Diana Gabaldon
"Outlandish" Series
Small summary of the first book
In 1945, Claire Randall Beauchamp spends her well deserved holiday in Inverness, Scotland, with her husband Frank Randall. Married right before the beginning of the war, they both try to relearn to know each other during these few days off. While Frank, an historian specialized in the 18th century and fond of genealogy, spends his days looking for his ancestors (and especially, some Jonathan Randall, also known as "Black Jack Randall" because of his attitude towards the Scottish population), Claire increases her knowledge of the local plants and their medicinal virtues (Claire was a nurse during the war). During one of her wanderings, she finds a stone circle: Craig Na Dun.
She goes back to the stone circle shortly after Beltane (one of the most important celtic feasts) to collect a very rare plant. While coming closer to the stone circle, and more particularly to a split stone, abominable noises and a dreadful impression of aspiration make her faint.
She awakes in a strange world, where men are dressed either in kilt and rags, or in the red coats of the dragoon english guard uniform, and where all these people seem to fight each other, as if they were in war! In fact, instead of simply fainting near a stone circle, Claire has traveled through time and now finds herself in 1744! After many adventures, she is finally taken to castle Leoch, main house of the laird of the MacKenzie Clan. During her time in Leoch, she becomes more and more involved with a young man, named Jamie Fraser, who will become her husband...
And it is at this point that the story really starts! These books are truly incredible: the story is told with a great humor but also with an astonishing sense of the details, and the historical point of view is flawless (the rise of the jacobism in the scottish clans, which will lead to the 1745 rebellion , and the disastrous defeat of Culloden in 1746 is very well retranscribed). The characters are depicted in such a realistic and lively way that they really become alive: I often surprise myself with speaking about Jamie or Claire as if they really existed and were friends!
Diana Gabaldon has a very personal and enjoyable style, and great humor. These books are small wonders by themselves (well small... the smallest contains at least 750 pages!), and it becomes increasingly harder to await the publication of the following volumes.
So if you want to read an excellent series of historical novels full of humour and adventures, go for "Outlander" without any second thoughts . But be careful, once caught, the "gabaldonite" is an incurable plague!!
Books and covers
Here is the list of all the published books of Diana Gabaldon. Thanks to the "Ladies of Lallybroch" web site, where I have found the great majority of all these covers.
French Hardbacks:
to be published to be published "Le chardon et le tartan"
in english: "the thistle and the tartan""Le talisman"
in english: "the talisman""Le voyage"
in english: "the journey""Les tambours de l'automne"
in english: "drums of autumn""The Fiery Cross" title:
"King Farewell"French paperbacks:
"La porte de pierre"
("the stone gate"; "outlander" part 1)"Le bûcher des sorcières"
("the stake of the witches"; "outlander" part 2)"Le talisman"
("the talisman"; "Dragonfly in amber"
part 1)"Les flammes de la rébellion"
( "rebellion's flames"; "Dragonfly in amber"
part 2)"Le voyage"
in english: "the journey""Les tambours de l'automne"
in english: "drums of autumn"US paperbacks:
"Outlander" "Dragonfly in amber" "Voyager" "Drums of autumn" "The fiery cross" UK paperbacks:
"Cross stitch" "Dragonfly in amber" "Voyager" "Drums of autumn" "The fiery cross"
The Outlandish Companion
"The Outlandish Companion" (or "Through the Stones" in the United Kingdom), has been published in 2000 in USA and UK. As the title said, it is really a companion of the Outlander books series. In this book, Diana Gabaldon has grouped synopses of the 4 books, she also explains how she created her characters, gives a few hints on how she does her research work... There is also a glossary of all the expressions in foreign languages present in the books, with their translation in English... A pleasant book to read while waiting for the TRUE books, and also a great amount of information on Ms Gabaldon working habits.
"The Outlandish Companion"
(US edition)"Through The Stones"
(UK edition)
Forums and useful sites
forums:
Here is a selection of a few "outlandish" forums I visit daily. Some are English speaking and others are French speaking:
Ladies of Lallybroch (English speaking): in fact the Ladies of Lallybroch (or LOL) hosted several forums, and have created a huge site about the books, their characters and also about the various activities of the forums.
Among the many forums managed by the LOL, one is exclusively dedicated to discussions of the books (LOL Book Board). You can find there questions on the psychology of the many characters, information on the historical characters of the books, and every day an extract picked out of one of the four books is proposed and discussed (this is the famous "Quote of the day"). The LOL Social Board, is another forum where all the LOLs speak about everything. It gives sometimes place to delirious messages, but you are sure to laugh everytime you go there. There is also an Excerpt Board, where links to excerpts of the new books are posted (published on the compuserve forum managed by Diana Gabaldon), a Trivia Board, where a list of tricky questions are asked every month (the winner of the trivia being the one who gives the maximum of correct answers or the most funny ones).
"Research and Craft" Compuserve Forum (English speaking): this forum is managed by Diana Gabaldon herself, and is dedicated to writers with questions about the way of writing or asking writing tips. It is particularly interesting for the fans because 1) one can read the explanations giving by Diana Gabaldon on how to write and 2) one can also find new excerpts of the books to come!
La porte de pierre (French speaking, title could be translated as "the stone gate"): These are the French speaking homologues of the LOL forums, where Canadian and French people can chat together about their favorite books in their mother tongue. There is a forum dedicated to the discussions on the books (forum d'extrait du jour), another forum of general discussion, for chatting about all the subjects which are not strictly in connection with the books, and finally a forum of reading suggestions (Les grimoires de maître Raymond) where you can find reading ideas allowing you to await more patiently the publishing of the next Diana Gabaldon's books!
useful sites:
Official Home page: this site contains a lot of information on the books, some FAQs, excerpts of the books to come (excerpts of the new books in the "Outlander" series as well as on the mystery Diana is writing and which should be called "The White Knight")
Through The Stone Webring: a webring listing sites dedicated to the series of Diana Gabaldon
Jamie and Claire Webring: a smaller webring (only 3 sites referred until now).
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