The first novel hit bookstores in 1991 (can you believe it's been that long?) and six others have followed along with a novella and a best-not-mentioned graphic novel. Okay. I'm going to mention it anyway. It was horrid. Claire's breasts got larger and larger in each frame until I became convinced they were filling with helium and she might actually float away by the end of the book. But hey, Gabaldon made a few million more and everyone (except the readers, that is) walked away happy.
But let's get back to the novels themselves. Because the anticipation over Written in My Own Heart's Blood is palpable in the literary world these days and as I claw my way through novel #6, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, I find myself repeating one question over and over: WHY? Because frankly, dear readers, the novel I am reading here is sub par at best.
Spoiler alert here people. If you haven't read the books yet, chances are you never will, so get over it. At this point in the overall plot of the series, Jamie and Claire are ensconced in pre-Revolutionary America, homesteading it up in the mountains of North Carolina with their daughter Brianna and her husband Roger. And that's pretty much all we get throughout the novel. The only entertainment to be found is the utterly ridiculous POV changes that occur nearly every chapter. I'm uncertain whether Gabaldon did this to entertain herself (let's face it, she had to have been bored to tears with Jamie and Claire by now, but who want to kill a cash cow?) or simply to see what she could get away with. Either way, if the writer were anyone but Gabaldon, they would be skewered for the poor technique which leaves a reader muddled, confused, and unsatisfied.
So here I am in the middle of a book that is a complete mess with a plot that goes nowhere, jumping POVs, and sex scenes between characters that six books ago were sexy but now verge on creepy. Any other book, I would toss it. But it's Gabaldon. So I soldier on. And when I finish this one there little doubt I will bravely pick up An Echo in the Bone. Undoubtedly, I will pre-order Written in My Own Heart's Blood.
Although I promise you this: if I see just one explicit sex scene with a geriatric Claire and Jamie, I will refuse to read another word. Not. One. More. Word.
Ever.
Well, you didn't alienate me. I've never read the books and have no interest in doing so. A friend of mine who's read a few of them described them as time traveling soap operas.
ReplyDeleteI have never read any of them, but now that I know the graphic novel version features helium breasts, I might have to check it out....
ReplyDeleteI quit this series after maybe the third book. There's a reason so many romance series tend not to feature the same couple for more than a few books. (Although, if I remember right, Gabaldon once said that her books are not romance novels. I guess that means I was just reading them wrong. Either way, I read as much as I wanted or needed to.)
ReplyDeleteI think I liked the first two books, and by the third I was done. It was just too much. I wish she had moved on to write about other people in their own right instead of inserting so many in with Jamie and Claire.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting slightly terrified of the geriatric sex scene of which you are also skeered. I'm on book 5. Soon.
ReplyDeleteAhem. I think YOU, my dear, were the one who originally sucked me into this series if I recall. I think I got through The Fiery Cross, and at that point the books started to feel like a means to an end. Just hanging out in history, having sex and stuff. I have had A Breath loaded on my iPod for years now, and just can't convince myself to dive back in for a period of like a month (it is somewhere around 50 discs). So I think I'm just going to hold back and see what everyone says about the final book. If it is THAT GOOD, then I'll trudge through the next two to get there.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry - you haven't alienated me - I had the same problems with the first book!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. I am not alienated. In fact, I've often considered reading the series, but i just can't seem to get past the whole time travel thing. So many people I respect have read the series obsessively though, so I may give it a try at some point. Here's to waiting for the final installment!
ReplyDeleteI never got to the second book, so you haven't alienated me either!
ReplyDeleteHa! " If you haven't read the books yet, chances are you never will, so get over it. " I actually stopped reading there, because I do still want to read them...but that is such a truthful statement.
ReplyDeleteBut I totally know how you feel with that bad taste in your mouth, Captain Jack. I started to feel similar reading the most recent book in the Song of Ice and Fire series - I was just really annoyed that the last two books were split but on the same timeline and I hated half of the stories I was reading.
I never have read them, and you are correct: I never will.
ReplyDeleteI read the first one and found it mildly annoying (though readable enough), but couldn't get into the second book. If I remember correctly, she jumped 20 years into the future in the second one, so how the heck are they still alive for the 8th?? (I guess plots going nowhere and lots of sex help!) All this to say you haven't alienated me either! :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't get through the first book! I sympathise though because I know how disappointing it is when a series you love turns sour. Sounds like it may have come to a natural end some time ago.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your post and all the subsequent comments. I haven't read this series (yet), although several friends have (and have recommended at least the first book). At some point I may give the first book a try. I have many, many more books to read before that.
ReplyDeleteHa!! I'm still debating about moving on to An Echo in the Bone. I don't think I can handle yet another book about absolutely nothing but getting closer to the Revolutionary War. I mean, Roger almost bites it in Book 5, Claire twice so far in Book 6, Jamie in the first four books. Who else is left? Brianna is too annoying, and Roger is just...weird. There is nothing sexy about either of them. As for Claire and Jamie, if I have sex like them in my 40s, I would be impressed. The fact that they are in their late 50s/early 60s and rutting like animals scares me. I'm still put off by the obsessing with breastfeeding and milk dripping from breasts from The Fiery Drum. Gah.
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