Outlander?

[Quillwitch]

Hello all:

Have any of you read Outlander? I´m curious to know what you think of it. I´ve never read it but i´m planning to if anyone convinces me to.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I haven't read it. I watched it, one episode. Just the one. I was looking forward to it, nicely spooky at the start and then ...wha? meh!

I thought it was piffle. Anachronistic blooming piffle.

But for a similar kind of story territory, reincarnation, Scotland but set much earlier, Robert the Bruce, I did like Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine.

I see this is a whole series of books. Well, the writer has struck gold for sure, and I think it's feeble, but that's just me. I have Scottish nieces just crazy about it

Look here to make up your own mind

 

[Richard Turner]

I haven't read it. I watched it, one episode. Just the one. I was looking forward to it, nicely spooky at the start and then ...wha? meh!

I thought it was piffle. Anachronistic blooming piffle.

But for a similar kind of story territory, reincarnation, Scotland but set much earlier, Robert the Bruce, I did like Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine.

I see this is a whole series of books. Well, the writer has struck gold for sure, and I think it's feeble, but that's just me. I have Scottish nieces just crazy about it

Look here to make up your own mind

Quite happy to accept your view which only confirms what I suspected. We live in a "winner takes all" age thanks to the internet and increasing inequality, so something which grabs the kids can make millions.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Yeah. I read the first book. It kept coming up in 'suggested' books until I was worn down and just read it. My reaction?...um...meh. The set-up is contrived, the decisions characters make are improbable, and...Well, I was happy to say goodbye to every single character by the end of the book. So there's your ringing endorsement. The only good thing I can say is that at least it's pretty short.

 

[Quillwitch]

Ok, great critiques! I´ll stay away. But, it´s interesting to note, yet agin, how something so meh can sell so much! Sigh*

 

[Carol Rose]

MASSSIVE Outlander fan of both the books and the Starz adaptation!!

(But then, no one is really surprised by that, are they? )

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Well, she's doing summat right. I was attracted by the idea of the stone circle as a portal, but that first page would lose me. You're a far better writer.

For a really creepy time slip novel, horrendous outcome, I'm waiting for someone to make a movie out of Dragon Under The Hill, by Gordon Honeycombe.

 

[Carol Rose]

Well, she's doing summat right. I was attracted by the idea of the stone circle as a portal, but that first page would lose me. You're a far better writer.

For a really creepy time slip novel, horrendous outcome, I'm waiting for someone to make a movie out of Dragon Under The Hill, by Gordon Honeycombe.

OOOOO! That would be a fabulous movie!

I had another author tell me she couldn't get into Outlander because the beginning was SO SLOW. So now of course I'm going back to read the books because it's been a long time and I've forgotten a lot. And you know what? She's right. The beginning is SLOW. LOL!! Hate that I can no longer read for pleasure without picking stuff apart. LOL!!

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Well, she's doing summat right. I was attracted by the idea of the stone circle as a portal, but that first page would lose me. You're a far better writer.

For a really creepy time slip novel, horrendous outcome, I'm waiting for someone to make a movie out of Dragon Under The Hill, by Gordon Honeycombe.

Apart from being a newsreader, Gordon Honeycombe was a fine writer. I have a copy of his The Murders of the Black Museum 1870-1970. He had Cornish ancestry, with all the Honeycombes in the world descended from Matthew Honeycombe, a 17th-century yeoman farmer who lived in Saint Cleer—where I lived for many years. Gordon organised a reunion of 160 family members from around the world, who descended on the village in 1984.

I liked the surname so much, that I gave it to one of the characters in my fourth Cornish Detective novel, naming a massage parlour owner Caradoc Honeycombe.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

He was a very fine writer indeed. 'Neither The Sea Nor The Sand', ugggghhhh....and they made that one into a movie, creepy as HELL. Also called The Exorcism of Hugh, based on the novel, it made them older, but otherwise stayed true.

It says trailer here but there's more.

He had promised not to leave her...and he didn't.

 

[Quillwitch]

MASSSIVE Outlander fan of both the books and the Starz adaptation!!

(But then, no one is really surprised by that, are they? )

I was actually waiting for your opinion! I´ve never watched the series, but I was curious about the book. The lady has an impressive resumé.

 

[Quillwitch]

Well, she's doing summat right. I was attracted by the idea of the stone circle as a portal, but that first page would lose me. You're a far better writer.

For a really creepy time slip novel, horrendous outcome, I'm waiting for someone to make a movie out of Dragon Under The Hill, by Gordon Honeycombe.

That is what got my attention because my story also uses the stone circles for that purpose. I guess I´ll have to change that yet again. If my memory serves me right, I actually remember her way back like 10 or more years ago I met her on an online critique group and she was critiquing Outlander or what back then was the beginning of outlander. Either that or there´s someone out there with a very very similiar story.
That´s another reason why I´m curious.
Sad to say that I actually went--wait, what??? That will never work, when she pitched the idea. Who´s crying now, huh?
Back then neither of us had the stone circle idea in our story so it just kinda happened.

 

[Carol Rose]

I was actually waiting for your opinion! I´ve never watched the series, but I was curious about the book. The lady has an impressive resumé.

Once you get past the opening of book one, it picks up. I really adored the first four books when I first read them, which was gosh... over 20 years ago!! Hard to believe they were written that long ago and FINALLY they were adapted. I haven't yet read the next four but I have them. I wanted to re-read the original four first.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I wouldn't worry, @Quillwitch. Stone circles are one of those ideas anyone could use, and she wasn't the first, either.

 

[Quillwitch]

Twenty years? Wow, then it was someone else with a similar idea. I agree. Others have used this idea too. And the genres are completely different.

 

[Amber]

I didn't like it and I keep trying to read it but ... I don't like it. It's not the writing and I'm not sure its even the story. Well, it's the story for ME and I think that's why I keep trying to read the damn thing -- even now I have a brand new copy of it I purchased during a weak moment a year or so ago.

When I take it apart it has a clear appeal. It opens with a woman who is on a second honeymoon with her spouse after they've been separated for a long time. The woman fiddles around with her boring husband for a while and then travels to the past via some Deux Ex Machina like portal. She escapes the dull, restrictive world of her time for a savage one, one more appropriate to her wild and sensual nature.

I never get over how this supposedly wild woman with a sensual nature who served in the Second World War chose to avoid the topic of her marital satisfaction instead of facing it head on. I stop at the same place every time. I'm convinced it's wish fulfillment for married women and as a bonus it has a rationale for strong, sensual, intelligent women not putting their foot down and saying, "Dude! Put those papers down and look at me!"

When I had the poor judgment to bring this up at an RWA conference, I was told this is how things were back then. Except, were they REALLY (big emphasis on the word REALLY and a squishy face)? Being uncomfortable talking about sex socially doesn't translate to being uncomfortable having sex with your spouse, a spouse who is uninhibited (whoopee!). We have a biological drive which pushes us towards sexual satisfaction and men in particular have a different sort of biological drive. You could say their biological drive is extroverted rather than introverted and given the social sanction of a wife -- why would even the most controlled and respectful of men hesitate?

We're to believe a relatively young man who'd been forced into celibacy by WWII wouldn't spend every waking moment he could with his uninhibited and sensually delightful wife. I suppose because their landlords might hear them?

Bull caca.

Also....

It's as though a whole slew of women have projected their own socialized sexual reticence onto Claire's husband and convinced themselves of it's inherent value. It's interesting to me because if you project your own sexual inhibitions onto the man, and then claim Claire as your own, there are a lot of women who are vicariously experiencing sexual liberation through this series of books. Diana Gabaldon didn't want it categorized as a historical romance, I assume because of the not very kind assumptions which are made about those who read historical romance. Or, maybe it was because of the paranormal part of the story, which I see as more of a matter of convenience rather than an integral part of the plot. But one of the assumptions people make about female historical romance readers is that the genre is enjoyed by a herd of married women who are privately dissatisfied with their marriage. Outlander meets the criteria exactly.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

'Things back then'. No. Social mores change, yes, but people have always been people. Plenty of evidence for that throughout all surviving literature.

 

[Amber]

'Things back then'. No. Social mores change, yes, but people have always been people. Plenty of evidence for that throughout all surviving literature.

Ha. I could have saved myself some words. Yes, exactly.

 

[Carol Rose]

Golly. Well, I'm quite satisfied with my marriage (29 years now), and I still enjoy these books and the show. So does my husband, by the way. LOL!! I also enjoy reading historical romance, though what I enjoyed more about these was the time travel aspect of them. But I hate generalized assumptions, especially ones that lump women and their sexual desires together into bizarre little categories. But hey, whatever. To each their own.

 

[Amber]

Golly. Well, I'm quite satisfied with my marriage (29 years now), and I still enjoy these books and the show. So does my husband, by the way. LOL!! I also enjoy reading historical romance, though what I enjoyed more about these was the time travel aspect of them. But I hate generalized assumptions, especially ones that lump women and their sexual desires together into bizarre little categories. But hey, whatever. To each their own.

Right. You should hate it.

 

[Carol Rose]

Right. You should hate it.

LOL!!!

 

[Amber]

LOL!!!

I know. I crack myself up all the time and because I make myself laugh, it's hard to resist the temptation to be bad.

I like historical romances too -- usually right about now, a season I call "Jane Austen Season". It's a time for period pieces and historical romances.

 

[Quillwitch]

Golly. Well, I'm quite satisfied with my marriage (29 years now), and I still enjoy these books and the show. So does my husband, by the way. LOL!! I also enjoy reading historical romance, though what I enjoyed more about these was the time travel aspect of them. But I hate generalized assumptions, especially ones that lump women and their sexual desires together into bizarre little categories. But hey, whatever. To each their own.

@Carol Rose -- Why does she keep time travelling? Once she goes in the first time she can´t stop? Or how does it work? Or am I wrong about that and she only time travel´s once? I saw a teaser where she says something like it´s happening again... I thought maybe it was a certain pull she got when certain X factor happens.

 

[Carol Rose]

@Carol Rose -- Why does she keep time travelling? Once she goes in the first time she can´t stop? Or how does it work? Or am I wrong about that and she only time travel´s once? I saw a teaser where she says something like it´s happening again... I thought maybe it was a certain pull she got when certain X factor happens.

The first time, she travels back 200 years by touching one of the stones, but doesn't know that's what will happen. She spends approximately three years in 18th century Scotland, meets Jamie, and is forced to marry him to keep her from becoming a prisoner in an English prison, but falls deeply in love with him.

She goes back through the stones to her own time as the Battle of Culloden begins in 1746. Jamie makes her go back because he believes he will be killed in the battle. She knows the outcome because she's from the 1940s, but doesn't know his specific outcome. She never studied history that much in detail. She's pregnant with his child, so he makes her go back to her own time to keep her and the baby safe. Plus, he knows she left a husband behind in her own time, and wants her to be happy and have a chance at a life.

She and her husband in her own time raise Jamie's child. In the TV show we get more of their life in the 1940s through 1960s than we do in the books. It's not a happy marriage, but they stay together for Brianna's sake. Once Brianna graduates from high school, Frank and Claire talk about divorcing, but Frank dies. He dies in the books, too. When Jamie and Brianna go back to Scotland for the funeral of someone she and Frank were close to, they begin researching who lived after the Battle of Culloden. She eventually finds out Jamie survived, and is still alive 20 years later in his own time. Her daughter encourages her to go back and find him, so she does.

It's entirely under her control in both the books and the shows so far, that she makes the choice to touch the stone that sends her back to her own time, and then back to the 18th century again. It was only the first time she didn't expect it to happen.

 

[Quillwitch]

The first time, she travels back 200 years by touching one of the stones, but doesn't know that's what will happen. She spends approximately three years in 18th century Scotland, meets Jamie, and is forced to marry him to keep her from becoming a prisoner in an English prison, but falls deeply in love with him.

She goes back through the stones to her own time as the Battle of Culloden begins in 1746. Jamie makes her go back because he believes he will be killed in the battle. She knows the outcome because she's from the 1940s, but doesn't know his specific outcome. She never studied history that much in detail. She's pregnant with his child, so he makes her go back to her own time to keep her and the baby safe. Plus, he knows she left a husband behind in her own time, and wants her to be happy and have a chance at a life.

She and her husband in her own time raise Jamie's child. In the TV show we get more of their life in the 1940s through 1960s than we do in the books. It's not a happy marriage, but they stay together for Brianna's sake. Once Brianna graduates from high school, Frank and Claire talk about divorcing, but Frank dies. He dies in the books, too. When Jamie and Brianna go back to Scotland for the funeral of someone she and Frank were close to, they begin researching who lived after the Battle of Culloden. She eventually finds out Jamie survived, and is still alive 20 years later in his own time. Her daughter encourages her to go back and find him, so she does.

It's entirely under her control in both the books and the shows so far, that she makes the choice to touch the stone that sends her back to her own time, and then back to the 18th century again. It was only the first time she didn't expect it to happen.

So, there´s no "scientific" information as to why it happens to her?

 

[Carol Rose]

So, there´s no "scientific" information as to why it happens to her?

There are reasons/possible reasons given, plus an entire subplot related to a woman she meets back in the 18th century who also turns out to have gone back through the stones, but for a very different reason. She did it deliberately, trying to change the outcome of the Highlander uprisings. It's chalked up to the magical power of the stones, but beyond that, the books don't get very technical or scientific.

 

[Quillwitch]

There are reasons/possible reasons given, plus an entire subplot related to a woman she meets back in the 18th century who also turns out to have gone back through the stones, but for a very different reason. She did it deliberately, trying to change the outcome of the Highlander uprisings. It's chalked up to the magical power of the stones, but beyond that, the books don't get very technical or scientific.

Thank you. for this information, @Carol Rose much appreciated.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

She wanted these islands to return to Catholicism, then, even after Guy Fawkes and all that For the true story

of the Scottish uprisings, John Prebble and

Culloden

Glencoe

After this tragedy, came the horror of the clearances. My stepfather's family got cleared way back, in Sutherland.

'Charlie Is My Darling' and the 'Skye Boat Song' are more famous songs. This one, 'Jacobites,' put the point of view against the Jacobite uprising.

'Hunt a parents life with bloody war'

So much (bloody) water under the bridge by that point.