 | | |
| Outlander | 
 enlarge | Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $5.65
You Save: $9.35 (62%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $5.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  (1341 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1492
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0385319959
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385319959
ASIN: 0385319959
Publication Date: August 10, 1998
Release Date: August 10, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Unrivaled storytelling ... unforgettable characters ... rich historical detail ... these are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon's work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured millions of readers.
Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages....
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon ? when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach ? an "outlander" ? in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord ... 1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life ... and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire ... and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Amazon.com
In Outlander, a 600-page time-travel romance, strong-willed and sensual Claire Randall leads a double life with a husband in one century, and a lover in another. Torn between fidelity and desire, she struggles to understand the pure intent of her heart. But don't let the number of pages and the Scottish dialect scare you. It's one of the fastest reads you'll have in your library. While on her second honeymoon in the British Isles, Claire touches a boulder that hurls her back in time to the forbidden Castle Leoch with the MacKenzie clan. Not understanding the forces that brought her there, she becomes ensnared in life-threatening situations with a Scots warrior named James Fraser. But it isn't all spies and drudgery that she must endure. For amid her new surroundings and the terrors she faces, she is lured into love and passion like she's never known before. I was lame and sore in every muscle when I woke next morning. I shuffled to the privy closet, then to the wash basin. My innards felt like churned butter. It felt as though I had been beaten with a blunt object, I reflected, then thought that that was very near the truth. The blunt object in question was visible as I came back to bed, looking now relatively harmless. Its possessor [Jamie] woke as I sat next to him, and examined me with something that looked very much like male smugness." Gabaldon creates characters that you'll remember, laugh with, cry with, and cheer for long after you've finished the book. --Candy Paape
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1336 more reviews...
 Time Well Spent...... August 29, 2008
This book is a time commitment....this series is a HUGE time commitment, but I feel after reading it that it was so worth the time spent reading it.
This is an epic tale of an unlikely romance between a married ex- army nurse transported back in time and a Scottish Warrior. I am usually not a huge time travel reader, but this time travel story "makes sense" in a strange way and you are so "swept away" by the adventure, romance, and characters that you are gobbling up every chapter, taking deep breaths between each story line, and are emotionally drained and then reinvigorated over and over.
Although this is certainly a romance novel...it is really so much more. This one is very difficult to put into any genre because it's story line spans across many genres. A great many men have read this and recommend it....romance lover's recommend it, fiction lover's recommend it, adventure lover's recommend it, science fiction lover's recommend it....check out the reviews...there really should be no doubt when it comes to the appeal this book has.
Jamie is one of the most highly developed characters that I've ever read. He is what made this novel excellent for me. It is difficult to describe, but the way that Gabaldon gradually and yet so completely reveals Jamie to the reader is absolutely spellbinding.
Claire is "spunky" to say it lightly. I enjoyed her character immensely. The way she adapts to her new life and time period was very interesting to watch and the love between her and Jaime is absolutely all consuming and oh so real. I thought as I was reading "So this is what real love is!", and I meant it. Very few couples display that concept in such pure ways. It is moving and beautiful.
I am hooked. Outlander ends so nicely and completely that you wouldn't necessarily have to continue on with the series, but after reading this I guarantee that you'll want to.
 Am I the only one? August 27, 2008
Am I the only one who was bothered by the non-stop descriptions of violence in this book? It got a little old. Jamie gets flogged, Jamie talks about getting flogged, other people talk about watching Jamie get flogged. Jamie gets a beating, Jamie talks about getting a beating, other people talk about Jamie or themselves getting a beating, Jamie describes in great detail every beating he ever got as a child. Jamie's injuries are discussed over and over again at great lenght. Jamie beats Claire. Men rape women, men rape other men, the violence goes on and on and on. Oh, and then Jamie get flogged again. Yipee! I just skimmed the last 100 pages or so because I was so tired of reading about pain and suffering.
I've read other's description of this as a great love story, but I don't see it. Great lust, yeah, great sex, yeah, but true love? Would you truly love a man who beat you until you couldn't sit down?
There were parts of this book I really enjoyed, but I won't be reading the rest of this series. Wish I hadn't read the first.
 Reeks of authorial indulgence and editorial fail August 25, 2008
If you're a cheap paperback trashy novel type (i.e. philistine) go for it. If, on the other hand, you prefer character development, historical accuracy, discipline in regards to the author's created universe, and a plot with a smidge more sophisitication than a half-hour sitcom, then this is so not for you. As it was not for me.
I had been really exicted at the prospect of a novel set in Scotland during the 1945 uprising. I love historical fictions. This isn't one. It's pure authorial Mary Sue/Gary Stu. The author clearly lusts after the idea of a redheaded kilted highlander with all the sophistication a modern-day woman can dream of and uses the main character perspective to gush over the Hero, James (Jamie) Fraser.
He beats her, he beats his servants, he asks to be beaten to save others from beatings, he asks to be beaten to show how he bows to justice, and he idolizes his father who beat him to show him how much he truly loved him. Beatings equal love here. There's no way around that. And if you think that having the authorial voice come from Claire who was a time-traveller from a slightly more entlightened time (1945) does anything in the way of exposing abuse as being outmoded, you'd be wrong. Her hero, beating and beltings aside, still has gleaming red coppery strands of hair which outshine any tarnish of abuse.
I know any condemnation of the abuse plot devices (and it's there so so so often!) will beget dozens of belting-apologists to the forum so I'll make sure to substantiate my disdain for the novel in another way as well: the overall plot constructs are poor--haphazard, ill-fitting to justify suspension of disbelief and just silly. For instance, we go an entire book where one of the main premises of the second book is never ever mentioned. For the entire second novel we're asked to believe and hold as the novel's most constricting plot point that killing someone in 1945 could affect someone known in 1945. But this very possibility was never discussed in the past novel. In fact the very acts which the characters are prevented from doing as a result of this plot-point restriction are things which were all thought to have already occurred. But I guess perhaps fans pointed out some questions or they needed a new plot device for the second book or what have you and hey, it just sounded like a good idea. Basically--if you have any appreciation for what time-travelling paradoxes can be and like to see such things examined and used to great effect, then this isn't a book for you. It picks and chooses when to exert plot constrictions as a result of the universe/character recognition of possibilties. Hence--it smacks of authorial indulgence and editorial fail.
Worth the (LOTS OF) Time August 24, 2008
I just finished the entire series and it was engaging and entertaining throughout. Gabaldon does not disappoint throughout, with her writing style, combined with character development, history and story telling.
Make sure you have lots of time on your hands, because you'll want to stay up late, and read every one of the 6 books in the wonderful Outlander series.
Thank God the guy at Borders told me A Breath of Snow and Ashes was the last book of the series, or I wouldn't have had any idea!
Loved every minute August 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first read this book when I was about sixteen and have been hooked ever since. I love the entire series. It's such a fresh idea that you can actually get SOME knowledge from a fiction book. Certrainly this a romance but it's SO much more. I read the entire series about once a year. For those of you who have criticims for this book, please head to your local bookstore and pick up something by Johanna Lindsey if you are looking for a boring romance.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |