I am a rather huge “Outlander” fan. (I am Jamie Fraser) And therefore a bit of a fan of author Diana Gabaldon. (I included her as a named dedicatee in my novelette, “Katydid”) So, on the one hand, I was quite irritated and annoyed that I had to wait 5 years for the next book in the “Outlander” series, but very happy that fabled Book 8 finally arrived. (in June 2014 — somehow I missed that it had been published, and stumbled across it recently)
I tried to read it slowly and make it last, and savor it, partly because I figure it will be several more years before we get another, but it was difficult. I was able to eke it out for about a week or so.
This time around I broke down and ordered the Kindle e-book version. I have a love-hate relationship with my e-book reader. The thought of paper books going away, and book stores, and libraries, is disheartening to the point of being saddening, but it is the wave of the future, and it does “save trees”. Although the environmental destruction and toxicity in creating electronic devices could possibly be worse than cutting down trees and processing and creating paper products. Plus I’m old enough that I probably will not outlive the loss of paper books and newspapers and libraries and such. And it is particularly nice to read what would be a “big, thick, heavy book”, in hardback or paperback, that tires the wrists and such, on a nice, light e-book reader. So, love-hate.
Anyway, the book was basically as good as they all were. Maybe. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually do. Or thought I would. That could be on me. It seemed to be as well-written as the others. Maybe the five-year hiatus had a chilling effect. That wouldn’t surprise me at all. But I enjoyed it for the most part. And I would encourage anyone and everyone to read the series.
The one fault I have is Gabaldon’s use of rare, archaic words. It really is quite irritating and annoying. Maybe this book has as many instances as all the others, but there were WAY too many. Which had a negative effect on the reading experience. Someone needs to take Gabaldon’s thesaurus away from her and slap her upside the head with it. If she had included a small dictionary in the back of the book listing the words it wouldn’t be so bad. And these days you could link the words to the entries for easier access and e-book support. A few were in the e-book dictionary, but very few.
Other than that it was pretty good. It’s always nice visiting old friends for a short time and catching up on what they’ve been doing in their lives.
The new TV series is good, too, ‘airing’ on the Starz premium channel, also called “Outlander”. I was worried that they would mess it up, but they did a decent job, if not better than that. And it has been renewed for a second season. The chances of it making it through the whole story are slim to none, so I’m not looking forward to it being canceled at some point.
“Outlander” TV series on Starz