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2019/65-67: Outlander books 6-8 -- Diana Gabaldon
Thursday, July 25th, 2019 09:31 am2019/65: A Breath of Snow and Ashes -- Diana Gabaldon
2019/66: An Echo in the Bone -- Diana Gabaldon
2019/67: Written in My Own Heart's Blood -- Diana Gabaldon
Sometimes you just want to read something that is entertaining, distracting and long: so, when the black dog last bit, I embarked on 3000+ pages of Diana Gabaldon's 'Outlander' series, purchased piecemeal over the last year when they've been reduced-price on Amazon.
There is something very calming about reading a novel, or a sequence of novels, which feel more like a soap opera than a traditional beginning-middle-end work. I tend to read quickly and intensely -- often finishing a novel in one or two sessions -- and wondered whether this sense of dipping back into a serialised, episodic narrative over the course of weeks was a more usual reading experience, or one shared by those who read in snatched moments. I had little sense of an overall arc, though obviously there is such an arc -- as well as lesser arcs for individual characters -- in three long novels set between 1772 and 1778 in Colonial and Revolutionary America.
( very mild spoilers, mostly for previous books in the series )
All in all, this trio of long novels was a (mostly) very pleasant and undemanding read. I may not like all the characters, but I do feel that I know them, and that I'm interested in their stories. The historical detail is profuse, credible and immersive. The dialogue is often witty, and the pacing kept me reading. Like Claire, though, I do wish I knew more about the history of the Revolution! (And unlike Claire, I have the internet.)
2019/66: An Echo in the Bone -- Diana Gabaldon
2019/67: Written in My Own Heart's Blood -- Diana Gabaldon
Sometimes you just want to read something that is entertaining, distracting and long: so, when the black dog last bit, I embarked on 3000+ pages of Diana Gabaldon's 'Outlander' series, purchased piecemeal over the last year when they've been reduced-price on Amazon.
There is something very calming about reading a novel, or a sequence of novels, which feel more like a soap opera than a traditional beginning-middle-end work. I tend to read quickly and intensely -- often finishing a novel in one or two sessions -- and wondered whether this sense of dipping back into a serialised, episodic narrative over the course of weeks was a more usual reading experience, or one shared by those who read in snatched moments. I had little sense of an overall arc, though obviously there is such an arc -- as well as lesser arcs for individual characters -- in three long novels set between 1772 and 1778 in Colonial and Revolutionary America.
( very mild spoilers, mostly for previous books in the series )
All in all, this trio of long novels was a (mostly) very pleasant and undemanding read. I may not like all the characters, but I do feel that I know them, and that I'm interested in their stories. The historical detail is profuse, credible and immersive. The dialogue is often witty, and the pacing kept me reading. Like Claire, though, I do wish I knew more about the history of the Revolution! (And unlike Claire, I have the internet.)
