During my lunch hour today I finally caught up with all those other Diana Gabaldon fans and finished Written In My Own Heart's Blood, the eighth book in her Outlander series. Having read the first novel back in 2010, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I decided to read the series at the rate of one a month back in April, and have done just that.
These books average somewhere around 900 pages each, and use aspects of fantasy, time-travel, historical and romance fiction.
In reading them I've gotten:
1) A greater respect for romance fiction
2) A lot more knowledgeable about parts of the world in the mid-to-late 1700s
3) Reading Glasses (not necessarily related, but a fact nonetheless)
4) better biceps (seriously, these are HUGE books! - try carrying them around in Hardcover for a week at a time and see what happens to you!)
Written in My Own Heart's Blood moves (sorry for mild-spoilers, don't worry I won't talk about the end) back and forth between Claire in the United States circa 1778 and her daughter Briana in Scotland, circa 1980. Much of the book focuses on how the American Revolutionary War affected the lives of women, and considering there are a number of massive historical battles and events taking place in the novel, I was really impressed to see how these were depicted from Claire's point of view as a doctor (or Conjure Woman, a term often used to describe her), a wife, and a grandmother, and giving the narrative enough time to focus on each of these.
Part of what I've enjoyed about this series overall is how it doesn't seem to be afraid to follow Claire from her twenties into her thirties, forties and fifties, showing just how much her age can change her world view. The last time I recall reading a book that impressed me this much with changing perspectives of a single character was probably Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin.
If you've never given the series a shot, it's definitely worth it, and now, like every other fan, I wait with baited breath for the next one...
Diana Gabaldon's fifth book in her Outlander series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, was, for me, a pretty great addition to the series, but there were a few items I took issue with.
First of all the good - even through these books take a lot of time to go through, the view of little day-to-day activities in the mid-1770s America was a huge part of it's charm. Just seeing how issues ranging from marriage, birth, infidelity, and the law worked at the time, through the eyes of time-traveller Claire Fraser is one of the books great strengths. As with the rest of the books in the series, there is a lot of action and intrigue going on as well, but exploring this woman's life is definitely the highlight for me.
My biggest complaint with the book was (sorry for the mild 10-year-old spoiler) all the kidnapping - at this point both Claire and her daughter Brianna have been kidnapped multiple times and I found the fact that yet again, both of them were kidnapped at different points in the novel to be more than a little repetitive.
Will I still keep reading? Oh absolutely, the good far outweighs the bad in these book and I've only got two more to go before I'm all caught up with all the other Outlander fans out there!
All right, I'll admit that reading fantasy fiction does often come with a down side - as the books are bigger, you end up having to spend longer and longer amounts of time to read them.
Right now I'm on day nine of my latest book by Diana Gabaldon, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Now that's not to say I'm not enjoying this 980-page tome, (although I will admit - mid 10-year-old spoiler - that two kidnappings happening in the same book to two characters that have both been kidnapped before stretches my sense of reason a little), but I will say that usually in the same space of time I could have knocked out a couple horror or science fiction novels, and I'm pretty sure (not 100% however) that I'll finish tomorrow, and will be able to put up my review at that time.
Thanks for bearing with me.
Once more unto the breach!
Have you ever had the experience where the various books, shows, movies or other forms of entertainment you’re enjoying start to shar things in common – maybe the same actor keeps popping up or perhaps the same joke is made in the course of a week of your viewing?
In the last two days I’ve begun watching season two of AMCs TURN: Washington’s Spies, reading Drums of Autumn (Book four of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series), and am getting into the home stretch with the Ubisoft game Assassin’s Creed III. All three of these stories take place during the 1770s, in the American Colonies, and although I didn’t plan it, it seems like everything I’m watching / reading / playing right now seems to be filled with the American Revolution. This is a little strange as I’m Canadian, but what the heck, sometimes you’ve just got to go for it!
And yes I'm aware that I'm talking about a cognitive bias called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, but as a long-time Dark Crystal fan, a great conjunction is at hand!
As I mentioned last month, I'm currently working my way through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, which follows (so far) Claire Beachamp, an army nurse who travels in time from 1946 (just after World War II) to the mid-1700s Scotland, where she immediately gets embroiled in the buildup to the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Also she meets a fine strapping Scot called Jamie Fraser and all sorts of romance and adventure soon follow.
The majority of the first book (Outlander, 1991) focuses on Claire's attempts to return to her own time and her husband Frank, but by book two (sorry for the mild 22-year-old spoiler) she has decided to stay with her new husband Jamie and make a go at changing history.
The books are both a lot of fun, but what I enjoyed best in Dragonfly in Amber was how much larger Claire's world has become since the first novel, much of the story takes place in France (during the reign of Louis XV) and even just moving the narrative out of Scotland suddenly shows just how big a world Claire is currently living in.
Filled with inruige, action and yes, some pretty steamy romance, the book is a lot of fun, and although it stands at more than 700 pages, I finished it strongly wanting to continue immediately onto the third book in the series (Voyager, 1994) but that will have to wait until next month.
A few years back for one of my book clubs I read Diana Gabaldon's 1991 novel Outlander (originally published as Cross Stitch) and was pretty impressed. At the time I hadn't had a lot of experience with Romance novels (my tastes normally move more in the "Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland" direction), but was really surprised at just how great this first novel was.
Flashing forward to last year, my wife (who has read the entire series to date) and I began watching the recent Ronald D. Moore television adaptation, and I admitted that I would have to check out this series and soon.
Or as my wife likes to say "If you can spend a whole month inflicting me with Twilight the least you can do is read something good once in a while..."
Point taken.
As I read horror, fantasy and science fiction works each month I've noticed that Fantasy tends to work best in series readings, so for the next year, give or take, I'll be checking out some time travelling historical romance fiction.
Image Credit
Outlander Series image from
https://www.pinterest.com/explore/dragonfly-in-amber/
