Diana Gabaldon- Outlander Series - the whole series!

Fiery Cross

Got through part one last night. I'm soooo glad they are done with the gathering and back on the ridge. I was getting hopelessly lost with all the names being thrown about. Too many characters to keep up with! I had also forgotten about Clarence the doorbell mule.

Edited for awful typos. Geesh!

yeah FC has a lot of clues at the gathering and many of these people come back in one way or another at the gathering.

I'll be just as lost when they reappear! I'm bad enough with names in RL; with fiction I find myself even less motivated.

Speaking of names, I think Brianna's boobs deserve names. They are practically separate characters. I'm going to call them "Over" and "Flowing". (*)(*)

LMAO!

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Jamie's letter to John Grey....oh dear. It's starts out so funny and sweet. "The child bites like a crocodile." And then, Jamie lists everyone he considers family, and tells John where to find his will. As sad as I want to be over that, I'm mad he included Leghair in his list. And I hope that Claire also knows the location of Jamie's will....I'm going to assume she does. I haven't hated on Jamie since Outlander and I don't want to start again!

I'm concerned about Roger's eye condition. I'm thinking that his poor depth perception is going to land him in trouble.

Oh, since 'Over' and 'Flowing' have a tendency to fill and disgorge lopsidedly, they get their own boobicon: (oYO)
And possibly their own postal code. MY GOSH those things have taken on a life of their own! Of all the reasons listed for Bree wanting birth control, I cannot believe they haven't been among them.

Wouldn't pregnancy in the 1770's have just sucked? OMG....the fear factor.

And if you survived the pregnancy and birth, chances still weren't good the child would live to adulthood. I can't imagine.

Ok, tell me that Jemmy and Germaine are ok. I don't care if it's a spoiler.

They are both fine...well until the last published book...though...nope I can't say more than Jemmy is part of one of the clffhangers in the last one, but he isn't dead.

pregnancy is still one of the biggest killers of women even today. I almost lost 3 of my closest friends during miscarriages (one had the baby growing in her tube and it burst while on the train) or births or infection after. But if it works out the rewards are worth the possible loss...well maybe...or if Jamie lost Claire maybe not....but he did try to give up his life for her and the unborn child.

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Thanks! I just love the kiddos in this book. Fergus is still amusing, but since he's grown he isn't nearly as endearing as he was before. Germaine will have to fill those shoes.
I left off at the end of Part 3, when after assembling the militia and getting as far as Brownsville, Jamie was given notice that the Regulators has disbanded and they could go home. (I'm writing this as much as a reminder for me as anything else....I'm stopping here for a while to get lost in A Perfect Blood.)

They had just decided not to keep the Beardsley baby. I get the reasons, but I'm a little disappointed too. Jamie thought that perhaps if Claire wanted a child he could give her that one without endangering her. And Jamie smiled while sleeping when Claire touched his cheek.
I'm definitely not hating on Jamie anymore.
But it looks like Brianna might be, since she found John Grey's letter to Jamie about Bonnet. Sparks are going to fly over that!

I gotta say I feel more like I'm reading a series of short stories instead of a novel. Maybe it all ties together at some point, but so far it seems like I'm getting lots of neat little side stories but nothing of much substance. The Gathering, the christening, the wedding, Adso the kitten, Brianna's B(oYo)BS, the Fiery Cross itself, the apoplexy, the goats and the panther, the abandoned baby, the catfights at Fraser's Ridge, the forbidden romance between Morton & Ally Brown, etc. These side stories are enjoyable, but where's the main plot? Is it going to sneak up on me and make me feel dumb for not catching on to it earlier?

Oh but those are all parts of the main plot...the threads haven't met to to each's own end....this will all matter somehow...BELIEVE ME...nothing is in this series is there for no reason I believe...it all comes back...well maybe Bree's B(OYO)Bs are unnecessary but they do matter to Roger and many other men in this series. I mean who would have thought the bones that Claire examined in the cave would be discovered to be Geilis's? Even the pirate fantasy book related as Jamie was reading a baudy book as well when they were 100 years apart.

Just finished An Echo In The Bone. OMG!! I NEED the next book. I have read this series THREE times! I love this story so much.

Dopple....a lot of Drums of Autumn and almost all of The Fiery Cross is just, simply, about the daily life and politics of a family in the years before the revolutionary war broke out. The effects of a constantly changing political situation and how it affected the lives of the people. There was a lot of immigration going on. The rapidly shifting political, social and religious make-up of every community made every single day an adventure in an of itself. Surviving the normal, day to day routine was tricky and dangerous by itself without the added problems associated with the conflicts that were already happening because of the weakened English rule. The lack of rule, mostly. If you were not able to protect yourself and your family, you were going to be eaten alive. Many were. History tells us that the "neighbors" duting this time might very well be your worst nightmare. Not as sever as, but not totally different from Germany in the early days of Nazi rule when they had barely taken control from the communists. Neighbors tongues could get you arrested or killed. And did.

Before the end of this book, you will find out just exactly how dangerous the times were, and no matter how prepared the people were for conflict and the coming war, they could never foresee all the dangerous possibilities.

I'm setting myself to get all twitchy once I get through all these books, aren't I?

There was a lot of great day to day stuff in Drums too, but also there was the big picture story of Bree and Roger's separation and the Bonnet effect. I can't find a big-picture plot in Fiery Cross. Not yet, anyway. I do have faith in Gabaldon's storytelling abilities, but i've gotten impatient!

Maybe it's meant to be a slow burn buildup to the Revolutionary War. It's not obvious, but thats possible.

Dopple....There is a lot of bad things that happen before "war" is declared. You aren't far from some dramatic stuff.

Yup

Oops wrong thread

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Sperms! Jamie is hysterical. First calling them 'spunk', then wanting to give them a proper burial. Poor man is now going to feel guilty about every splotch left on the sheets.

And pennicillin is mold piss! LOL

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I love that scene! I laughed and laughed. Claire's twentieth century medical knowledge just keeps blowing Jamie's mind. There is another time ..soon...that "sperm"...living sperm is bothering Jamie a bit.

There is so much in these stories. Things that people from the 1770's didn't know and didn't really know what to make of when they were told. Keep in mind that Jamie was very well educated. Most people of the time would just think Claire was crazy. Or a witch. Or both.

those wee besties...wasn't that it?

yes.....I would have loved to see Jamie's face! OMG...!

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Poor Jamie, those sperms were quite the revelation for him! Laughed out loud at him imagining them squirming about and giving them a reassuring squeeze. Every time I see a man, um, grab themselves as men do sometimes, I'm going to think of it as a 'reassuring squeeze'. lol

So much intrigue at Jocasta's wedding. And I haven't even gotten to the ceremony yet!

I tell ya, if I had a nickle for every time my father asked for help getting a passed out woman to her bed, then asked me to check the shrubs for bodies....

Wylie is in deep shit! Claire said 'fucking'! Betty's been poisoned, a brawl has broken out, poor Duncan is impotent, and everyone is getting hot and bothered over nekkid statues. Jocasta throws one hell of a party.

lmao

Ms. Marple! Snort!

Fiery Cross

I've gotten past the party at Jocosta's, and all the post-wedding murder and mayhem. Is it wrong to hope Bonnet makes another appearance? That would shake things up. I really enjoyed the book while they were at Jocasta's, but the few chapters afterwards are sloooow.

I think Gabaldon has gotten detail-heavy in Fiery Cross. I'm getting bored with all the paragraphs describing insects, or how disconnected Claire feels from her body. I still feel like I'm reading a series of short stories, but they are loosely connected with boring interludes about....I don't remember exactly. I've been skimming.

You may be bored, but your posts are hilarious!

I'm enjoying the journal entries, logs, and correspondance. The odd sentence structure and capitolization are fascinating. (I am thankful she didn't try to imitate the creative spelling used back then.) They don't make for easy reading, and all the names & places are hard to keep up with. But I'm still fascinated with it. Knowing Gabaldon's talent for historical accuracy, I wonder how much of it is based on true militia and formal military actions.

We told ya that this is the one book that many complain about....Its really because you just want to get to know what is gonna happen. Once you've read the series 1x you know and the every day becomes fascinating on later reads...plus you pick up so many clues and people (esp real historical people)!

I think one of my fav letters was the one Jamie wrote about removing the pig (gosh what is that crazy pig named again) or was it the raccoon from the storage closet via a broom when writing Lord John (or was it Jenny- though she wouldn't write back).