Voyager (Outlander)
by Diana Gabaldon
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Book Reviews of Voyager (Outlander)
Book Review: Painful
Summary: 3 Stars
Ok, your husband is going to be hanged and unfortunately you can't help him. You've been abducted and are forced to care for a crew of yucky smelling men who are pooping blood. You then are stranded on an island miles from civilization, and several islands away from your husband. You must get to him with all haste. This is a dire moment. Even if you have the full confidence in you husband's abilities it would be normal to experience some worry.
But when I should feel a building of tension I get FULL descriptions of ENDLESS mundane details that a frantic person wouldn't even think to pay attention to.
Also this book is very formulaic. It's the same repetive use of this theme: a character gets a very short amount of introductory dialogue, then overly detailed descriptions of character appearance and some unnecessary physical actions ,then lastly a few short words more. Supporting characters are quickly stifled because Clare's character paraphrases everything the supporting characters should have revealed. Maybe Gabaldon didn't feel these characters deserved any sort of real devotion. She especially does this to Jamie. No character is as important Claire's clever observations or Claire's inner voice. It is as if Claire is a petulant, interrupting child, who must be heard above all else and believes she is the only one who has anything of value to impart. I don't want Clare to tell me what that character had to say....it is tedious because I would like to know how Claire feels about the information...is she scared? is she angry?? I don't know...because Claire's character must be in such bloody darn control ALL the time
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Also Claire must have forgotten the trouble she got into the last books because Gabaldon gave her a permanent case of the "stupids".
We are not vaccinated against all diseases. Any doctor from the 60's would play dumb if confronted with mountains of bloody diarrhea. And it was just EGOTISTICAL for her to leave Jaime to be the hero when she was already underway on the VERY important mission of rescuing her nephew. Not to mention she have just been reunited with the love of her life and have such precious little time with him.
Gabaldon lost focus and was just writing to be writing. Could be condensed to 200 pages. Maybe less.
Book Review: 3rd in Series - A Moving Scottish Historical!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the 3rd in the unique and wonderful Scottish historical (and time travel) series that grabs you by the throat and won't let you go. At over 1000 pages, this installment is an all day sucker of historical romance and well worth your time. The saga of Claire and Jamie continues in Voyager as Claire, who by 1968 has become an MD and is now chief of staff of a prominent Boston hospital, having discovered that Jamie did not die at Culloden in 1746, learns more about Jamie's hard life since they were forced apart 20 years ago. She is assisted in her research in Scotland by Roger Wakefield, an Oxford scholar and a Scot who is attracted to Claire's beautiful daughter, Brianna, who is the physical image of her father, Jamie. As the three conduct their research into the past, we become a part of Jamie's life during the years he did not have Claire. As life throws him one difficult challenge after another (living as an outlaw in a cave, prison, a servant in a rich man's house, manipulation and abuse by others, etc.), he remains a man of honor and integrity with a heart to serve and provide for those he loves all the while longing for his lost love and the child she bore him he has never seen. Claire longs to rejoin Jamie in the past though she knows another passage through the standing stones to go back 200 years in time carries great risk. It is a risk she is willing to take because he is her heart. This is a well told tale of a deep love that spans centuries and of the two lives deeply woven into the tapestry of Scotland's history. This is the only romance series I know of where the same romance flourishes in each book...it is a tribute to Gabaldon's outstanding talent as a storyteller and one who sees into the hearts of people that she can make it captivating. You want Jamie and Claire's love to go on forever. This book had me both laughing out loud and crying tears as it ripped at my own heart. I highly recommend it. And, should you need it, here's the list of the whole series in order:
Outlander (1991)
Dragonfly in Amber '(1992)
Voyager' (1993)
Drums of Autumn' (1996)
The Fiery Cross '(2001)
A Breath of Snow and Ashes '(2005)'
An Echo in the Bone '(2009)
Book eight ('No Publication Date yet)
Book Review: It's a small world, ye ken ?
Summary: 1 Stars
Having enjoyed Gabaldon's first two books in the series, I had to review this book to say how disappointing and boring this one was.
The story sees Claire return to the 18th century after finding out that Jamie is still alive and takes it from there. We meet all the characters in the earlier books, Fergus, Jenny, Ian alongwith others - after all, it's been 20 years. The plot moves along briskly in the 1960s, however once Claire returns to the past, the story got majorly involved, convoluted and looong! Outlander and DIA were victims of the same kindof bloat, but atleast they were entertaining. The way the plot moves forward in this book, and the increasingly crazy situations the characters are put into had me shaking my head in disbelief - you'd think Claire and Jamie would learn to be more circumspect with age!! Claire has barely been in the past for a couple of hours, when she's having her bodice ripped by unsavoury characters and the action continues with no respite (except for them taking time off every couple of pages to have sex *enough already* ). Claire even finds herself saddled with her own 'Typhoid Mary'. I did read on the author's website that she writes different scenes in the book and then puts the book together and it seems pretty evident in this one - the dangerous situations faced by the characters never let up. Additionally, there are so many unnecessary and unexplained scenes in the book - the one where Jamie suddenly emerges as the captain of some French troops, etc - and these really bothered me. But to be fair, maybe they were explained, at this point of time I was so bored that I was skipping through pages just wanting it to get over. And for a story that covers 2 different periods in time, 3 continents, it's such a stretch to find that Claire and Jamie keep running into EVERY single character time and again. I know they say, it's a small world - but this small is really stretching it.
Anyway, I think I'm going to read the next one on the series, just because I already have it waiting for me in the library, but if that doesnt improve much more then that's it for the Outlander series for me.
Book Review: A roller coaster ride!
Summary: 5 Stars
What a roller coaster ride! The book left me breathless and smiling. It was one adventure after another with a few calm points in between. From what I gather from the other reviews, Voyager was supposed to be the final book in a trilogy. I'm SO glad it isn't. I can't seem to get enough of Claire and Jamie and want to know: "What happens next?" We meet old friends, new friends and old enemys.
As well as being a romance and adventure, it is a mystery novel. Bones were found in a cave in the Caribbean in the 20th Century and I THOUGHT I'd figured out who they belonged to but I was WAY off course. And a person I THOUGHT was dead, escaped it and was very much alive.
The books remind me of a couple of my favorite novels I read as a child: Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Gabaldon is a superb story teller and makes you feel as if your are living in the 18th century right along with Claire. There are memorable scenes in the book, ones that I found particularly amusing: was where Claire arrives in Edinburgh and discards the wrapping of her sandwich and where Jamie sees her for the first time after 20 years. His reaction to her sudden appearance after so long is simply pricless! And as to the wrapping that covered her sandwich...I wonder if any one ever found it?
At over a 1000 pages the book is long but well worth it. As always I love the historical detail that DG puts into the book. The daily life that people lived and experienced, while it might be boring to some, it helps put you in the time period. Most authors simply skim over what life was like, whereas Gabaldon delves into it and gives you a sense of how people might have lived back then. As I said in a previous review, I admire the research and time that must have went into the book to bring it to life AND make you stay glued to the pages.
I can't wait to start the next one!
Book Review: Not my favorite by far...
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved Outlander, I read it a few times over just because I couldn't get enough of it, plus it's so detailed I can always pick up some little tidbit I missed. Dragonfly in Autumn was good as well but to me it seemed to stray a little in the middle, it just started taking so long for Gabaldon to get to the plot through all the action and side stories. Voyager just completely stalled for me. I had to force myself to finish it, then I didn't even want to read Drums in Autumn which I had already bought.
It's hard for me to put into words exactly why I was so disappointed with this book, but I'll try. It just seems like I'm reading and reading and yes there's a lot of action and detail and the story is moving but the plot is not going anywhere! By the time they were on the boats I was just thinking 'get it over with already' and give me an ending to this story, then it just got drug out even further by the kidnapping. I almost didn't even care what happened at that point, it was just too much.
I think another thing that disappointed me in this book was that I expected more from the reunion of Jamie and Claire. These are two people that supposedly share such a unique bond and love for one another, but their reunion was really just boring. Here they both thought they would never see each other again and when they do its like Gabaldon gave them 5 minutes of peace to share pictures of Brianna then just sent them on a roller coaster ride that doesn't end until the last page of the book. To me, it wasn't enough to restore their bond to each other and I didn't feel the connection between them.
To sum up: I don't know exactly what I expected from this book about Jamie and Claire's reunion, but this in no way satisfied my curiosity.