Irsud uses an illustration without a nude on the cover, unlike the first US edition, so I missed out there too. The plots slid gradually downhill (in my biased and subjective opinion) through the three novels. Also, by the end of Irsud I was getting quite irritated by the number of 'get out of jail free' powers, skills and abilities lavished on the heroine. Others clearly disagree with my jaundiced assessment, and you might well enjoy tracking down and working through this extensive saga.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2006 May 31.
 
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