Dragonfly in Amber

This book was that oddest of things: a boring page-turner. The pace was sort of hypnotic, in that it kept me going, but I didn't really care what happened to anyone. Certainly not the heroine, who has evolved from being a colorless cypher in the first book to being a colorless cypher who is an irritatingly obvious placeholder for the author/reader. If I wanted to believe that a hot Scotsman was obsessed with me, I would google-image Gerard Butler and use the power of my brain; when I read a book, I tend to be in search of, y'know, characters. And our heroine is nothing of the kind.

Almost a thousand pages of first-person narrative and all we learn about our narrator is: a) she gives off a major whiff of self-righteousness and show more self-satisfaction; b) every man she meets lusts after her; and c) the hero periodically needs to monologue for pages about how much he loves and desires and worships her, to which she tends to respond complacently with a bland, "I love you too," or some such. On no occasion, even when she has just almost gotten him killed, does she consider herself less than deserving of this worship, or even seem particularly grateful for it: she unthinkingly accepts it as the way things should be. We also never get any evidence of this amazingness our seven-foot-tall*-shoulders-wider-than-a-longbow-blindingly-handsome Scotsman sees in her. She just deserves his adoration! You'll have to take Gabaldon's word for it.

And it is still true in this book, as in its prequel, that if you meet a gay man you know he is all kinds of evil. The one flash of developed personality we see in our heroine is when she starts talking about "perverts". Thanks, Diana, for providing your readers with the perfect way to insert ourselves into a kilt-related fantasy, as long as we don't mind being a smug homophobe in said fantasy. Uh... I mind.

(And yet, believe it or not, I have already started the third book. Partially it's because I own it and the Because It Is There principle is strong with me, but partially because, well, sometimes I will eat an entire bag of Starbursts, and this is sort of the same idea.)

*Okay, fine, he's only six four. show less

The second Outlander book. This is a compelling series - combining an interesting period of history (the Jacobite rising in Scotland in the mid 1700s) with good storytelling and a dash of time-travel fantasy.
The second book is structurally better than the first - a great first hundred pages sets the scene, and provides some teasers about what may, or may not, transpire later in the book.
I find the Scottish stuff well done - a good level of detail making it believable, and the modern stuff also works well. I wasn't so much of a fan of the interlude in the French court, but wasn't deterred from the rest of the book.
I keep thinking that I only need to read one more volume to scratch my Outlander itch, and had thought this would be my last show more volume, but I now think I need to read volume 3, just to satisfy my curiosity about how things pan out. I'm being sucked in!! show less

As I said, I am profoundly enthralled with this story, especially with Claire and Jamie's time in France - French bourgeoisie, dinners and balls, shady politics and endless conspiracies? What's not to love?

At first I thought that the predictability of the story will diminish the wonderful reading experience, since the reader already knows what will happen in 20 years, but I could not have been further from wrong. The story is all about intricate details of daily lives of the 18th century people - thus, knowing the direction the story will take only makes the getting there more exciting!

I didn't enjoy it as much as 'Cross Stitch', the first in the series; if I hadn't read that first it would have been extremely confusing. However I wanted to know what happened to Jamie and Clare so I persevered! It's a bit of a strange book... mostly historical, during the Jacobite rebellion. Yet far more interesting than most army-type books - Gabaldon really is an excellent writer. Mostly she manages to describe the conditions without being boring, and the unpleasantness and violence without getting gruesome. Mostly... but not always. I couldn't read the description of hanging, drawing and quartering after the first paragraph. It was apparently an exercise in maximum excrutiating pain for the longest possible time, and only done by show more 'master' executioners. How can society have been so evil?

Anyway... it stops being a straight historical novel by the unlikely twist that Clare was born in the 20th century and went back 200 years in time to the midst of war-torn Scotland. At least, that's what happens in 'Cross Stitch'. In 'Dragonfly in Amber' she starts off back in the 20th century with a grown-up daughter who knows nothing of her mother's strange time-travelling past, and eventually tells her the story... which is the bulk of the novel, continuing where the previous one left off.

Confused? All I can say is: if it appeals, try 'Cross Stitch' first. That's excellent. But don't expect quite so much of this one. Still, there was enough of a draw at the end to make me rush over to play.com to order 'Voyager', the third in the series! show less

Once again I am blown away by Gabaldon's abilities as an author to take an unlikely premise with two strong characters and weave a story that is both believable and engaging. From France and the court of Louis XIV to the battlefields of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the depths of characterization and history are told with an eye to the telescope.
An aspect I liked is that Claire is realizing her need to not venture an opinion or act on her own behalf at all times. It's not just that Jamie will come looking for her as he does in Bk. 1, it's that speaking the word "plague" in the mid 1700's is a really, really bad idea. She is learning wisdom and how to make her point in a way that will gain her respect and admiration at the time in which she show more finds herself, not easy to do for a strong-willed woman from the field hospitals of WWII. Jamie, too, has had to learn to back down a bit, that his wife has a good mind and an opinion he needs to respect and he is doing so well.
And the life they are living! The times of the absolute monarchy, the absolute clan hierarchy, are told with great detail. The lead-up to events, where we join Claire in 1960's Scotland bring the life she has lived without Jamie to the forefront, and make the return to the 1740's almost a relief. These two lovers are a couple whom we want to see stay together and it is a relief to read most of the book as their time together.
There is a cliffhanger at the end - make sure you have Bk. 3 ready to start when you finish this one! show less

Note: Dragonfly in Amber is the second novel in the "Outlander Series." There will necessarily be spoilers for the first book in the series, Outlander.

In Outlander, Claire, a young married English nurse on vacation in Scotland after World War II, accidentally traveled back in time 200 years to 1743. There she took up with Highland Hottie Jamie, and developed her skills as a healer. As Outlander ended, Claire was pregnant, and Jamie insisted she go back to the future to save herself and her unborn child, since he thinks he is about to die in battle.

As Dragonfly in Amber begins, we meet Claire again, but now it is 1968. Claire has brought her 20-year-old daughter, Brianna - the spitting image of Jamie - with her to Scotland. They traveled show more from Boston, where Claire is a doctor, and they have come to see Roger Wakefield in Inverness, who is an historian. Claire’s husband Frank Randall has died, and so she plans to tell Brianna that her real father is Jamie. But first she wants to discover, if she can, what happened to Jamie after she left twenty years earlier. She knows that Roger's late father collected a great deal of materials from that time period.

For most of the book, Claire, in the process of telling Roger and Brianna the truth about who she is, takes us back to the 1700s to fill us in on what happened since the end of Outlander. As the book ends (some 743 pages later), Roger has discovered a clue to Jamie’s fate that changes everything Claire thought she knew.

Discussion: The author provides a more lucid account of the political issues behind the Jacobin rising in this book. She also has a bit of a “meta” reverie (played out between Claire and Roger) on the ways in which the historical record is mutable, depending on a complex web comprised of ideology, values, and political agendas. In the case of Scotland in the 1700's, Claire was there and knows things were not as they were later depicted. Claire explains to Roger that her bitterness is not against historians themselves:

"Not the historians… For the most part, they think what they were made to think, and it’s a rare one that sees what really happened, behind the smokescreen of artifacts and paper. … No, the fault lies with the artists…. The writers, the singers, the tellers of tales. It’s them that take the past and re-create it to their liking. Them that could take a fool and give you back a hero, take a sot and make him a king.”

This is only one of the instances in which Gabaldon takes a critical look at herself through the voice of her characters: about writing historical fiction, about writing very long books, about writing romance novels. It’s a nice touch.

One troubling aspect of the story is the fact that Claire waited all that time to check on whether Jamie was really dead. That seems hard to swallow, given Claire's character, and given her abiding love for Jamie.

Evaluation: You can’t help but get caught up with these characters, and want to know what happens to them. And indeed, you get a blow-by-blow account in these books of almost every minute in almost every day. But it’s not a bad vicarious life to be living. Claire may be over-confident for a woman of her generation, but one must grudgingly like her or at least admire her adaptability. Jamie is handsome and heroic and smitten with his woman - not bad traits about which to fantasize. And Jamie’s friends and family are all you could wish for in a loyal, loving, bonded group. Play on, Gabaldon! show less

Fantastic second book in the series. It starts with Claire back in the future, telling her daughter about what happened to her and the truth about her parentage. She has also come to Scotland to see if she can find out what happened to the people she knew, if they survived the Rising and its aftermath. In the process, Claire tells of what happened to her and Jamie after they left Scotland up until the beginning of the Battle of Culloden.

Jamie and Claire have settled into their marriage, with their love as strong as ever. Each of them has strengths and vulnerabilities that become part of their stories. Jamie has an honorable streak a mile wide that makes him want to save his family and countrymen from the looming disaster. It's hard for show more him to walk the fine line between honor and treason and it wears on him. Claire is deeply in love with Jamie, but still suffers from the guilt of feeling like she is betraying Frank. Trying to reconcile her love for Jamie with protecting Jack Randall so that it doesn't screw up her future with Frank is not easy.

With Claire's knowledge of the future, they go to France to try to stop Bonnie Prince Charlie from trying to take back the throne. The details of the political intrigue are fascinating and made me feel as if I was there. Claire also uses her healer abilities to work in a local charity hospital, giving more insight into the realities of life in the mid 1700s. I loved seeing Claire's strength of will and determination to make as much difference as she can. As they feel they are making progress and take a trip back to Scotland, fate intervenes and they end up on the wrong side after all. With Jamie's certainty that he won't survive Culloden, in order to protect Claire, he sends her back to Frank.

I love the rich historical details that are shown throughout the book. There are also some fun things that get worked into the story, such as Claire's explanation of what a "commando" is and what Jamie does with that knowledge. There is also a hilarious description of Jamie's venture into a brothel, a sausage, and a young French lad who becomes a big part of the story.

The depth of emotion throughout the book is amazing. Jamie's love for his family and his country is deep and his desire to save them influences everything he does. There is a feeling of fear throughout as he and Claire worry that they won't be able to stop the Rising. Claire's unhappiness and depression after the loss of her baby are deep, and the effect on her marriage was heartbreaking. But the deepest, most emotional event was as Jamie accepts what he sees as his fate, and begs Claire to return to the future so that he can be sure that she is safe.

I loved the sections in the present, as Claire tells her story. Her determination to discover the fates of her friends is intense. I loved Roger's fascination with her quest, and the lengths he goes to find out the answers. There is an intense twist to the story at the end that leads into the next book. show less