Voyages of the Artemis

Directions to New Blog

2011-01-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Aaaand...

As part of the new website thingy, my blog has become an integral part of said site. To read and post comments to the new blog (it's got all the older posts there, too), you want to go here.

See you there!

Welcome to the New Website!

2011-01-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

WELCOME to the All-New, Completely Redesigned, and—with luck—Totally Updated Diana Gabaldon Official Website!

Many, many thanks to the very talented Jeremy Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios (www.clockpunkstudios.com), who did the new design (and guided me through the maze of learning to work with WordPress). And many thanks to the lovely Rosana Gatti, who designed (more than once {g}) the original Diana Gabaldon website, and has run it for more years than I care to count. (Thinking especially of longevity these days, as a) it’s my birthday {g}, and b) OUTLANDER (the novel) was published twenty (yes, 2_0) years ago!)

Now, there will be a few spots where I’ll add new material, links, excerpts or whatever as we go on, but I think the new site is essentially complete. (There will be a link to a Facebook page, for instance, but that’s not quite available yet.) And my blog will now be an integral feature of the website, as well.

I hope you enjoy exploring the new site! Do please let me know—there’s a place for comments, below, and on other parts of the site—if you see anything that doesn’t work, or have suggestions for things we may not have thought of that you’d like to see. (And you can use the “Follow” links to talk to me via Twitter, if you’d like.)

Thanks,

--Diana

And for the Corgi Lovers...

2011-01-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

For the Corgi-lovers....the elusive Charlie! (hiding under the coffee-table while being molested by a nosy dachshund)--and also, Elder Daughter with her corgi, Badger.

And now I must be going and adding the finishing touches to the new website!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2011-01-04T00:59:00.000-08:00

The tree is undecorated, the leftovers are frozen (except for the chocolate), the pipes froze but luckily didn't burst, the adult kids have all returned to their respective domiciles, and as soon as we all recover from the holidays, Normal Business will resume.

(That's Otis in the foreground, there--my son's pug; the two black lumps just visible behind me are Homer and JJ. Charlie--son's corgi--doesn't like to get on the couch, and a good thing, too; he's under it.)

(Yes, my T-shirt does say, "She Who Sleeps with Weenies.")

Christmas in Santa Fe

2010-12-26T00:03:00.000-08:00

We started Christmas around 5:30 PM on the 24^th, with chipotle corn soup and pork sliders for a quick pick-up supper to sustain us through an arduous evening. Then we filled the family flasks ({ahem} we don't actually use these except on Christmas Eve, but everybody has one, to be filled with the evening's choice of beverage. Laura's therefore was full of Alabama Slammer (a hideous concoction made of Southern Comfort, Amaretto, Sloe Gin and Orange Juice), Sam had Edradour, Doug and Iain (Jenny’s boyfriend from Edinburgh) both opted for cognac with a splash of B&B (Jenny chose to nip off Iain's flask), and I _had_ been intending to go with Bailey's Irish Cream (on grounds both that I like the stuff, and that it's a good deal less alcoholic than the straight stuff), but since Iain at this point presented me with my Christmas present--a Very Special bottling of Laphroaig (reputed to be from the notorious cask in which one of the brewmasters drowned, but they bottled it anyway)--I really had no choice)--and set out for Canyon Road.

This is a very steep road, lined with art galleries on both sides, about a mile long. And on Christmas Eve, all the galleries festoon their premises with millions (literally) of farolitos (aka luminarias--paper bags with lighted votive candles inside), lighted crimson ristras (clusters of hanging dried chili peppers--though the ones meant for display are often red chili-shaped lights), etc. The whole town (and not a few surrounding settlements) turns out to walk up and down the road, pausing to sing Christmas carols wherever one is breaking out (the occasion is an invitation to anyone who thinks they can play a musical instrument; they stake out a street corner and haul out the old trombone, accordion, fiddle, or ocarina and have a bash at “Old King Wenceslaus”) or--if a kilt-wearer (Doug and Iain both went in full kit) to warm one's knees (or dangly bits, as the case may be) over one of the bonfires lit here and there along the street. All very sociable, especially after a few nips, and you get to see your fellow man attired in Just About Anything you can imagine, and quite a few things you wouldn't dream about after a late lobster supper with horseradish.

On from this to church--where you want to show up when the doors open at 10:30 PM, because it's your only chance to get a seat, the midnight services at the Basilica Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi being one of the Sights of Christmas in Santa Fe, and thus heavily patronized. Random carol-singing 'til 11:00, then the more formal "Lessons and Carols," featuring readings from Isaiah, interspersed with a longish cantata by Vivaldi and few audience-participation numbers to keep everyone from falling asleep before Mass proper gets underway at (logically enough) midnight.

Midnight Mass is normally a much snazzier production than the ordinary Mass, even though the structure of the proceedings is exactly the same. More music, assorted processions, celebrated by the bishop (complete with mitre and staff), etc., though. This one featured bilingual music (alternating verses and/or phrases in English and Spanish--often switching with bewildering rapidity), the Las Posadas procession (when the santos peregrines (the “traveling saints”) who have been going house to house for the last nine days, seeking a place for the baby Jesus to be born, finally come rejoicing into the church and everyone sings, "Vamos Todos a Belen" (Come Everyone to Bethlehem--which we always find funny, because my father was in fact born in a tiny town a hundred miles south of here, called Belen), and a Native American dance (done by Laguna Indians from the San Juan Pueblo, in traditional dress and solemnly waving fans of turkey feathers, while drumming and chanting down the center aisle) for the offertory (they circled the altar, and then the bishop, who seemed somewhat startled), incense, small orchestra (with more kettle drums than you could shake a stick at. You want kettle drums for something as dramatic as Christmas), choir, etc.

Came home under starry skies (very warm here--it was shirtsleeve weather outside today; the boys and Doug were playing football in the street, egged on my Jenny and Laura) and had brownies and milk, then everyone (other than Santa {yawn}) retired. I retired too, around 3 AM, stockings all filled and the dogs kept from investigating them (just to be safe, I put the package of smoke kangaroo jerky up on the mantel).

Was rousted at 8 AM to come and open presents (see attached; the plate was the hand-made gift of Elder Daughter), then puttered pleasantly and made lunch--machaca tacos, enchiladas and tamales, all washed down by quantities of Mexican beer. Spent a pleasant afternoon napping, reading, and nibbling, watching everybody watch football, and trying to induce my new iPad to work (“intuitive,” my left foot. Technology is one of the things bad language was intended for. Sufficient poking and muttering, though, and I Have Prevailed). Leftover enchiladas, a handful of Dutch chocolate mints, and a sense of quiet bliss reigns.

It was a wonderful Christmas, and I hope all of yours were likewise!

(Oh, the hat? It's supposed to be a Christmas tree, though I'm told I resembled the Queen of the Universe in it.)

Oh--another nice thing online this morning

2010-12-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

This being a nice piece in USAToday, doing a round-up feature on recent graphic novels, in which they included THE EXILE, and said nice things about it. {g}

They did misspell Jamie's last name (though they got mine right, for a wonder)--but you can't have everything.

Warm rolls with minced pigeon and truffles

2010-12-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

Well, here's an entry for the new website feature, 'Entertaining Things Fans Do.' {g}

(Yes, I really_ am_ working on the new website; have had out-of-town company for the last couple of days, though, and much as I enjoy them, they do take up time in which I could otherwise be going blind typing up descriptions of the seven big OUTLANDER novels....)

I may have mentioned that I get interview requests All The Time? Well, this one came in from the Canadian publicist a few weeks back, with a note saying, "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

I read it, laughed, and emailed back, "Are you kidding? This is the most interesting interview I've had in months, if not years!" At last, an interview that didn't start out with some variation of, "Soooo....how did you get the idea to write these books?", didn't ask me "whether you've thought of making a movie of these books?", and didn't want to know who I'd cast to play Jamie Fraser!

(You know that feature on my website called "FAQ"? It'll be on the new site, too. It stands for "Frequently Asked Questions," and the point of it to supply answers to the Questions That EVERYBODY Asks Me. You'd think someone preparing to do an interview with somebody would go look at the somebody's website first, wouldn't you? But noooooo......) But I digress.

This interview was from a nice person named Theresa Carle-Sanders, for her food website, www.IslandVittles.com, and she wanted my permission to run a short excerpt from VOYAGER, describing a particular 18th century dish, to accompany a brief interview about the food in my books.

The interview is here
and I hope you'll enjoy both that, and the website, which is drool-worthy.

BLOODY MEN

2010-12-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Y'all have asked some good questions in the comments to the last post, but most of them will require a bit of time and thought to respond to properly. Since I'm working madly this weekend to fill up the remaining holes in the new website (which I _hope_ to reveal to public view sometime next week), I thought for today, I'd just give you a bit of Book Eight, which I notice a number of people had asked for, too. {g}

Book Eight

“Stay,” he said sternly to Rollo, turning back for an instant. The dog, who had not stirred from his comfortable spot at Rachel’s feet, twitched one ear.

William was standing by the roadside, looking hot, tired, disheveled, and thoroughly unhappy. As well he might, Ian thought with some sympathy. William was likely bound for England—if he was lucky—or for parole in some rough lodging somewhere far to the south. In either case, his active role as a soldier was over for some time.

His face changed abruptly at sight of Ian. Surprise, the beginnings of indignation, then a quick glance round, decision clamping down upon his features. Ian was surprised for a moment that he could read William’s face so easily, but then remembered why. Uncle Jamie guarded his own expression in company—but not with Ian. Ian’s own face didn’t show his knowledge, though, anymore than William’s now showed more than an irritable acknowledgement.

“Scout,” William said, with the briefest of nods. The officer to whom he had been talking gave Ian a brief, incurious look, then saluted William and plunged back into the trudging stream.

“What the bloody hell do you want?” William drew a grubby sleeve across his sweating face. Ian was mildly surprised at this evident hostility; they’d parted on good terms the last time they had seen each other—though there had been little conversation at the time, William having just put a pistol-ball through the brain of a madman trying to kill Rachel, Ian, or both, with an axe. Ian’s left arm had healed enough to dispense with a sling, but it was still stiff.

“There’s a lady who’d like to speak with ye,” he said, ignoring William’s narrowed eyes. The eyes relaxed a little.

“Miss Hunter?” A small gleam of pleasure lit William’s eyes, and Ian’s own narrowed slightly. Aye, well, he thought, let her tell him, then.

William waved to a corporal down the line, who waved back, then stepped off the road after Ian. A few soldiers glanced at Ian, but he was unremarkable, the double line of dotted tattooing on his cheeks, his buckskin breeches, and his sun-browned skin marking him as an Indian scout—a good many of these had deserted the British army, but there were still a good many left, mostly Loyalists like Joseph Brant who held land in Pennysylvania and New York, though there were still some ranging parties from the Iroquois nations who had come down to fight at Saratoga.

“William!” Rachel flew across the little clearing and clasped the tall captain’s hands, beaming up at him with such joy that he smiled back at her, all irritability vanished. Ian hung back a little, to give her time. There hadn’t been any, really, what with Rollo roaring and tearing at Arch Bug’s miserable auld carcass, Rachel sprawled on the floor, frozen with horror, himself lying on the floor pouring blood, and half the street outside screaming bloody murder.

William had pulled Rachel to her feet and thrust her into the arms of the first woman available, who as it happened, was Marsali.

“Get her out of here!” William had snapped. But Rachel, Ian’s nut-brown maiden—her brownness much splattered with blood—had pulled herself together in an instant, and gritting her teeth—he’d seen her do it, bemused by shock as he lay on the floor, watching things happen as though in a dream—as she stepped over auld Arch’s body, had fallen to her knees in the mess of brains and blood, wrapped her apron tight about his wounded arm and tied it with her kerchief, and then with Marsali, had dragged him bodily out of the print-shop and into the street, where he’d promptly passed out, waking only when Auntie Claire began stitching his arm.

Ian hadn’t had time to thank William, even had he been able to speak, and he meant to convey his own thanks as soon as he might. But clearly Rachel wanted to talk to him first, and he waited, thinking how beautiful she looked, her eyes the clouded hazel of thicket and green-brier, face clever and quick as flame.

“But thee is tired, William, and thin,” she was saying, drawing a finger disapprovingly down the side of his face. “Do they not feed thee? I’d thought it was only the Continentals who went short of rations.”

“Oh. I—I haven’t had time of late.” The happiness that had lit William’s face while he talked with Rachel faded noticeably. “We—well, you see.” He waved an arm toward the invisible road, where the hoarse chants of the sergeants rang like the calling of disgruntled crows above the shuffle of feet.

“I do see. Where is thee going?”

William rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, and glanced at Ian.

“I suppose he oughtn’t to say,” Ian said, coming across and touching Rachel’s arm, smiling at William in apology. “We’re the enemy, a nighean donn.”

William looked sharply at Ian, catching the tone of his voice, then back at Rachel, whose hand he was still holding.

“We are betrothed, William—Ian and I,” she said, gently pulling her hand out of his and putting it on Ian’s.

William’s face changed abruptly, losing its look of happiness altogether. He eyed Ian with something remarkably close to dislike.

“Are you,” he said flatly. “I suppose I must wish you every happiness, then. Good day.” He turned on his heel, and Ian, surprised, reached out to pull him back.

“Wait—“ he said, and then William turned and hit him in the mouth.

He was lying on his back in the leaves, blinking in disbelief, as Rollo hurtled over him and sank his teeth in some soft part of William, judging by the yelp and the brief cry of startlement from Rachel.

“Rollo! Bad dog—and thee is a bad dog, too, William Ransom! What the devil does thee mean by this?”

Ian sat up, tenderly fingering his lip, which was bleeding. Rollo had retreated a little under Rachel’s scolding, but kept a yellow eye fixed on William and a curled lip raised over bared teeth, the faintest rumble of a growl coming from his huge chest.

“Sheas,” Ian said to him briefly, and got to his feet. William had sat down and was examining the calf of his leg, which was bleeding through his torn silk hose, though not badly. When he saw Ian, he scrambled to his feet. His face was bright red and he looked as though he meant either to do murder or burst into tears. Maybe both, Ian thought in surprise.

He was careful not to touch William again, but stood back a bit—in front of Rachel, just in case the man meant to go off again. He was armed, after all; there was a pistol and sword at his belt.

“Are ye all right, man?” he asked, in the same tone of mild concern he’d heard his Da use now and then on his Mam or Uncle Jamie. Evidently it was in fact the right tone to take with a Fraser about to go berserk, for William breathed like a grampus for a moment or two, then got himself under control.

“I ask your pardon, sir,” he said, back stiff as a stick of rock-maple. “That was unforgiveable. I shall…leave you. I—Miss Hunter…I--” He turned, stumbling a little, and that gave Rachel time to dart round in front of him.

“William!” Her face was full of distress. “What is it? Have I—“

He looked down at her, his face contorted, but shook his head.

“You haven’t done anything,” he said, with an obvious effort. “You…you could never do anything that…” He swung round toward Ian, fist clenched on his sword. “But you, you fucking bas— you son-of-a-bitch! Cousin!”

“Oh,” said Ian, stupidly. “Ye know, then.”

“Yes, I bloody know! You could have fucking told me!”

“Know what?” Rachel stepped round Ian, looking from him to William and back again.

“Don’t you bloody tell her!” William snapped.

“Don’t be silly,” Rachel said reasonably. “Of course he’ll tell me, the minute we’re alone. Does thee not wish to tell me thyself? I think perhaps thee might not trust Ian to say it aright.” Her eye rested on Ian’s lip, and her own mouth twitched. Ian might have taken offense at this, save that William’s distress was so apparent.

“It isna really a disgrace…” he began, but then stepped hastily back as William’s clenched fist drew back.

“You think not?” William was so furious, his voice was nearly inaudible. “To discover that I am—am—the…the get of a Scottish criminal? That I am a fucking bastard?”

Despite his resolve to be patient, Ian felt his own dander start to rise.

“Criminal, forbye!” he snapped. “Any man might be proud to be the son of Jamie Fraser!”

“Oh,” said Rachel, forestalling William’s next heated remark. “That.”

“What?” He glared down at her. “What the devil do you mean, ‘that’?”

“We thought it must be the case, Denny and I.” She lifted one shoulder, though keeping a close watch on William, who looked as though he was about to go off like a twelve-pound mortar. “But we supposed that thee didn’t wish the matter talked about. I didn’t know that thee—how could thee not have known?” she asked curiously. “The resemblance—“

“Fuck the resemblance!”

Jamie and the Rule of Three

2010-12-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

I had a male reader (Justin Brady (@RandomAngst), who runs the Random Angst book review/rating site at www.randomangst.com) on Twitter just today who said he'd just finished reading OUTLANDER and enjoyed it a lot "until the prison chapters." I tweeted back that I'd be kind of worried about him if he'd _enjoyed_ the Wentworth part {g}, to which he said, "but why put our hero through such pain and suffering? :)", adding in the next, "I know I'm late to the #Outlander party & you've probably already addressed this; but that was intense emotional, physical pain."

I was on my way out to dinner, so said I'd reply to him later (haven't done that yet), but have been thinking at brief moments just _how_ to reply to that. The simple answer is just that that's what I saw happening, but that's not enough for the reader. There always _is_ a reason why things happen or are necessary, whether I know what that is when I write it or not. So what is it here?

In part, it's because it's a High Stakes story. Almost everybody understands that you have to have _something_ at stake for a story to be good. And way too many thrillers and sf/f novels assume that nothing less than the Fate of the Known Universe will do {g}, these authors mistaking scale for intensity. No matter what the background may be, a story that focuses on the impact of events on one or two individual _lives_ will be--generally speaking--much more engaging and emotionally intense than one where everyone is just rushing around trying to save a planet or get their hands on the fortunium bomb that could Destroy Everything!!

So OUTLANDER is a high stakes story--on an individual level--throughout. It's a love story, sure, and it's all about what people will _do_ for the sake of love. Claire, for instance, chooses to abandon the life she knew (and was about to reclaim post-War), the safety of the 20th century (and she of all people would value that safety, having come through such a war), and the husband she'd loved. She chooses hardship, danger, and emotional pain, in order to be with Jamie.

But love for these two is always reciprocal. It's not about one partner making a sacrifice for the other's sake. Throughout the story, they keep rescuing each other. And the stakes are high. Jamie marries Claire originally in order to save her from Black Jack Randall. Would that be a striking thing to do, if Jack Randall was not, in fact, a serious threat? He _is_ a serious threat; we learn that from Jamie's backstory. The man's a genuine sadistic psychopath, who has essentially destroyed Jamie's family and seriously injured him, both physically and emotionally. And here's Jamie swearing to give Claire everything he has; the protection of his name and his clan--and the protection of his body--in order to save _her_ from this man.

He then does save her, physically and immediately, from Randall, when Randall captures her and assaults her at Fort William--even though by doing so, he puts not only himself, but everyone with him, in serious danger, _and_ does so at some emotional as well as physical cost. "I was tied to that post, tied like an animal, and whipped 'til my blood ran...Had I not been lucky as the devil this afternoon, that's the least that would have happened to me. ....[But] when ye screamed, I went to you, wi' nothing but an empty gun and my two hands." The stakes are higher; the threat to Jamie (and Claire) from Captain Randall is increased.

One, two, three. The Rule of Three. It’s one of the important underlying patterns of story-telling; one event can be striking. The next (related) event creates resonance. But the third brings it home—WHAM. (That is, btw, why classic fairy tales always involve three brothers, three sisters, three fairies, etc.—and why the most classic form of joke always starts, “A priest, a minister and a rabbi…” The climax of the story, the punchline of the joke, always comes on the third iteration.) The third encounter with Black Jack Randall is the climax, the point where the stakes are highest. Jamie's been captured and seriously hurt, Claire's come to save him, but Randall turns up and takes her captive, threatening her life.

OK. This -has- to be a credible threat. Ergo, we have to have seen (and heard about) the real damage Randall has done to Jamie thus far; we have to be in no doubt whatever that he'd do real damage to Claire. We can't just _say_, "Oh, he's _such_ a nasty person, you wouldn't believe..." We _have_ to believe, and therefore appreciate _just_ what Jamie is doing when he trades what's left of his life for Claire's. (Show, don’t tell, you know?)

And because we do believe that, we share both Jamie's despair and Claire's desperation.

So, OK. Throughout the book, we've seen that love has a real cost. Jamie and Claire have built a relationship through honest struggle, a relationship that's _worth_ what it's cost them. This is the final challenge, and Jamie's willing to pay what will apparently be the ultimate cost.

Why would I throw that away? To have him escape rape and torture (he--and we--_know_ what's coming) by the skin of his teeth would be to undercut his sacrifice, to make it of little moment. (It would be like someone turning up in Gethsemane and telling Christ, "Hey, buddy, you don't _really_ have to do this. Come with me, I got a secret way outta here...")

So love _has_ a cost, and it's a real one. But they do rescue each other, and Claire saves not only his life, _but his soul_. (Yes, it is redemption and resurrection, and yes, there's Christ imagery all through the story--it was my first book, OK?) His soul wouldn't have been in danger, had he not been really and truly nearly destroyed by his sacrifice.

I.e., had Claire shown up with reinforcements in the nick of time and saved him before he'd been put through such pain and suffering....well, then it would have been a nice, heart-warming story in which Hero and Heroine conquer evil and ride off into the sunset together. But it wouldn't have half the power of a story in which Jamie and Claire _truly_ conquer _real_ evil, and thus show what real love is. Real love has real costs--and they're worth it.

I've always said all my books have a shape, and OUTLANDER's internal geometry consists of three slightly overlapping triangles. The apex of each triangle is one of the three emotional climaxes of the book: 1) when Claire makes her wrenching choice at the stones, 2) when she saves Jamie from Wentworth, and 3) when she saves his soul at the Abbey. It would still be a _good_ story, if I'd had only 1 and 2--but (see above), the Rule of Three. A story that goes one, two, _three_ has a lot more impact than just a one-two punch.

AVAILABILITY ISSUES

2010-12-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about availability issues: Will THE EXILE be available as an audiobook? Is there a Large Print edition of the books? Why can’t you get an unabridged audiobook of THE FIERY CROSS or A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES? Why can’t you get the OUTLANDER: The Musical CD from amazon.co.uk?

I don’t have answers to _all_ the availability questions, of course, because I don’t actually publish and distribute everything out of my garage {g}; I have contracts with a great many different publishing companies, all of whom deal with those issues in their own territories, and usually I have No Idea. But I can answer _some_ questions!

1. The Audiobooks. OK, follow me like a leopard here. Back in the day, nobody had any idea whether audiobooks would amount to anything; it was new-fangled technology, nobody was familiar with the concept as anything beyond the material for the blind that the Library of Congress’s Talking Books program does, nobody was sure it would ever be worth anything—and it cost a lot to produce one.

That being so, when Bantam-Dell (a subgroup of my US publisher, Random House) contracted with us (me and my agent) fifteen (or so) years ago for audiobooks, they did so very cautiously—and only for the rights to make an abridged version, because the thought of anyone being willing to listen to (let alone pay for) an unabridged version of something the size of OUTLANDER was laughable.

Now, in my naivete, I had no idea that “abridged” actually meant, “butchered into little bloody shreds, one-quarter of which will then be scraped up into a pile and kind of patted into the rough semblance of a story, rather like a sculpture made of raw hamburger.” I did, though, insist on keeping the Unabridged rights, having faith that at some far distant date, someone might be willing to take the gigantic gamble of recording the Whole Thing, down to the last word.

Bantam-Dell fussed about this—publishers hate to give up _any_ rights, whether they know what to do with said rights or not; they might come in handy someday, after all—but eventually gave in, since they were positive that the unabridged rights were worthless. They did, however, insist on a non-compete clause in the contract, just in case: to wit, that if anybody _did_ ever do an Unabridged version, this version could not be sold in retail outlets where the abridged version was sold. (They reasoning—correctly—that if anybody saw the two versions side by side on a shelf, they’d instantly realize that ¾ of the story had been omitted from the abridged version. (Not kidding, here; the FIERY CROSS abridged audiobook contains only 23% of the original book’s text. Just so you know…))

OK. A few years later, I happened to meet some representatives of Recorded Books, Inc. (well, actually, I engineered an “accidental” meeting at a librarians conference, having ascertained that Recorded Books was the biggest of the only two companies who even did unabridged books), got them interested (though they were a little goggle-eyed at the sheer tonnage involved; OUTLANDER was the longest book they’d ever done), and…well, Bob’s your uncle.

Recorded Books has done a magnificent job with the Unabridged audiobooks. They found marvelous readers (the hugely talented Davina Porter, who reads the OUTLANDER novels, and the equally talented Jeff Woodman, who does the Lord John books), and have risen nobly to the challenge of getting the audiobook versions produced more or less simultaneously with the print versions (no easy job, given how close I always come to the pub date in delivering the manuscript).

Now, going back to the original Bantam-Dell contract for the abridged audiobooks: my agent (who was an excellent agent) reasoned that since no one actually knew how the audiobook market might develop, he didn’t want to lock me into the usual sort of semi-permanent contract that we’d do for a book (i.e., you essentially grant the publishing company the right to publish your book as long as it sells. Only if it stops selling and they allow it to go out of print, can you get back the rights to it), and instead sold the audiobook abridged rights on a ten-year license. Meaning that we gave Bantam-Dell the right to produce an audiobook of each title (six books were covered under the original contract; they weren’t all written then, but were all under contract as print titles) for a period of ten years, from the date of publication of each title. So the license for VOYAGER, for instance, expired in 2004, as that book was originally published in 1994. And so on. We could then, if we liked, renew the license for an additional period. Or not.

Well, having seen what a travesty the abridged books are (meaning no offense either to the reader or the production team; there’s just no way of doing a good version of a book from which you’ve essentially omitted every other word), the answer was a resounding NOT, and we’ve been canceling those licenses the instant they come due. (Bantam-Dell is allowed a certain period post-cancellation during which they can still sell whatever stock they have on-hand, but they can’t produce any more.)

Result being that we’ve pretty much stamped out the abridged versions of OUTLANDER, DRAGONFLY IN AMBER, VOYAGER, and DRUMS OF AUTUMN. But THE FIERY CROSS was published in 2001. Which means that its license doesn’t expire until 2011. Which (hahahaha!) happens in a month!! So we’ll get to cancel _that_ license Right Soon, leaving only ABOSA to go.

But that’s the reason why you haven’t been able to get FIERY CROSS or A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES from Audible.com—it’s considered a retail outlet that sells the abridged versions. [I’m putting the following in caps, because I keep telling this to people, but they often don’t seem to notice or understand:]

YOU _CAN_ GET THE UNABRIDGED VERSIONS OF FIERY CROSS AND ABOSA!! You just can’t (yet) get them from Audible.com, which is most people’s default supplier of audiobooks. You totally _can_ either rent or buy the unabridged audio of both books, right here (and here). But I admit that it will be much more convenient for everyone when the license on ABOSA expires as well, and all the Unabridged audios can be found on Audible.com.

(You can get AN ECHO IN THE BONE and all the Lord John books in Unabridged form on Audible now, because none of these books were covered in the original contract with Bantam-Dell, and thus no abridged version of them has ever existed. It’s not going to, either, I can tell you that much….)

2. Well, no, I really don’t think there will be an audio version of THE EXILE, unless it’s made by Recording for the Blind or the Talking Books program (in which the reader describes all illustrations for the benefit of a visually impaired reader). This book is a graphic novel. And while I was quite surprised to discover that there are a lot of people (judging from the one-star reviews on Amazon.com) who have never heard the term “graphic novel” (and didn’t bother to find out what it meant, or to scroll down far enough in the product description to see what it meant, and thus were shocked—shocked!—to find that it was A COMIC BOOK! (and thus concluded that this was calculated fraud on my part…people are Very Strange on occasion))—a graphic novel is, in fact, a comic book. For adults, but it is a novel told largely in visual images.

Ergo, kind of hard to do as an audiobook, I mean. Reading just the dialogue part of the script might not be all that effective.

3. Large Print editions. Well….let’s just think about the logistics here for a minute, OK? How much bigger is Large Print than the normal typeface? 50% bigger? Twice as big? Let’s say 50%, just as a start.

OK. OUTLANDER runs about 700 pages, and that’s the shortest book in the series, at 305,00 words. (FIERY CROSS is the longest, at 508,000, but A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES runs it a close second, at something like 498,00. Those two books are at the physical limit of how many pages you can reasonably bind between covers.)

To get all of ABOSA into one volume, the German publisher was obliged to print it on “Bible” paper—the thin, tough paper they print Bibles on.

So. Multiply those lengths by 1.5, and we’re talking something the equivalent of 750,000 words (just the space that many words would take up, I mean). Chances are that you’d need even more space than that, because of the leading and kerning issues (those are the spaces between letters in a word and between the lines of print—all of which need to be magnified in a Large Print book), but leave that aside for now.

Even OUTLANDER, therefore, would have to be published in two volumes, for a Large Print edition, and several of the later books in the series would need to be done in three-volume sets. The cost of producing a book of X size remains the same, whether it contains _all_ the words in the original text, or only one-half or one-third of them.

So the cost of producing a Large Print edition of the OUTLANDER novels would be 2-3 times the cost of the normal book, the set would sell for 2-3 times the cost of the original ($50-75)—and how big a market is there for such an edition? (There’s also the consideration that many people who might need a Large Print edition would have problems physically _holding_ books of this size.)

Beyond these economic considerations, there’s the simple fact that if you have an ebook reader (and all my books are available in just about any ebook format—true, you need a Kindle app to read them on an iPad, but there _is_ one), the thing is light and easy to hold—and you can adjust the print to be whatever size is comfortable for you, including sizes MUCH bigger than any printed Large Print version could offer.

Anyway. Bottom line is that the only one of my books ever done as a Large Print edition was LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER, which I wrote under the delusion that it was a short story.

4. Amazon.co.uk. Well, now here I’m just reporting, because I have no relations with Amazon.co.uk myself. I do have some correspondence with Amazon.com, and everything seems to be running very well there.

However, Mike, the guy who handles the OUTLANDER:The Musical CD sales for the UK, established an Amazon.co.uk account for it, but hasn’t had as much luck in coming to an agreement with them regarding price, or in having his other concerns addressed. So he’s asked me to let y’all know that he’s suspended that account for the time being, but that if any of you in the UK or Europe want CDs, you can get them here. (Scroll down a bit.)

5. Oh! This isn’t really an availability issue, but fwiw, I was notified this morning that all my e-books are now available on google.books. No idea whether this is a Good Thing or not {g}, but there they are.

Christmas Awakening

2010-12-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

Goodness, already the 4^th of December! I’m deeply impressed that I’ve so far managed to write, address, and actually mail twenty-six Christmas cards. (Mind, I only succeeded in doing this because I was nagged by the resident elf, who did the actual mailing, and needed the cards to insert in the boxes of dates that I send to the various publishers, editors, and other professional acquaintances around the world at Christmas time. (In which respect, may I recommend the Sphinx Date Ranch, who produce dates (and other dried fruits and nuts) that cause widespread slavering upon receipt from the UK to New Zealand, and who will in fact ship things for you, but we do it ourselves because of needing to stick hand-written cards and notes into the boxes.))

I’ve also bought presents for eleven children (aided in this process by the Dover Publications Company, which has the world’s biggest selection of Entertaining Coloring and Origami books)—none of them mine (mine are all old enough that they just want money…and the occasional iPad). This still leaves a horrifying amount of Stuff to be done (like the other 38 Christmas cards on the list), but it does give me a pleasant glow of accomplishment, since I don’t usually get this far this early.

It did make me think, though, that there must be others of you in the early stages of Christmas Awakening (that’s when you sit bolt upright in bed, crying out, “Oh, crap, I forgot my mother-in-law!”), and thus perhaps wanting useful gift suggestions.

Just in case that’s the case [cough], I thought I might list a few Interesting Items for the OUTLANDER Fan on Your List. I thought of this, because I was just down at The Poisoned Pen, my local bookstore in Scottsdale, signing everything in sight, in preparation for their annual Christmas Shipping Frenzy. So I can assure you that they have

1. First-edition copies of THE EXILE, signed both by Yours Truly, and by Hoang Nguyen, the illustrator of that splendidly vivid volume,

2. Brand-new copies of the just-released anthology, SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH, featuring a short story (by me) that tells the story of Roger MacKenzie’s parents, and solves one of the mysteries raised by AN ECHO IN THE BONE (and of which there is a brief excerpt, a few postings back in this blog). Also autographed by me.

3. OUTLANDER: The Musical CD’s (see www.outlanderthemusical.com for details and song samples), also signed by me (not that I had anything to do with the composing or singing, but the people who did are all in Scotland. Since I’m here and they aren’t, I signed the things on their behalf).

4. A selection (and a pretty random selection it is, too) of Foreign Editions of various of my books. Foreign publishers are required by contract to send me X copies of each of my books that they publish; in practice, this means sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. But when they do, they often send a lot of them.

The Pen said they had had an increasing number of inquiries from people about foreign editions—they ship worldwide—and would like to have whatever I had on hand, just in case. So the elf and I gathered up whatever we could lay hands on easily, and I took these down to the store, where I signed all of them. (I know there are several Really Entertaining-looking Finnish editions of AN ECHO IN THE BONE, and at least two full sets of the Spanish editions, from FORASTERA (OUTLANDER) up through VIENTO y CIENDRES (This is A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES, though the title really means “Wind and cinders”).)

Anyway, if any of these items sounds like a great stocking-stuffer (I recommend a really big stocking, if you’re drawn to the notion of the Finnish ECHO), you can get them either here, or by calling the Poisoned Pen at 480-947-2974 , or emailing them at patrick@poisonedpen.com (Patrick’s the manager).

(You would have to contact them, I’m afraid, to find out exactly which foreign editions they have, because I didn’t think to list them.)

I should add that I’ll be going back in there next week to sign all the new orders, so if you happen to want any of these things (or any of the OUTLANDER or Lord John books, for that matter—these are all available in hardcover, trade paperback, or mass-market (including ECHO, if you want the UK mass-market paperback, which has entertaining maps, biographical sketches of the main characters, and an excerpt from Book Eight in the back)) personalized or done with an inscription. (I only know four bits of Gaelic to put in people’s books, but one of these is “Nollaig Chridheil”—aka “Merry Christmas.” I only get to use that one at this time of year, so would be delighted at the opportunity.)

Oh--and I mustn't forget The Old Wilmington Tea Company,

whose delightful "Lord John Grey" blend will warm the hands, if not the hearts, of recipients who don't even read my books. [g]

Nollaigh Chridheil!

Canadian Giveaway of Signed EXILE - Today Only!

2010-11-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

Someone just sent me this link to the Random House Canada website: They're having a "Reader's Gift" giveaway during November--a different book being given away each day--and TODAY (only) are giving away five signed copies of THE EXILE. (You do have to have a Canadian address to enter.)

Details are

here. Good luck!

Christmas is coming--

2010-11-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

And the goose isn't the only thing getting fat. As Younger Daughter said a few minutes ago (with a beatific look on her face), "Chocolate truffles for breakfast, turkey with gravy for lunch, and did you say there's pie left? Do we have any whipped cream, or shall I go get some?"

We haven't even hit the marshmallow-walnut fudge season, yet, let alone tamales, enchiladas, machaca and green chile. (We're traditional; we eat Mexican for Christmas, in honor of our roots. Bar the fudge, which has no ethnic allegiance.) ("Gabaldon" is my own name, btw; my husband's' name is much easier to pronounce, but after spelling "Gabaldon" for twenty-five years, I was attached to it and didn't intend to give it up. Being a Hispanic name, that means that were we speaking Spanish, it would be pronounced

"gah-vahl-DOHN"

(probably originally had an accent mark over the "don," but that's been lost sometime over the last 500 years in the New World).

Since we are for the most part speaking English here, it's normally pronounced

"GAA-bull-dohn"

(still with the long "o" sound at the end, right? Rhymes with stone? Amazing how hard it is for people to wrap their heads around that, no matter how often I tell them. No one in New York City, for instance, can make themselves not say "don" (as in mastodon) at the end. Just can't do it.)

But I digress...

Rather than join in the gluttony (well, rather than join in it right _then_), I drove up to the Rim country yesterday--about 90 miles north of Phoenix, 50 south of Flagstaff. That's where the Pinon (there's a tilde over the first "n" in Pinon, btw, but I haven't figured out how to insert one and am too lazy to go find out)/Juniper woodland begins, and thus the closest place in which to cut greenery for the family Advent wreath.

Beautiful day. Still, warm air--perfect for hot-air balloons, and I saw six of them floating over the Valley, just hanging in the air like slow-moving cherries. I could walk the woods in my shirt-sleeves, even that far north.

Now, one of the things I enjoy about wandering around in the wild is that you never know what you might see. I've come round a small tree and face-to-face with a surprised pronghorn antelope (I was pretty surprised, too), met mule deer and elk--once came upon a fresh elk carcass, sans head, neatly butchered, guts buried, backbone standing white like the keel of an overturned ship--with the hair on the lower legs all fresh and shining and the hooves black and still caked with dirt, as though those legs might spring up and the hooves carry off the ghostly skeleton. Eerie.

Met a porcupine once--but not as closely as the dog who came down the trail and thought that was One Strange Thing that ought to be barked at and closely inspected. Helped the owner pull quills out of the poor dog's nose; I have five of them in a dish on my mantelpiece in Flagstaff.

You also find a lot of broken glass in the woods, because people go a little way off the road to make a fire and drink beer (and stronger stuff). Most of the people I meet in the woods are hikers, occasionally hunters--I try _not_ to go into the woods in hunting season, but what qualifies as "woods" varies, and so does various people's notion of what constitutes hunting season--but by and large, nice folk. I do carry a gun, though, because I'm alone and nobody knows exactly where I am (that being part of the charm of woods-walking). Never needed it, never expect to need, HOPE never to need it--but I do have it (and the concealed-carry permit and sixteen hours of training that goes with it).

Anyway, yesterday I passed a small group of men and boys gathering firewood for sale, waved to them, drove on up a "primitive" road (one that's not maintained, so could be anything from drivable to morass--but the weather was dry), and found a promising looking stretch of land, so pulled off, parked, and went agathering, pruning shears in hand.

And I found toilets.

Three brand-new, pristine, white toilets, crouched under an alligator cypress. One standing (ready for some passing bear, I suppose), two fallen on their sides. And a big mess of heavy-equipment tire marks in the clearing where these were dumped.

Your guess is as good as mine. [g] My own guess would be--given the tire marks--that the toilets were dumped by someone working on a subdivision or building a house in the neighborhood (there were houses within a half-mile). Whether these were stolen toilets, and the dumper planned to come back and retrieve them under cover of darkness, or whether the general contractor suddenly shut down construction and they were dumped in disgust...who knows? Maybe the lady of the house saw them, insisted she'd chosen _green_ toilets, not white ones, and the plumber figured it was easier to dump them than return them to Home Depot.

Anyway, I got my Advent wreath cuttings: Pinon Pine, juniper (with big, blue, aromatic berries), Arizona holly, buckbrush, and saltbush (I'm sure that will prove to be a huge mistake--it has fluffy, airborne seeds, and they'll be _all_ over the house within hours--but it was beautiful, with the seeds shining in the sun), with a handful of tiny Pinon cones for decoration.

And what I started out to tell you--before I got sidetracked by toilets in the woods--was that Christmas is coming--and so is a brand-new, spectacular, completely redesigned website!

The designer finished work on it this week, and as soon as I can put in all the new content (kind of a massive job, but I'm on it), we'll unveil it--with luck, December 1st!

Ooookay....You sure you want to Know, now?

2010-11-26T01:38:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful time with family and friends (to say nothing of the pleasant company of a twenty-pound fruit-stuffed, herb-rubbed turkey), after which the football fans sank into a contented stupor on the living-room couch and the dogs and I went off to enjoy a similar state of nirvana on the Taos bed in the lounge. (Dogs presently including Otis the pug and Charlie the corgi, as well as Homer and JJ, the two standard dachshunds. Charlie prefers to sleep -under- the bed, which is a good thing. Eighty pounds of assorted caninery generates a lot of heat.)

Anyway...I said that if nobody guessed the error I mentioned in THE EXILE, I'd tell you tonight, and as of last checking, nobody had. (I must say, y'all must be _terrible_ at those "find six things that are different between these two pictures" kind of puzzles...) But if you _do_ want to know....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Which of Jamie's shoulders is wounded? It's the left one, right? Until Claire starts doctoring it at Castle Leoch, when it's the right one. Then during the fracas in Hall (and after), it's the left one again.

Told ya it was a head-smacker. [g] Happy Thanksgiving!

Jamie's Butt Model

2010-11-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

Two things:

1. The editor of THE EXILE tells me that the book has been on the NYT Bestseller list for seven weeks so far. This is Very Cool Indeed, and thank you very much!

2. As a secondary thank you [g], here is a link to the original French painting that supplied the model (literally) for page 5. (It took a -lot- of hunting to find the right butt, believe me. I kept sending the illustrator, Hoang, links to Rober Mapplethorpe sites and the like, but Random House's porn filters wouldn't let Betsy, the editor, look at them.)

I would post the image itself, but am really not sure about the copyright of an image of a painting held by a museum--I mean, the museum certainly owns the painting, but not sure about the image. Don't want to infringe inadvertently, though--and the web page has some interesting information about the painting, anyway.

(No, if you want to see Page 5, you'll have to borrow somebody's copy, or sneak into the graphic novels section at Barnes and Noble.)

"Leaf" is out today!

2010-11-17T02:11:00.001-08:00

The new anthology, SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH, is out as of today! It has a number of great stories, by wonderful authors from Neil Gaiman to Carrie Vaughn and Robin Hobb (all enthusiastically recommended)--and it does, of course, have one by me.

This story is titled "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows," and tells the story of Roger MacKenzie's parents. It also fills in the interesting hole I opened in ECHO, wherein we learn that Jerry MacKenzie probably wasn't shot down in his Spitfire during the War, and there is Much Speculation as to what really did happen to him.

This story will tell you. (Though one rather perceptive--if cynical--commenter observed that while I may have filled in that particular hole, I undoubtedly did it with dirt dug from another one. How well you people know me....[g]). I think you'll enjoy Jerry MacKenzie, though, and his story.

The book is available in both hardcover and Kindle e-book formats, here.

Thanks to all those who've read the story already and written to tell me what you thought!

St. Simon's Island writers conference

2010-11-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

Someone asked for a repost of the information about the Scribbler's Retreat writers conference this weekend, on St. Simon's Island, GA. I haven't been to this conference before (basically, I said I'd go because I've heard about St. Simon's Island and wanted to see it [g], but I'm sure we'll have fun), so can't tell you a lot about it.

Here, though, is the link to the conference website, which has details and schedule.

See some of you there!

Days of the Dead and Ginger Rodents

2010-11-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

Hope y’all had a happy All Saints Day! Here in New Mexico, today and tomorrow are Los Dias de los Muertos—the Days of the Dead. Today we celebrated the presence in our lives of those who’ve gone before and await us in heaven. Tomorrow (Nov. 2) is the Feast of All Souls, when we commune with our own beloved dead. May all your own families be with you in love today, no matter on which side of the veil.

And for a change of mood….

Got the following message yesterday from a British (and half-Scottish) friend [g]:

Light the Fiery Cross Diana,
An insult beyond bearing has been flung down at the feet of all things red and hairy!

At the Labour Party's annual Scottish Conference yesterday Harriet Harman MP (Dep. Leader of the ousted Labour Party) declared Scottish MP Danny Alexander a "ginger rodent", adding that while she was all for conservation she didn't want to see one in the Highlands again. And this from the former Equality Minister, who has previously been known for being so politically correct that she more usually goes under the name of Harriet Harperson.

Said rodent, Danny Alexander, came back fighting Tweeting "I am proud to be ginger and rodents do valuable work cleaning up the mess others leave behind."
I know, not exactly pistols at dawn is it?

So on behalf of our beloved gingers, I'm inviting you to lead the call to arms. (I would have asked Allan SD, but typically, where's the Big Yin when ye need him? Likely basting himself on a Madeiran beach, probably resembling a smoky bacon crisp by now if I know Scotsmen in the sun.)

Is it to be borne that the English seek to rubbish Scots Pride once more with impunity ... I think not (although it has to be said that Danny Alexander is more usually likened to Beaker from the Muppets and may therfore prefer this comparison)

Jamie wouldn't stand for it ... Claire would have her guts for garters

Light the Fiery Cross and gather the Clans!
Declare yourselves ...The McDowall's are here!

Sorcha

(Here's a link to the full story should anyone be interested http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-11658228)

*********

Dear Sorcha--

As soon as I get up off the floor, I'll go dig through the woodpile for a couple of suitable sticks. [G] Though as it's Halloween, were I to march down San Antonio Street tonight with a fiery cross, people would likely just applaud and shout "EEEha!", rather than inquiring into the just cause of such an incitement to riot.

As for the Big Yin, he tweeted once to say he'd survived the flight, wasn't so sure about his job--and wouldn't have internet until next week. You're likely right about the beach, though I just went and looked, out of curiosity as to just how warm Madeira _is_ in almost-November. It's 68 degrees F. as of 6 PM today, so probably quite toasty enough for a basking Scot. (It's about that on my back patio in Santa Fe just now at noon; I'm wearing a sweatshirt and calf-high Uggs.)

May I have permission to quote your rallying call to arms on my blog, though? Would hate anyone to miss such eloquence.

Ginger rodents of the world, UNITE!!

--Diana

********************

And another friend, Ron Wodaski, helpfully supplied this Uncyclopedia page on the subject.

Samhain

2010-10-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

PROLOGUE

"In the chilly season, when the air grows cold and the spiders die, comes a thin time. The days are short, so all the light of them is concentrated, squeezed between the dawn and dark. This is why the light is different, and each thing has a Shadow. This is when the other worlds draw close, and the barriers between grow thin. In a thin time, they say, you must be careful, because you might walk through a cobweb unthinking, and find yourself Elsewhere.

There is more than one other world; no one knows how many. Some beasts can see one; the dogs will sometimes stare at a blank space on the wall of a cave, and their hackles rise at what they see.

Sometimes, I think I see it, too."

Happy Samhain!

A LEAF ON THE WIND OF ALL HALLOWS

2010-10-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

Oookay. For those of you who've already read THE EXILE several times (and _thank_ you, btw! The editor tells me that the book is still hovering around the top of the NYT list--at #2 next week--and we're still beating the author of Captain Underpants, which gratifies me deeply), and are beginning to write me, wanting to know When Is The Next Book Coming Out....

Well, not immediately. It does take me 2-3 years to write one of the big OUTLANDER novels, and about a year to write a Lord John novel (and I do work on more than one project at once; keeps me from having writer's block, and makes me much more productive. So I've been working on both Book Eight _and_ LORD JOHN AND THE SCOTTISH PRISONER). It'll be a little while.

However, I do have a suggestion to offer. A new anthology titled SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH (edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois) is coming out on November 16th (i.e., in a little over two weeks). This includes a story of mine titled "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows." It's a little unusual, in that it's about Roger MacKenzie's parents--but it does fill the interesting hole regarding Roger's father that I opened up in AN ECHO IN THE BONE.

Here's a brief sample:

A LEAF ON THE WIND OF ALL HALLOWS

It was two weeks yet to Hallowe'en, but the gremlins were already at work.

Jerry MacKenzie turned Dolly II onto the runway--full-throttle, shoulder-hunched, blood-thumping, already halfway up Green leader’s arse--pulled back on the stick and got a choking shudder instead of the giddy lift of takeoff. Alarmed, he eased back, but before he could try again, there was a bang that made him jerk by reflex, smacking his head against the perspex. It hadn’t been a bullet, though; the off tire had blown, and a sickening tilt looped them off the runway, bumping and jolting into the grass.

There was a strong smell of petrol, and Jerry popped the Spitfire's hood and hopped out in panic, envisioning imminent incineration, just as the last plane of Green flight roared past him and took wing, its engine fading to a buzz within seconds.

A mechanic was pelting down from the hangar to see what the trouble was, but Jerry'd already opened Dolly's belly and the trouble was plain: the fuel line was punctured. Well, thank Christ he hadn’t got into the air with it, that was one thing, but he grabbed the line to see how bad the puncture was, and it came apart in his hands and soaked his sleeve nearly to the shoulder with high-test petrol. Good job the mechanic hadn’t come loping up with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

He rolled out from under the plane, sneezing, and Gregory the mechanic stepped over him.

“Not flying her today, mate,” Greg said, squatting down to look up into the engine, and shaking his head at what he saw.

“Aye, tell me something I don’t know." He held his soaked sleeve gingerly away from his body. "How long to fix her?”

Greg shrugged, eyes squinted against the cold wind as he surveyed Dolly’s guts.

“Half an hour for the tire. You'll maybe have her back up tomorrow, if the fuel line’s the only engine trouble. Anything else we should be looking at?”

“Aye, the left wing-gun trigger sticks sometimes. Gie’ us a bit o’ grease, maybe?”

“I’ll see what the canteen’s got in the way of leftover dripping. You best hit the showers, Mac. You’re turning blue.”

He was shivering, right enough, the rapidly evaporating petrol wicking his body heat away like candlesmoke. Still, he lingered for a moment, watching as the mechanic poked and prodded, whistling through his teeth.

“Go on, then,” Greg said in feigned exasperation, backing out of the engine and seeing Jerry still there. “I’ll take good care of her.”

“Aye, I know. I just—aye, thanks.” Adrenaline from the aborted flight was still surging through him, thwarted reflexes making him twitch. He walked away, suppressing the urge to look back over his shoulder at his wounded plane.

^^^

Jerry came out of the pilots’ WC half an hour later, eyes stinging with soap and petrol, backbone knotted. Half his mind was on Dolly, the other half with his mates. Blue and Green were up this morning, Red and Yellow resting. Green flight would be out over Flamborough Head by now, hunting.

He swallowed, still restless, dry-mouthed by proxy, and went to fetch a cup of tea from the canteen. That was a mistake; he heard the gremlins laughing as soon as he walked in and saw Sailor Malan.

Malan was Group Captain and a decent bloke overall. South African, a great tactician—and the most ferocious, most persistent air fighter Jerry'd seen yet. Rat terriers weren't in it. Which was why he felt a beetle skitter briefly down his spine when Malan's deep-set eyes fixed on him.

"Lieutenant!" Malan rose from his seat, smiling. "The very man I had in mind!"

The devil he had, Jerry thought, arranging his face into a look of respectful expectancy. Malan couldn’t have heard about Dolly’s spot of bother yet, and without that, Jerry would have scrambled with A flight on their way to hunt 109’s over Flamborough Head. Malan hadn’t been looking for Jerry; he just thought he’d do, for whatever job was up. And the fact that the Group Captain had called him by his rank, rather than his name, meant it probably wasn’t a job anyone would volunteer for.

He didn’t have time to worry about what that might be, though; Malan was introducing the other man, a tallish chap in army uniform with dark hair and a pleasant, if sharp, look about him. Eyes like a good sheep dog, he thought, nodding in reply to Captain Randall’s greeting. Kindly, maybe, but he won’t miss much.

“Randall’s come over from Ops at Ealing,” Sailor was saying over his shoulder. He hadn’t waited for them to exchange polite chat, but was already leading them out across the tarmac, heading for the Flight Command offices. Jerry grimaced and followed, casting a longing glance downfield at Dolly, who was being towed ignominiously into the hangar. The rag-doll painted on her nose was blurred, the black curls partially dissolved by weather and spilled petrol. Well, he’d touch it up later, when he’d heard the details of whatever horrible job the stranger had brought.

His gaze rested resentfully on Randall’s neck, and the man turned suddenly, glancing back over his shoulder as though he’d felt the stress of Jerry’s regard. Jerry felt a qualm in the pit of his stomach, as half-recognized observations—the lack of insignia on the uniform, that air of confidence peculiar to men who kept secrets--gelled with the look in the stranger’s eye.

Ops at Ealing, my Aunt Fanny, he thought. He wasn’t even surprised, as Sailor waved Randall through the door, to hear the Group Captain lean close and murmur in his ear, “Careful—he’s a funny bugger.”

Jerry nodded, stomach tightening. Malan didn’t mean Captain Randall was either humorous or a Freemason. “Funny bugger” in this context meant only one thing. MI6.

[end section]

Fake Hair-Product Review

2010-10-30T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hm. Someone just emailed me to ask whether I had posted a fulsome review of a hair product online. I hadn't (as should be obvious to anyone who's read my books. As IF I would write run-on sentences...!), but the name on the review was Diana Gabaldon.

Now, in all justice, I'm not the only person in the world with that name. [g] I've met at least two others, and there may be more. But I definitely didn't make positive comments about any sort of hair product, ever. Just so you know.

Pictures?

2010-10-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

Just a general question, to anybody who might know:

Where has the image-importing capability gone? When this site changed (ahem, "improved") its posting software, the little icon that allowed you to add images to your postings disappeared from the toolbar at the top of the post box. Boldface, italics, strikethrough, Link, and Quote (which seems of dubious use, but who knows?) are there, but no image icon.

So--is it still possible to attach images to postings or not? And if so...how?

Many thanks for all suggestions!

Back From the Road - new excerpt!

2010-10-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

I’m Baa-aack!

Had a lovely time in Canada, despite losing one (luckily inessential) bag, that followed me faithfully from city to city like a dog, but never caught up. With luck, it’ll come home tomorrow. Of course, I’m leaving home again tomorrow morning…(but for New Mexico, where I propose to hide out for the next couple of weeks, not speaking to anybody but husband and dogs, peacefully eating green chili, and picking up the threads of Book Eight and SCOTTISH PRISONER).

Speaking of SCOTTISH PRISONER…I recently posted a longish excerpt from that book (during the 24 hours I was home, between the West Virginia Book Festival and whatever happened next (things tend to blur when you’re book-touring)) on the Compuserve Books and Writers Forum. Since I know not all of y’all go there, I figured I’d also post it here.

Now, a word about excerpts. I love for people to read them, but I do have an agreement with my publisher about how much of a book is up on the internet at any one time—which means that I need to control said excerpts, and try to make sure they aren’t reposted elsewhere. So excerpts from my books appear (with rare exceptions), only in three places: the Diana Gabaldon folder in the Compuserve Books and Writers Community (community.compuserve.com/books -- NB: _no_ "www" on that), on my website (www.dianagabaldon.com –and btw, we hope to have the All New Spectacular Cool New Website up and working by the end of November, very exciting!), and here.

So if you want to share or discuss with your friends, please just give them the link to this page, my website, or the Compuserve folder.

Thanks!!

SCOTTISH PRISONER excerpt
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon

He was carrying a huge basket of rotted manure up to the kitchen garden when Robert, one of the footmen, appeared from behind a wall and hailed him.

“Hoy, MacKenzie! You’re wanted!”

He was surprised; it was mid-morning, not a usual time for visiting or errands. He’d have to catch that wee bitch Venus, presently enjoying herself in the back pasture. And the thought of driving the pony-trap, with Lady Isobel’s slitted eyes burning holes in his back, was less than appealing. It wasn’t as though he had a choice, though, and he set the basket down, safely off the path, then straightened up, dusting his hands against his thighs.

“Aye, I’ll have the trap round in a quarter-hour.”

“Not the trap,” Robert said, impatient. “I said you’re wanted.”

He glanced at the man, startled.

“Who wants me?”

“Not me, I assure you.” Robert had a long nose, and he wrinkled it ostentatiously, looking at the greenish-brown crumbles and smears on Jamie’s clothes. “If there was time, I’d make you change your shirt, but there’s not. He said at once, and he meant it.”

“Lord Dunsany?” Jamie asked, ignoring the footman’s barb.

“Who else?” Robert was already turning away. He looked back over his shoulder and jerked his head. “Come on, then!”

[end section]

He felt strange. The polished wood floor echoed under his tread and the air smelt of hearth-ash, books, and flowers. He smelled of horses, horse-shit, and his own bitter sweat. Since the day he’d come to Helwater, he’d only once been further into the house than the kitchen where he took his meals.

Lord Dunsany had received him and John Grey in the study on that first day, and now the butler—back stiff with disapproval—led him down the corridor to the same door. The wooden panels were carved with small rosettes; he had noticed them so intensely on his first visit that seeing them again recalled his feelings on that day—and gave him now a feeling as though he had missed the bottom step of a flight of stairs.

His immediate assumption on hearing the summons was that somehow Dunsany had discovered the truth of William’s paternity, and his heart was in his throat, his mind filled with half-formed notions between outright panic and…something else. Would Dunsany cast the boy out? If he did….a faint, breath-taking vision of himself stealing away from Helwater, his son in his arms, came to him—but vanished at once as the door opened.

There were three men in Lord Dunsany’s study. Soldiers, in uniform. A lieutenant and two private soldiers, he thought at once--though it had been a long time since he’d troubled with the distinctions of English uniform.

“This is MacKenzie,” Lord Dunsany said, with a small nod at him. “Or
rather…Fraser.”

The officer looked him up and down, assessing, but his face gave nothing away. A middle-aged man, with a sour look. He didn’t offer his name.

“You’re to go with these men, MacKenzie,” Dunsany said. His face was old, his expression remote. “Do as they tell you.”

He stood mute. Damned if he’d say “Yes, sir,” and double-damned if he’d knuckle his forehead like a servant. The officer looked sharply at him, then at Dunsany, to see whether this insubordination was to be punished, but finding nothing but weariness in the old man’s face, shrugged slightly and nodded to the privates.
They moved purposefully toward him, one taking him by each arm. He couldn’t avoid it, but felt the urge to jerk loose knot the muscles of his arms and spine. They led him into the hall and out the front door; he could see the butler smirking from his pantry, and two of the maids hanging wide-eyed and open-mouthed out of the upper windows as the men emerged onto the drive, where a coach stood waiting.
“Where are ye taking me?” he asked, with what calmness he could.
The men glanced at each other; one shrugged.

“You’re going to London,” he said.

“To visit the Queen,” the other said, and sniggered.

He had to duck to enter the carriage, and in doing so, turned his head. Lady Isobel stood in the window, mouth open in shock. William was in her arms, small
head laid in sleep on her shoulder. Behind them, Betty smiled at him, maliciously triumphant.

[end section]

They gave him a serviceable cloak to wear, and food at the taverns and inns, shoving it indifferently across the table toward him, ignoring him while they talked, save an occasional sharp glance to be sure he wasn’t getting up to something. What, exactly, did they think he might do? he wondered. If he’d ever meant to escape, he could have done it much more easily from Helwater.

He gathered nothing from their conversation, which seemed mostly regimental gossip, bawdy remarks about women of a sort indicating that they’d seldom touched one, and low jokes. Not a word as to their destination.

At the second stop, there was wine—decent wine. He drank it cautiously; he hadn’t tasted anything stronger than small-beer or the occasional glass of ale in years, and the lush flavor clung to his palate and rose like smoke inside his head. The soldiers shared three bottles—and so did he, welcoming the slowing of his racing thoughts as the alcohol seeped into his blood. It would do him no good to think, until he knew what to think about.

He tried to keep his mind off their unknown destination, and what might await him there, but it was like trying not to think of a—

“Rhinoceros,” Claire said, with a muffled snort of amusement that stirred the hairs on his chest. “Have you ever seen one?”
“I have,” he said, shifting her weight so she rested more comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder. “In Louis’s zoo. Aye, that would stick in the mind.”

Abruptly, she vanished and left him sitting there, blinking stupidly into his wine-cup.

Had it really happened, that memory? Or was it only his desire that now and then brought her so vividly to life, in snatched moments that left him desperate with longing, but strangely comforted, as though she had in fact touched him briefly.
He became aware that the soldiers had all stopped talking and were staring at him. And that he was smiling. He looked back at them over his cup, not altering his expression.

They looked away, uneasy, and he went back to his wife, for the moment tranquil in his mind.

[end section]

They did take him to London.

He tried not to gawk; he was aware of the soldiers casting covert glances at him, sly smiles. They expected him to be impressed, and he declined to give them the satisfaction—but he was impressed, nonetheless.

So this was London. It had the stink of any city, the narrow alleys, the smell of slops and chimney-smoke. But any large city has its own soul, and London was quite different than either Paris or Edinburgh. Paris was secretive, self-satisfied; Edinburgh solidly busy, a merchants’ town. But this…it was rowdy, churning like an anthill, and gave off a sense of pushing, as though the energy of the place would burst its bonds and spill out over the countryside, spill out into the world at large. His blood stirred, despite his fears and the tooth-jolting ride.

The Jacobite soldiers would talk about London, early in the campaign, when they were victorious and London seemed a plum within their grasp. Wild tales—almost none of them had ever seen a city, before they came to Edinburgh. Talk of gold plates in the taverns, streets with gilded carriages thick as lice …

He remembered Murdo Lindsay, bug-eyed at the description of the London boozing-kens, where the poor clustered in dark cellars, drowning the misery of life in Holland gin.

“Whole families!” Murdo exclaimed. “All of them, dead drunk! If even the poor folk can afford to stay drunk for days at a time, what must the rich ones be like?”

He’d smiled then, amused. He smiled now, bitter.

As the campaign had turned, withering in the cold, when the army camped at Derby, shivering while the commanders argued whether to push on or not, the soldiers had still talked of London. But they talked in whispers, and not of gold plates and Holland gin. They talked of the gallows, of the famous Bridge, where the heads of traitors were displayed. Of the Tower.

That thought sent a qualm through him. Christ, could they be taking him there? He was a convicted traitor, though paroled these past three [ck] years. And he was the grandson of Lord Lovat, who had met his death on the block at that same Tower. He hadn’t been fond of his grandfather, but crossed himself and murmured “[Gaelic]” under his breath. [May your soul be with Jesus.]

He wondered what the devil the Tower of London looked like. He’d imagined it, of course, but God only knew what the reality was. It was big, though, he thought, it had to be big. So he’d have a bit of warning, seeing it. He’d be prepared.
Aye, prepared for prison? he thought. The thought of it, of cold stone and small spaces, endless days, months and years in a cage as life and body dwindled inexorably away, shriveled his heart. And William. He would never see William again. But they might kill him instead. At the moment, that was his only hopeful thought.

But why? Had his parole been revoked? That last, disastrous conversation with John Grey…his fists curled up without thought, and one of the soldiers started, looking at him hard. With an effort, he unclenched his hands and pulled them inside his cloak, gripping his thighs under its cover hard enough to leave bruises.
He hadn’t seen—or heard from—Grey since that day. Had the man been nursing a grudge all this time, and finally decided to put paid to Jamie Fraser’s account, once and for all? It was the most likely explanation—and unforgivable things had been said on both sides. Worse, both of them had meant the things they said, and both of them knew it. No excuse of hot blood speaking—though in all justice, his own blood had boiled, and…

There it was. He gasped, couldn’t help it, though it made all the soldiers look at him, conversation interrupted.

It had to be. He knew the look of a prison well enough. Huge, round towers set in a grim, high wall, and the filthy brown water of a broad river flowing past, flowing under an iron-barred gate. The Traitor’s Gate? He’d heard of it.
All of them were grinning at him, maliciously enjoying his shock. He swallowed hard and tensed his belly muscles. They wouldn’t see him cower. His pride was all he had left—but he had enough of that. Enough to last until he was alone again, at least.

But the carriage didn’t leave the road. They bowled past the grim bulk of the moated Tower, the horses’ hooves ringing suddenly on cobbles, and he blessed the sound because it drowned the wrenching gasp when he realized he’d stopped breathing and started again.

It wasn’t a warm day, but he was drenched in sudden sweat, and saw the private behind him wrinkle his nose and glance sideways at him. He reeked of fear; could smell himself.

Could ha’ been worse, a allhamarach borb, he thought, coldly meeting the man’s eye and staring ‘til he looked away. I might have shit myself and ye’d have to ride into London smelling that.

[end section]

What with the tangle of foot-traffic, barrows, carriages, and horses that thronged the narrow streets, it was more than an hour before the coach finally pulled up outside a massive house that stood in its own walled grounds at the edge of a huge open park. He stared at it in astonishment. If not the Tower, he’d certainly expected to be taken to a gaol of some kind. Who the devil lived here, and what did whoever it was want of him?

The soldiers didn’t tell him, and he wouldn’t ask.

To his amazement, they took him up the marble steps to the front door, where they made him wait while the lieutenant banged at the knocker, then spoke to the butler who answered it. The butler was a small, neat man, who blinked in disbelief at sight of Jamie, then turned to the lieutenant, plainly about to remonstrate.
“His Grace said bring him, and I’ve brought him,” said the lieutenant impatiently. “Show us in!”

His Grace? A duke. God…Cumberland? His heart had already been in his throat; now his wame tried to follow it. He’d seen the Duke of Cumberland just once. When he’d left the battlefield at Culloden, hidden under a load of hay in a wagon. The wagon had passed through the edge of the Government lines, just at evening, and he’d seen the big tent, a squat, vigorous figure just outside it, irritably waving away clouds of smoke with a gold-laced hat. The smoke of burning bodies.

He felt the soldiers jerk and glance at him, startled. He froze, fists at his side, but the chill and the fear were gone, burnt away by the sense of rage that rose abruptly, drawing him upright with it.

His heart beat painfully, eager, for all at once, the future had a shape to it. No more long days of mere survival. He had purpose, and the glow of it lit his soul with a smoky flame.

The butler was falling back, reluctant, but unable to resist. Aye, fine. All he need do was behave circumspectly until he got within grip of the Duke. He flexed his left hand, briefly. There might be a knife, a letter-opener, something…but it didn’t matter.

The lieutenant jerked his head, and he moved, just in time to keep the privates from grasping his arms. He saw the butler’s eyes fix on his feet, mouth twisted in a sneer of contempt. A door opened in the hallway and a woman’s face appeared for a moment. She caught sight of him, gasped, and closed the door.
He would in fact have wiped his sandals, had they given him time; he’d no desire either to foul the house nor to look like the barbarian they plainly thought him. The men hastened him along, though, one on either side, and he had even less wish to give them an excuse to lay their hands on him, so he went, leaving dusty prints crumbled with dry mud and caked manure along the Turkey carpet.

The door to the room was open and they propelled him inside without ceremony. He was looking everywhere at once, gauging distances, estimating the possibilities of objects as weapons, and it was a moment before his eyes met those of the man seated at the desk.

For a moment longer, his mind refused to grasp the reality, and he blinked. No, it wasn’t Cumberland. Not even the passage of years could have transformed a stout German prince into the slender, fine-featured man frowning at him across the polished wood.

“Mister Fraser.” It wasn’t quite a question, nor was it quite a greeting, though the man inclined his head courteously.

Jamie was breathing as though he’d run a mile, hands shaking slightly as his body tried to burn away anger that now had no outlet.

“Who are you?” he asked rudely.

The man shot a sharp glance at the lieutenant.

“Did you not tell him, Mr. Gaskins?”

Gaskins. It was a minor relief to know the bugger’s name. And a distinct pleasure to see him go red and then white.

“I…er…I…no, sir. He...er…didn’t ask.”

“Leave us, lieutenant.” The man didn’t raise his voice, but it cut like a razor. He’s a soldier, Jamie thought, and then, I ken him. But where…?

The man stood up, ignoring Lieutenant Gaskins’s hasty departure.

“My apologies, Mr. Fraser,” he said. “Were you mistreated on your journey?”

“No,” he replied automatically, scrutinizing the face before him. It was remarkably familiar, and yet he would swear he didn’t know this man. “Why am I here?”

The man drew a deep breath, the frown easing, and as it did, Jamie saw the shape of the man’s face, fine-boned and beautiful, though showing the marks of a hard life. He felt as though someone had punched him in the chest.

“Jesus,” he blurted. “Ye’re John Grey’s brother.” He groped madly for the name, and found it. “Lord…Melton. Jesus Christ.”

“Well, yes,” the man said. “Though I don’t use that title any longer. I’ve become the Duke of Pardloe since we last met.” He smiled wryly. “It has been some time. Please sit down, Mr. Fraser.”

[end section

Guest Post! (to entertain you as I wing my way North)

2010-10-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in an airport on my way to Vancouver, bound for the Last Week of formal book-touring (insert maniacal laugh). Blogging may be summat spotty--but for today, you have a special treat: a guest blog from a young time-traveler. [g] Welcome Darby--take it away!

Hello Intrepid Artemis Voyageurs!

My name is Darby Christopher, and I'm massively excited to be here. See -- my latest book is out, and I'm on a mondo-blog tour to celebrate, but this is the FIRST time I get to visit someone who is an expert in time travel.

If you're here, I'm guessing you might have read about some of the adventures of Jamie and Claire. Most particularly Claire's interesting proclivity for stepping through time.

Well, I'm here to tell you that I have had a few experiences of my own along those lines. Since the adventures in my very first book, A WALK THROUGH A WINDOW, I learned I've got a bit of a talent. Not really like Claire's ability with standing stones, though. I'm more inclined to surf up close to the time-space continuum on a skateboard, and I've come to learn that walking through windows is something to be approached with extreme caution...

Anyway, today, I’m here to celebrate the launch of my new book. It’s called FACING FIRE.

FACING FIRE picks up the story of what happened to me after the magical summer that you may have read about in A WALK THROUGH A WINDOW. And if you haven't read it, you can find out more about both the books – at www.kcdyer.com

Or better still, would you like to win a copy as a prize? If you leave comment on this post, Diana will put your name into a draw to win a signed copy of FACING FIRE. And if you actually link to this post somewhere else [like in another blog, or facebook post or even a tweet] we’ll put your name in for the draw for BOTH of my books.

Why not?

By the way, if you’re into looking for prizes, [especially if you like making videos], check out my blog HERE at Darby Speaks. I have an AMAZING contest going with some totally fantastic prizes. And if you like twitter, you can follow all the latest on the contest and the blog tour and launches @DarbyWalking.

See you there.

Thanks for having me, Diana!

~Darby

CRUDO y CREDO y Muchas Gracias!

2010-10-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

I had an absolutely wonderful time with a lot of y’all at Comics-Con (nearly went _deaf_, but had a good time) in New York last week! (And if I could figure out what blogger has done with the image-adding facility, I’d put up a few pictures taken by kindly folk there, but as it is, I can’t find anywhere to add a picture to postings anymore.)

Then had a _delightful_ few days with my delightful husband [g]—amazing what sleeping for ten hours a night instead of five will do for you (well, that, plus great food, walking miles and miles, excellent wine, and the sort of thing that happens after a certain amount of excellent wine…[cough]…).

As part of this, a kindly friend with connections got us a reservation at ESCA, one of New York’s premier sea-food restaurants, and we had a memorable evening, starting with an exquisite flight of “crudo”—this being (I’m told) Italian for “raw seafood” (aka sashimi, in this case). We thought this hilarious (well, we’d already had _some_ wine), since in Spanish, “Yo tengo crudo,” means “I have a hangover.”

Now, I hope y’all know the basic rule of drinking—one glass of water to each one of wine, _two_ of water if you’re drinking Scotch or hard likker. In case you’re wondering why that works…the pituitary glan produces a hormone called ADH (Anti-Diuretic Hormone). Diuresis means peeing, basically (well, the filtering of blood by your kidneys and excretion of excess water, along with various waste products, but you get the idea), so the ADH keeps you from just draining water out through your kidneys nonstop, and thus maintains a proper fluid balance in your body.

OK. Alcohol _inhibits_ the production of ADH. (This is where it gets mildly confusing, because we’re inhibiting something that’s already inhibiting something else…so the first thing _isn't_ inhibited anymore) That means your hypothalamus doesn’t produce as much ADH as usual—and you pee more. (Surely you’ve noticed this side-effect of drinking a lot.)

Right. Your body is trying to get rid of the alcohol, which is a toxin (and hard likker is more toxic than wine—just ask someone who’s been drinking gin or vodka all night) and that’s why this happens. BUT, if you don’t replace the extra water that’s being used to wash out the alcohol, you _do_ get dehydrated, your fluid balance is no longer balanced, your blood vessels constrict, and a lot of other physiological things happen as a result that make you feel, well….crudo.

So mind what I say, and always order water along with your drink.

Anyway—next morning we went (_sans_ hangover) to church at St. Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue, and happened to hit High Mass, said by the Archbishop, attended by three visiting bishops, and generally sporting a good deal of the ceremonial appurtenances that the Catholic Church is Really Good at. The feature I most liked, though, was that the Credo (this is the Nicene Creed, which contains a recitation of the various things Catholics believe—btw, papal infallibility is not one of ‘em) was sung in Latin.

I haven’t sung the Credo in Latin in…oh, thirty years at least. Was very pleased to find it came right back to me, though—and very moving to hear it again.

Had a quick breakfast after Mass, and then watched a couple of hours (Lord only knows how long it actually went on) of the Hispanic Day Parade up Fifth Avenue, which was only a block from our hotel. I tell you what; I never realized there were that many Bolivians in the _world_, let alone in New York City. A few small groups from Galicia (with bagpipes. Galicia is, as y’all doubtless knew, one of the seven Celtic nations. Also—we think—where Los Gabaldones originally came from. As I tell people, I’m not Scottish—but I am an Iberian Celt! [g] (I have the stubby feet to prove it, too…)), Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, etc.—but rank upon rank, row upon row of Bolivians, in between _everything_, all the ladies wearing bowler hats and very short skirts (displaying either satin panties or buttocks, depending on size of latter relative to former, with each gyration; they wiggled their heinies all the way up Fifth Avenue, which must have taken amazing endurance), the gentlemen either wearing something resembling a super-hero costume with a lot of embroidery and boots studded with bells, or attired in a costume like a cross between the Main Street Electrical Parade and a particularly depraved bumblebee—possibly they were meant to be demons, judging from the expressions on the masks—and whirling noise-makers. All I can say is, they must have a lot of fun in Bolivia on public holidays.

Ended up with a much less adventurous but still delicious dinner (a really good lobster risotto is the only thing I remember with any clarity), and then packed for Boston, where we spent the next couple of days wallowing in clam chowder (and good wine), tootling around on trolleys, and enjoying the actual sensation of chilliness (it’s 91 in Phoenix today).

Returned after all this lovely R&R to the news that THE EXILE is once more #1 !! on the New York Times bestseller list—for the third week in a row! To which I can only say, MUCHAS GRACIAS to all of you for the kind reception of this book, and I hope you’re enjoying it !

So I’m off again tomorrow, to the West Virginia Book Festival:

I’ll be talking/reading/whatever at 2:00 PM, signing books afterward. I’m sorry—I’d intended to bring OUTLANDER: The Musical CDs with me, as well as taking some to Canada next week, but it’s a good news/bad news kind of thing: I don’t have any to bring, because we’ve sold all I had (and thank you all kindly for _that_, too!!). We do have a new batch coming in early next week, but not, alas, in time for me to ship them to Canada.

The good news is that you _can_ get CDs easily; they’re available here , through Amazon.com, or if you want one signed by Mike Gibb (the lyricist who wrote the songs) [g], you can order one directly from him in Scotland via Paypal. See the OUTLANDER: The Musical website for details.

And I think I’ve already put up the schedule for Canada. So see y’all there! Muchos besos! (or, as Hobbs—of Calvin and Hobbs—would put it, “Muchas Smoochas!”)

CHANGES! CANADIAN Book-Tour Appearances

2010-10-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

Oookay. To the best of my present knowledge, THIS is the present lineup of appearances in Canada. See y’all there!

October 20, 2010

6:00pm EVENT: Chapters / Indigo, Victoria
1212 Douglas Street / (250) 380-9009
Contact: Mary Lynn Hanson / (604) 749-4797
This is a speaking event: 20 minutes followed by a short
Q & A, and book signing

October 21, 2010

6:30-9:00 Chapters/Indigo, Strawberry Hill, Surrey
12101 72nd Avenue, Suite 100
Surrey, British Columbia
(604)501-2877

This event isn’t just me; it’s a mult-author gala event
put on as part of the Surrey International Writers
Conference(where I’ll be working over the weekend).
You get five or six additional authors , all presenters
from the conference, talking or reading as well as signing
books.

October 23, 2010

5:30-7:00 Mass Autographing – Surrey Intl. Writers Conference
Sheraton Guildford Hotel
Fraser Room

This is another SiWC event, open to the public. All the
published authors attending the conference will be signing
their books this evening. Yes, local book-sellers will be
present with books for sale (some authors will be selling
their own books, so you might want to bring cash, just in case).

October 24, 2010

4:00pm EVENT: Black Bond Books
#344 - 32555 London Ave., Mission
604-814-2650

October 25, 2010 – Edmonton

7:00pm EVENT: Greenwoods Bookshoppe
Old Timer's Cabin, 9430 - 99 St.
Tickets will cost $5
This is a speaking event: 20 minutes followed by a short
Q & A, and book signing

After which, I go HOME (o, frabjous day) to WORK (calloo, callay)! Not that I don't like y'all Up North, but flesh, blood, and time all have their limits. See you in the west this time--Toronto next summer (Fergus Games, and who knows? Maybe Halifax, etc. in the fall. We'll see!

THE EXILE abroad and Other Tales

2010-10-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

The Beauties of Multi-national Publication, or “Why Can’t I Get That in Germany?!?”

With the recent publication of THE EXILE, the debut of OUTLANDER: The Musical, and the giveaways of OUTLANDER paperbacks and ebooks, I’m getting a number of queries/complaints from people who live in other countries—all to the effect of, “I tried to get this, but it’s not available in the UK/Australia/NewZealand/Germany, etc.!”

Well, see, the way that publishing works is that a publishing company buys certain specific _rights_ to a book. If you have a decent agent, you _don’t_ sell “worldwide rights” to your manuscript; the agent makes separate deals with individual publishers in different countries. Each publishing contract defines exactly which rights you’re selling—and the “exclusive territory” in which the book can be sold.

Which means that not all publishers buy all books at the same time—and not all publishers choose to promote the books they have in the same way, either.

Right. Now, with respect to THE EXILE, only three countries have so far bought that book: the US (Random House), Canada (Random House Canada), and the Netherlands (De Boekerij) (their translation is not yet released).

You aren’t getting it in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand because Orion—my UK publisher (whose “exclusive territory” _includes_ Australia and New Zealand) is not yet convinced that there’s any market for graphic novels. Ditto Blanvalet Verlag, the German publisher. They doubt many people in their countries would buy it—so they haven’t made an offer for it—and you don’t get it, unless you order it from the US, via Amazon.com, The Poisoned Pen, or some other way.

As for the giveaway of free OUTLANDER paperbacks and ebooks—that’s something that Random House (US) has chosen to do, so those offers are only available _in_ the US. If any of our other publishers choose to do likewise, we’d be very pleased—but I can’t –make- them do it.

Now, the OUTLANDER: The Musical CD’s are a little different, because those are not being distributed by a publishing company, but rather by the producers themselves—that being Mike Gibb and Kevin Walsh, in Scotland. I’ve got them an Amazon.com account, to facilitate the CD’s being more easily available in the US, and _should_ have an iTunes account going pretty soon here. Next step [g] is to see about getting an Amazon.de account, for those German fans who’ve been having to order CDs from Scotland. But that, we _can_ do without it having to be done through a publishing company; it’s just a matter of me or Mike having time to establish all the different avenues of distribution—and I’m on a book-tour, and Mike’s up to his eyeballs in writing the libretto for the stage production of OUTLANDER: The Musical. So it may take us a little while, but we’ll get there. [g]

Meanwhile, if you’d like to let the UK/Australian/NZ/Germany publishers know that there _is_ a market for this particular graphic novel, at least…

I hesitate to put down any publisher’s personal email address here, but here’s some general contact information:

Orion (UK, Australia, and New Zealand – you might want to tell them which one you’re from):

http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/about-orion/contact-us

or possibly

salesinformation@orionbooks.co.uk

Blanvalet Verlag (Germany):

http://www.randomhouse.de/blanvalet/index.jsp (there’s a link for “Kontact/Service” on the left

FREE Outlanders!

2010-10-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

Well, this is nice. Random House, as part of a promotion to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of OUTLANDER's publication next year, is doing _two_ giveaways!

First, a program to give away promotional copies of OUTLANDER paperbacks--see here for the details!

And secondly....for a limited time, Random House is giving away the Kindle edition of the OUTLANDER e-book FREE! See here to download it!

You know, ever since that book was published, I've had The Worst Time trying to describe it to people; never been able to do it in twenty-five words or less. [g] After some trial and error, I finally took to telling people, "Look--open it anywhere, and read three pages. If you can put it down again, I'll pay you a dollar." Never lost any money on that bet [g]--though do note I'm not making it here (too many difficulties of administration).

Still, the point stands. It's One Odd Book (well, heck, they _all_ are), and as my first beloved editor used to say, "These _have_ to be word of mouth books, because they're too weird to describe to anybody."

That being true, the only really good way to explain them is to let people look for themselves--so kudos to Random House for giving us fresh opportunities to spread the word!

Appearance CORRECTION!

2010-10-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

My original tour/appearance schedule for Sept./October has me appearing at the "Waterfront" Borders in Scottsdale on Oct. 3. I'm afraid I _won't_ be doing that one--the Borders corporate office wasn't able to get things together to approve doing it in time, so it will be rescheduled for (probably) sometime in November.

So please don't show up there on Sunday!

However...I _will_ be appearing at Changing Hands bookstore (in Tempe) at 7 PM on October 6th, if any local folk still need their books signed!

Film Rumors

2010-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, evidently there was an article in yesterday's New York Times, regarding (among other things) the possibility of Katherine Heigl playing Claire in a film version of OUTLANDER. It's not like there haven't been all kinds of rumors about everything you could imagine, over the last ten years or so--but this seems to have stirred up a lot of folk, many of whom asked me to post something on the matter.

Had a quick glance at several assorted articles on the subject (to which folk have been sending me links). All of said articles contain the usual amount of careless inaccuracy that you usually see. You really shouldn't get excited about any details mentioned in that sort of piece--like "Scottish heroine," for instance.

That said, I haven't ever seen Ms. Heigl act, but would certainly extend her the courtesy of waiting to see.

Eeee!

2010-09-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

Guys, you did it!

I'm thrilled beyond measure to report that THE EXILE debuts at

#1

on the New York Times Graphic Books Bestseller List for Oct. 10!

THANKS SO MUCH, from me and Hoang!

THIS WEEK'S EVENTS!!

2010-09-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

Here's where (and when) I'll be this week! Hope to see y'all there!

Tuesday, Sept. 28th, 7 PM

Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista
Corte Madera, CA 94925
Contact: Karen West, 415-927-0960 x238/ kwest@bookpassage.com alison@bookpassage.com
*This will be a talk & signing with illustrator Hoang Nguyen.

Wednesday, Sept. 29th, 7 PM

San Diego Independent Booksellers Coalition Event
Location: Gillispie School
7380 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, CA 92037
Contact: Susan McBeth (Warwick’s), (858) 454-0347/ warwicksevents@yahoo.com
*This will be a talk & signing hosted by Warwick’s, Mysterious Galaxy, and The Book Works.

Thursday, Sept. 30th, 7 PM

Vroman’s
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101
Contact: Jennifer Ramos, 626-449-5320 x250/ jramos@vromansbookstore.com
*This will be a talk & signing.

Saturday, Oct. 2, 2 PM

Barnes & Noble
5130 E. Broadway
Tucson, AZ 85711
Contact: Valerie Burnside, 520-512-1166
*This will be a talk & signing.

Yes, I WILL have CD's on the West Coast!

2010-09-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

In answer to a number of folk who've asked--yes, indeedy, I _will_ have OUTLANDER:The Musical CDs available at the signings this week in San Francisco (well, I think it's actually Corte Madera, but close), Los Angeles (Pasadena), and San Diego.

I have permission from Mike and Kevin to sell them at a special "event" price of $15, which is a good bit less than either the PayPal or Amazon price (also, no waiting [g]). Depending on the bookstores' preferences, I'll likely be selling these just myself--as the CD's aren't part of the store's regular stock--so it'll be for cash or check.

See you there!

PROGRESS! OUTLANDER:The Musical now on Amazon!

2010-09-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

I’m pleased to report that—thanks to the good offices of Ann Behar, at my literary agent’s office—we now have an Official AMAZON.COM account for the OUTLANDER: The Musical CD!

We hope this will be more convenient for those of you who a) don’t have or don’t want to use PayPal, and b) are on this side of the Atlantic—since you won’t have to wait a week or two for your CDs to be shipped from Scotland!

Apparently a few people have indeed found it more convenient—or are doing their Christmas shopping early—since Allan (Scott-Douglas – the voice of Jamie Fraser [g]) told me a few minutes ago that the OUTLANDER: The Musical CD has risen from #70 to #10 (!!) in the “Musicals” bestseller category today.

Which, you know, is pretty darn cool. [g] THANK YOU!! to all of you who've bought the CD--we hope you enjoy it!

Thank you! And if you don't want to read excerpts, stop NOW...!

2010-09-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Dear All--

Many thanks to the dedicated (that sounds so much better than, say, "obsessed," let alone "clinically deranged") souls who did so much in championing me to the first place in the National Book Festival's Favorite Author poll!

I would not, of course, want to be accused of bribery, even _ex post facto_, so I won't say this is a reward for such a gallant effort [g] But as I've been reading these excerpts from Book Eight at the various events this week, I thought it was only fair to share them with those who couldn't make it to one or another of the book-tour appearances.

[Meaning--if you want to avoid excerpts from Book Eight...

STOP
.
.
.

READING
.
.
.

NOW
.
.
.

Still with me? [g] Well, alrighty, then!

Book Eight excerpt
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon

JEM IN THE TUNNEL

He must be getting near the end of the tunnel. Jem could tell by the way the air pushed back against his face. All he could see was the little red light on the train's dashboard--did you call it a dashboard on a train? he wondered. He didn't want to stop, because that meant he'd have to get out of the train, into the dark. But the train was running out of track, so there wasn't much else he could do.

He pulled back a little bit on the lever that made the train go, and it slowed down. More. Just a little more, and the lever clicked into a kind of slot and the train stopped with a little jerk that made him stumble and grab the edge of the cab.

An electric train didn't make any engine noise, but the wheels rattled on the track and the train made squeaks and clunks as it moved. When it stopped, the noise stopped too. It was really quiet.

"Hey!" he said out loud, because he didn't want to listen to his heart beating. The sound echoed, and he looked up, startled. Mum had said the tunnel was really high, more than thirty feet, but he'd forgot that. The idea that there was a lot of empty space hanging over him that he couldn't see bothered him a lot. He swallowed, and stepped out of the tiny engine, holding on to the frame with one hand.

"Hey!" he shouted at the invisible ceiling. "Are there any bats up there?"

Silence. He'd kind of been hoping there were bats. He wasn't afraid of them--there were bats in the old broch, and he liked to sit and watch them come out to hunt in the summer evenings. But he was alone. Except for the dark.

His hands were sweating. He let go of the metal cab and scrubbed both hands on his jeans. Now he could hear himself breathing, too.

"Crap," he whispered under his breath. That made him feel better, so he said it again. Maybe he ought to be praying, instead, but he didn't feel like that, not yet.

There was a door, Mum said. At the end of the tunnel. It led into the service chamber, where the big turbines could be lifted up from the dam if they needed fixing. Would the door be locked?

Suddenly he realized that he'd stepped away from the train and he didn't know whether he was facing the end of the tunnel or back the way he'd come. In a panic, he blundered to and fro, hands out, looking for the train. He tripped over part of the track and fell sprawling. He lay there for a second saying "Crap-crap-crap-crap-crap!" because he'd skinned both knees and the palm of his hand, but he was OK, really, and now he knew where the track was, so he could follow it and not get lost.

He got up, wiped his nose, and shuffled slowly along, kicking the track every few steps to be sure he stayed with it. He thought he was in front of where the train had stopped, so it didn't really matter which way he was going--either he'd find the train or he'd find the end of the tunnel. And then the door. If it was locked, maybe--

Something like an electric shock ran right through him. He gasped and fell over backward. The only thing in his mind was the idea that somebody had hit him with a light-sabre like Luke Skywalker's, and for a minute, he though maybe whoever it was had cut off his head.

He couldn't feel his body, and could see in his mind his body lying bleeding in the dark and his head sitting right there on the train tracks in the dark, not being able to see his body and not even knowing it wasn't attached anymore. He made a breathless kind of a noise that was trying to be a scream, but it made his stomach move and he felt that, he felt it, and suddenly he felt a lot more like praying.

"Gratia...Deo!" he managed to gasp. It was what Grand-da said when he talked about a fight or killing something and this wasn't quite that sort of thing, but it seemed like a good thing to say anyway.

Now he could feel all of himself again, but he sat up and grabbed his neck, just to be sure his head was still on. His skin was jumping in the weirdest way. Like a horse's does when a horse-fly bites it, but all over. He swallowed and tasted sugared silver and he gasped again, because now he knew what had hit him. Sort of.

This wasn't quite like it had been, when they'd all walked into the rocks on Ocracoke. One minute, he'd been in his father's arms and the next minute it was like he was scattered everywhere in little wiggly pieces like the spilled quicksilver in Grannie's surgery. Then he was back together again, and Da was still holding him tight enough to squeeze his breath out and he could hear Da sobbing and that scared him and he had a funny taste in his mouth and little pieces of him were still wiggling around trying to get away but they were trapped inside his skin...

Yeah. That was what was making his skin jump now, and he breathed easier, knowing what it was. That was OK, then, he was OK, it would stop.

It was stopping already, the twitchy feeling going away. He still felt a little shaky, but he stood up. Careful, because he didn't know where it was.

Wait...he did know. He knew exactly.

"That's weird," he said, out loud without really noticing, because he wasn't scared by the dark anymore, it wasn't important.

He couldn't really see it, not with his eyes, not exactly. He squinted, trying to think how he was seeing it, but there wasn't a word for what he was doing. Kind of like hearing or smelling or touching, but not really any of those.

But he knew where it was. It was right there, a kind of...shiver...in the air, and when he stared at it, he had a feeling in the back of his mind like really pretty sparkly things, like sun on the sea and the way a candle-flame looked when it shone through a ruby, but he knew he wasn't really seeing anything like that.

It went all the way across the tunnel, and up to the high roof, too, he could tell. But it wasn't thick at all, it was thin as air.

He guessed that was why it hadn't swallowed him like the thing in the rocks on Ocracoke had. At least...he thought it hadn't, and for an instant, worried that maybe he'd gone sometime else. But he didn't think so. The tunnel felt just the same, and so did he, now his skin had stopped jumping. When they'd done it, on Ocracoke, he'd known right away it was different.

He stood there for a minute, just looking and thinking, and then shook his head and turned around, feeling with his foot for the track. He wasn't going back through that, no matter what. He'd just have to hope the door wasn't locked.

[end section]

Book Eight Excerpt
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon

JAMIE/LORD JOHN

He’d been quite resigned to dying. Had expected it from the moment that he’d blurted out, “I have had carnal knowledge of your wife.” The only question in his mind had been whether Fraser would shoot him, stab him, or eviscerate him with his bare hands.

To have the injured husband regard him calmly, and say merely, “Oh? Why?” was not merely unexpected, but…infamous. Absolutely infamous.

"Why?" John Grey repeated, incredulous. "Did you say 'Why'?"

"I did. And I should appreciate an answer."

Now that Grey had both eyes open, he could see that Fraser's outward calm was not quite so impervious as he'd first supposed. There was a pulse beating in Fraser’s temple, and he'd shifted his weight a little, like a man might do in the vicinity of a tavern brawl, not quite ready to commit violence, but readying himself to meet it. Perversely, Grey found this sight steadying.

"What do you bloody mean, 'why'?" he said, suddenly irritated. "And why aren't you fucking dead?"

"I often wonder that myself," Fraser replied politely. "I take it ye thought I was?"

"Yes, and so did your wife! Do you have the faintest idea what the knowledge of your death did to her?"

The dark blue eyes narrowed just a trifle.

"Are ye implying that the news of my death deranged her to such an extent that she lost her reason and took ye to her bed by force? Because," he went on, neatly cutting off Grey's heated reply, "unless I've been seriously misled regarding your own nature, it would take substantial force to compel ye to any such action. Or am I wrong?"

The eyes stayed narrow. Grey stared back at them. Then he closed his eyes briefly and rubbed both hands hard over his face, like a man waking from nightmare. He dropped his hands and opened his eyes again.

"You are not misled," he said, through clenched teeth. "And you are wrong."

Fraser's ruddy eyebrows shot up--in genuine astonishment, he thought.

"Ye went to her because—from desire?" His voice rose, too. "And she let ye? I dinna believe it."

The color was creeping up Fraser's tanned neck, vivid as a climbing rose. Grey had seen that happen before, and decided recklessly that the best--the only--defense was to lose his own temper first. It was a relief.

"We thought you were dead, you bloody arsehole!" he said, furious. "Both of us! Dead! And we--we--took too much to drink one night--very much too much...we spoke of you...and... Damn you, neither one of us was making love to the other--we were fucking you!"

Fraser's face went abruptly blank and his jaw dropped. Grey enjoyed one split-second of satisfaction at the sight, before a massive fist came up hard beneath his ribs and he hurtled backward, staggered a few steps further, and fell. He lay in the leaves, completely winded, mouth opening and closing like an automaton's.

All right, then, he thought dimly. Bare hands it is.

The hands wrapped themselves in his shirt and jerked him to his feet. He managed to stand, and a wisp of air seeped into his lungs. Fraser's face was an inch from his. Fraser was in fact so close that he couldn't see the man's expression--only a close-up view of two bloodshot blue eyes, both of them berserk. That was enough. He felt quite calm now. It wouldn't take long.

"You tell me exactly what happened, ye filthy wee pervert," Fraser whispered, his breath hot on Grey's face and smelling of ale. He shook Grey slightly. "Every word. Every motion. Everything."

Grey got just enough breath to answer.

"No," he said definitely. "Go ahead and kill me."

[end section]

Never Been Viral Before...

2010-09-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

...but the fabulous Nikki has done it! Don't think it'll last [g], but her terrific book-trailer at http://www.youtube.com/user/voyagesoftheartemis?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/D-BRb2ipU5I has had 2750 clicks in the last day and a half---causing YouTube to ask whether we want to take ads for our "viral video." [g]

We don't, but we surely do appreciate all the clicks! (And we hope you'll enjoy the book as much as the trailer...!)

Methadone Thumbnails

2010-09-18T02:25:00.001-07:00

Quickie here (things are hotting up as we get closer to The Exile release): Barnes and Noble asked me a little while ago to give them three book recommendations for a guest feature. In case you need something to read over the next three days [g]...

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Guest-Books/Diana-Gabaldon/ba-p/3159

New Interview - New Book-Trailer!

2010-09-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

Boy, it's been an eventful day, so far!

First the fabulous Nikki Rowe, who manages my YouTube Channel with such flair and grace, puts up a wonderful new book-trailer video for THE EXILE (featuring several new art samples!).

AND she also deftly snares a brand-new video interview I did for NovelsAliveTV (whom I met at DragonCon earlier this month)!

HERE is a link that will take you to both.

Don't say we don't try to keep y'all entertained....[g] Hope you enjoy them!

THE EXILE - LAUNCH PARTY!!

2010-09-15T02:27:00.000-07:00

ONE WEEK AND COUNTING!! (September 21st!)

OK, time to get out the book-touring clothes and check for sweat stains…! (Well, yes, I do. Performing raises my body temp about five degrees, no matter what the ambient temperature is. I figure it’s all the energy pouring in from the audience. Y’all are great—and hot. [g])

Now that I’ve taken to Twittering (I’m “Writer_DG”), I notice that a few people seem to think that THE EXILE is just OUTLANDER done in pictures. If you’ve been following my blog for a bit, you’ll already know that’s not the case—EXILE is a brand-new story, though if you’ve read OUTLANDER (and I’m sort of figuring most of you have [cough]) you’ll recognize some of the main incidents.

You will, though, also have an all-new storyline, _and_ perhaps learn a few things people tell me they’ve wondered about from the original novel: Who was the mysterious girl in France? Where did Jamie get his mother’s pearls? What did Mrs. Fitz make of Claire’s bra? [g]

NOW—the LAUNCH PARTY!!

The Poisoned Pen bookstore has always done launch parties for my books, God bless them—but this time it’s gonna be Special.

We sort of outgrew the confines of the bookstore with A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES, and so they hosted the last launch (for AN ECHO IN THE BONE) at the Biltmore Hotel—it was great! For this time, though—we have not only me and a pile of books [g], but also Hoang Nguyen, the wonderful artist who did the artwork, and we’ll be doing a knockabout cross-talk act…er…a collaborative program, I mean, in which we want to show you some of the cool art while we talk about it (explaining, for example, how we eventually came up with Jamie’s Butt), and that meant finding a venue where we could have good projection equipment and good seats for you to sit in while looking at it. (Though I must say that the imagination boggles a bit at the notion of an enormous projection of Jamie’s rear end…)

So. The Pen’s arranged to do this at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, which has a lovely, brand-newly remodeled auditorium. And since we’re making such an Occasion of it, food and drink will be provided by Arcadia Farms. Aaaaand…

We’ll have music, courtesy of OUTLANDER: The Musical. I _will_ (God willing and the international shipping company cooperating) have CDs of OTM on hand to sell—but the Center for the Arts has a good sound system that will let us play the CD for you prior to the event, so you’ll have a chance to listen to it.

(As a Special Added Attraction, I _will_ read one or two excerpts from Book Eight. Just in case you were wondering how Jem’s doing in that tunnel, or What Jamie Said to Lord John next. [g] See below.)

Anyway, I expect a great time to be had by all, and hope to see y’all there, glowing like embers. [g] (I _will_ wear deodorant, in honor of the occasion.)

P.S. Since the launch party is in a special venue—which had to be rented for the occasion—there _are_ tickets for it. Each ticket includes the price of a signed book (it can be signed by me alone, by Hoang alone, or by both of us!)—and if you want to bring a friend, you can get a “companion” ticket for an additional $5. Book tickets here.

JEM

He must be getting near the end of the tunnel. Jem could tell by the way the air pushed back against his face. All he could see was the little red light on the train's dashboard--did you call it a dashboard on a train? he wondered. He didn't want to stop, because that meant he'd have to get out of the train, into the dark. But the train was running out of track, so there wasn't much else he could do.

He pulled back a little bit on the lever that made the train go, and it slowed down. More. Just a little more, and the lever clicked into a kind of slot and the train stopped with a little jerk that made him stumble and grab the edge of the cab.

An electric train didn't make any engine noise, but the wheels rattled on the track and the train made squeaks and clunks as it moved. When it stopped, the noise stopped too. It was really quiet.

"Hey!" he said out loud, because he didn't want to listen to his heart beating. The sound echoed, and he looked up, startled. Mum had said the tunnel was really high, more than thirty feet, but he'd forgot that. The idea that there was a lot of empty space hanging over him that he couldn't see bothered him a lot. He swallowed, and stepped out of the tiny engine, holding on to the frame with one hand.

"Hey!" he shouted at the invisible ceiling. "Are there any bats up there?"
….

JAMIE/LORD JOHN

He’d been quite resigned to dying. Had expected it from the moment that he’d blurted out, “I have had carnal knowledge of your wife.” The only question in his mind had been whether Fraser would shoot him, stab him, or eviscerate him with his bare hands.

To have the injured husband regard him calmly, and say merely, “Oh? Why?” was not merely unexpected, but…infamous. Absolutely infamous.

"Why?" John Grey repeated, incredulous. "Did you say 'Why
'?"

"I did. And I should appreciate an answer."
…

Urram do Mair

2010-09-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

It's Gaidhlig ; it means

"Honor to the Dead"

Incoming...!

2010-09-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

That would be me.

In answer to questions about my immediate whereabouts this weekend at the Bookmarks Book Festival in Winston-Salem, NC:

1:00 - 1:45 PM - talk/reading on Main Stage

1:45 - 3:30 (with bathroom break somewhere in there, I hope) - book-signing
(No, there will NOT be copies of THE EXILE available; it won't be released until the launch part on Sept. 21)

3:30 - 4:15 - Panel discussion with two NC authors (whose names I unfortunately forget) about "Sense of Place" - on Main Stage

4:15 - more book-signing, if anyone still needs it.

MANY thanks to all the kind people who've welcomed me to NC and invited me to come places, eat with them, etc. I'm afraid that I'm only there for the one day, though, and am meeting with smaller groups all morning, and dining with the Festival organizers Saturday evening. Much Obliged, though, and I'll hope for more leisure to meet with y'all next time!

Oh--while we're at it, I see the Poisoned Pen has put up a Really Nice blogpost about the launch part for THE EXILE at

http://penandtheexile.blogspot.com/

Unexpurgated Artwork

2010-09-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Right, unexpurgated art. Well, here's the deal: There is a section at the end of THE EXILE (the new graphic novel), titled "The Making of THE EXILE," which is a behind-the-scenes look at the collaboration between me and Hoang Nguyen, who did the artwork for the book. It includes a mention of one panel, showing part of Jamie and Claire's wedding night, where the publishing people (reluctantly [g]) decided that the art was a little _too_ graphic, and opted to have Hoang draw a blanket over part of the view. However, Betsy Mitchell, the editor, told me that I could put the original panel up on my website and blog, once the book was out--and I mentioned that while writing my part of the "Making Of" section.

Well, next thing I know, someone tells me that Random House Canada (who are also publishing the book) have uploaded the "Making Of" section to scribd--the link is
here--and all kinds of people are going nuts looking for the dirty art. [g]

I hadn't expected the "Making Of" section to be available prior to publication, so the art wasn't up yet. (And it's not _that_ explicit, anyway) But I was away from home when all this hit over the weekend, so just now having time to get it up. There you are--enjoy!

Yeah, it WAS busy!

2010-09-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

Monday, Monday…

Or at least I _think_ it’s still Monday. Leapt into a plane this morning and flew home from Atlanta, after a delightful—but busy!—weekend at DragonCon and the Decatur Book Festival. (Well, it was Monday when I started this; now it’s Tuesday…my, how time does fly…)

Both these events are wonderful, but it would be hard to imagine two gatherings (both involving thousands of people) more dissimilar. The Decatur Book Festival is charming: it’s held in Decatur (reasonably enough), a suburb some eight miles outside Atlanta, a small town with an old-fashioned Southern (with a capital “S”) feel to it, and occupies the center of the town, with white tents arranged around the Old Courthouse, and reading venues here and there—I spoke in the Presbyterian Church, which is their largest venue (someone told me it holds 900 people, and there were just about that many in it, I think).

There’s a street filled with food-vendor’s booths, selling everything from ice-cold lemonade (regular and cherry (pronounced “cheery”)) to fried dough (with powdered sugar) and fried fish and dirty rice. The tents running up and down the streets hold everything book-related (and a few things having Not That Much to do with books, like jewelry and music CD’s): the publications of various companies, small and large, writer’s organizations, book-binders, literacy organizations, children’s books, travel books, philosophical and spiritual books, and a group called Muslims for Peace, handing out information and answering questions about Islam.

The streets themselves are full of families; there’s something for everyone—including the “Ladybug Girl Parade” and a storyteller’s tent, to say nothing of the readings and talks for more adult guests. But the mood is cheerful, laid back, and peaceful; there’s something going on everywhere you look, but the overall sense is one of happy, calm expectancy.

DragonCon is…er…NOT calm. [cough] This is (I think) the biggest sf/fantasy convention in the world. It occupies the entirety of _five_ huge convention hotels in downtown Atlanta, and hosts something like 50,000 people.

You know how one describes any outre’ social gathering as being “like the cantina scene in “Star Wars””? Well, the public aspect of DragonCon _is_ the cantina scene from “Star Wars”.

There are bars (multiple; impromptu portable bars are set up around most of the escalators) on all the floors, thronged with…well, you name it. If you can imagine it, you’ll see it there—and a Whole Lot of Stuff Nobody Ever Even THOUGHT of Before, too. (Thinking here specifically of the man—naked save for a fur Speedo—painted red from scalp to shoe-sole, with four nails through each nipple. (I told my husband about this and he said, “Either he has big nipples, or they were small nails.” Small nails. Real ones, though.)

About half the participants are in costume, and I do mean “Costume.” As in, these people take their costuming Very Seriously, and dress up as anything from their favorite anime character to an undead cabaret dancer (one of the finalists from last year’s masquerade—which I had the privilege of judging, meaning I got to see everything from a distance of about six feet), Chthulhu, or a Black Ops team from Another World (which one, I don’t know; I was afraid to ask. They aren’t _supposed_ to carry real weapons, but…). There’s an official parade in costume on Saturday morning, but believe me, you can see just about everything simply by standing in one place in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency (the main hub of the con) and letting it all thunder past you. (“The nerd herd is particularly thick tonight,” one panelist remarked, explaining his late arrival, disheveled and panting.)

While the Decatur Book Festival lasts two days and is impeccably organized, DragonCon lasts four (more or less) and…well, in all justice, _I_ wouldn’t want to be responsible for scheduling several hundred presenters and allotting them room in a multi-hotel labyrinth that would baffle the Minotaur.

Several of the hotels are linked physically, both above and below-ground, and all of the “writer’s-track” panels and events were held in the bowels of the earth, two or three stories _under_ the hotel complex. This made finding the locations for various panels a little challenging, but the hotels did tend to scatter staff members with a lavish hand, so it wasn’t that hard to find someone to ask. Still, the schedulers were inclined to put eight people or so on a panel, just to insure that three or four of them showed up on time—with the result that sometimes you really _had_ eight or nine people on a panel, which is a little unwieldy.

I was the official guest of the Decatur Book Festival, but the DBF is more than generous in sharing guests with DragonCon, and goes so far as to provide free transportation back and forth between Decatur and downtown Atlanta (and the airport) during the weekend. I took full advantage of this, as I had to make _three_ round trips on Friday, in between DragonCon events.

My chief reason—other than the fact that I enjoy it [g] –for attending this year was to promote the upcoming publication of THE EXILE (yes, yes, yes, I know you want the unexpurgated artwork from the wedding night scene; it’ll be along in the next blog entry), and I was delighted to have everyone show such enthusiasm for the book! (My editor, Betsy Mitchell, came to DragonCon to do a panel on the graphic novel with me, and brought me a copy of the Actual Book! Always a thrill [g], when something you’ve worked on for months or years is suddenly embodied and you hold it in your hands—and this is a particular pleasure, since it’s physically beautiful, as well as A Real Book.

I did have other minor things to do, though; I did a number of panels on writing—always a lot of fun—and a very interesting one in Decatur, with several YA authors, for an audience of younger readers (and their parents). Don’t know as they’ll ask me to do that one again, though, as one of the questions was which book I remembered most vividly from my teen years and I replied—honestly—that it was FANNY HILL. [cough]

Also brought a number of the Outlander: The Musical CD’s with me, and sold them at my signing in Decatur, courtesy of The Little Shop of Stories, who hosted my event. Happy to say I sold pretty much all of them—though I’d given some to my son (see below) to carry in his suitcase, and neglected to get them back before the event. (No worries; I’ll take those with me to the Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem next weekend.)—and people seemed thrilled to have them.

(I’m planning to have at least some CD’s at all the independent book-store events on the book-tour, later this month, so if you’d rather not go to the bother of setting up a PayPal account (and paying shipping) or waiting ‘til we get the Amazon/iTunes connections going, _and_ you’ll be in one of the places I’ll be….I’ll have a CD for you there! [g] (Special Event Price - $15.00!))

Beyond the pleasure of meeting fans, talking about writing, and sharing fabulous music, I was also supporting the efforts of a couple of Worthy Young Men.

First of these being Samuel Sykes (www.samsykes.com), hot new author of heroic fantasy, and [cough] my son. His first novel, TOME OF THE UNDERGATES, was published in the UK earlier this year, but comes out in the US this month. Having got an agent, a three-book contract, published in six countries, and good reviews, all on his own, he’s now willing to admit that he’s related to me. [g]

Sam was at DragonCon, promoting the US release of TOME, so I took a copy with me to my various panels and talks and was allowed to brag on it and show off the very attractive cover (see above). Pleased to note that Sam’s publisher had brought 50 copies of TOME to the Con—all of which sold by Sunday morning. (I didn’t do _nearly_ that well with _my_ first book…)

The second young man being Allan Scott-Douglas, who sings the role of Jamie Fraser on the Outlander: The Musical CD. Allan told me that owing to the kind interest of all the Outlander fans, he was #2 “most viewed actor” on the UK castingcallpro website for professional actors—“Only behind the new girl on Coronation Street.” I laughed and said that if he wanted to be #1, I’d mention him while in Atlanta, and we’d see what happened.

So…I did, and y’all made him #1 within about 24 hours—MANY thanks!

(Though I think I rather shocked him by reporting that I’d had a good response to his photo (in kilt) at the “Sex in Science-Fiction” panel. “How on earth did you manage to use my picture in a panel on sex?!” being his rather agitated reply. “I’m glad they liked it…but a little weirded out!” (Granted, that sort of panel usually starts on a low note and heads straight downhill, but not to worry; I didn’t do anything even slightly undignified. It’s just that the moderator’s first question was, “So…what do you personally find sexy in sf or fantasy? Let’s start with you, Dr. Gabaldon…” –whereupon, moved by inspiration, I pulled Allan’s photo out of the folder I was carrying and solemnly displayed it to the crowd, all of whom burst into applause. Responding to the iconic “Man-in-Kilt” image, I mean, not Allan’s personal attributes. (Coulda been worse. One of the DragonCon events was (I kid you not) “Men in Kilts…woman with leaf-blower.”))

Only justice, though, that a man in a kilt then made _me_ blush, in Decatur. [g] During the Q&A following my talk, a tall, nice-looking gentleman at the back of the church stood up and told me that he’d been impressed by the accuracy of my depictions of the area of North Carolina near where he lived, and would like to offer his services if I needed any research—adding that he would put his resources at my disposal.

OK. I’d already told all my indelicate kilt stories. [cough] So I laughed, thanked him, and said, “In terms of resources—I won’t ask whether you have a kilt.” Whereupon he stepped out into the aisle, arms spread, displaying…a very becoming kilt. [g]

Anyway, it was a terrific weekend—if Really, Really Busy—and I had a wonderful time meeting so many nice people!

And to Entertain You While I'm Gone...

2010-09-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some brief video clips from the live launch of "Outlander: The Musical" in Aberdeen last month!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i37mvexRYUk

(Apologies for the poor sound; these were done with a small hand-held camera.)

BUSY WEEKEND IN ATLANTA!!!

2010-09-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

IT’S GONNA BE A BUSY WEEKEND!!

I’ll be appearing at the Decatur Book Festival and Dragon*Con in Atlanta this weekend—pretty much simultaneously! Events and times are listed below (please note that I won’t be doing the events scheduled for Monday!).

Now, normally, I don’t Twitter [g]--no time!--but it strikes me that this weekend might just be the kind of situation where that might be helpful. So—just in case y’all want to follow me temporarily, my Twitter ID is “Writer_DG.”

DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL

All my events in Decatur will be on Saturday afternoon (Sept. 4):

1:00 PM – “Meet and Greet” in the AJC tent. This is a brief opportunity to chat with readers. It’s not a book-signing.

3:00 PM – main talk/reading – Presbyterian Church. I’ll talk about anything y’all would like to hear about , but will certainly include the new graphic novel (THE EXILE), OUTLANDER: The Musical, and maybe even read a cliffhanger pickup or two from Book Eight!

(The talk will be followed by a book-signing—usually held across the street. !!!I will have a limited number of Outlander: The Musical” CD’s!!! available at this signing. (limited by the number I can carry…))

5:00 PM – Panel. “Break in Case of Emergency: This Book Could Save Your Life!” on The Escape teen stage. (Advice from adult authors on books to read.)

DRAGON*CON

***An Hour with Diana Gabaldon
D. Gabaldon; Mon 10:00 am; Intl. C
[W]

Outlander in Graphic Terms
Diana and Betsy discuss how the graphic
version came to be and the transition
from prose to graphic novel. D. Gabaldon,
B. Mitchell; Fri 5:30 pm; Fairlie [H]
(We'll be showing off some of the art--and will have an Actual Book to show, too!)

Sexy Science Fiction
What makes a book sexy? Naked women
and actual sex scenes? Or are there other
literary pheromones at work? J. Ward,
G. Martin, D. Gabaldon, D. Whiteside, G
Mitchell (M); Fri 10:00 pm; Fairlie [H]

Trends in Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Fiction
This panel will discuss the very fluid
paranormal/urban fantasy fiction market.
C. Burke, C. L. Wilson, J. St. Giles, D.
Gabaldon, L. Gresh, D. Knight; Fri 11:30
am; Manila/Singapore/Hong Kong [H]

Pros Discuss Plot Development
These pros discuss methods of developing
unpredictable, but believable plots. C.
Burke, J. Moore, J. Sherman, J. Maberry,
D. Gabaldon, L. Gresh; Sat 8:30 pm;
Manila/Singapore/Hong Kong [H]

Ingredients for great fiction
A little sugar, a little spice? A surprising
plot, a great cast of characters, intriguing
settings blend into great fiction. N.
Knight, G. Watkins, J. Wurts, A. Sowards,
M. Resnick, C. Eddy, S. M. Stirling,
D. Gabaldon; Sun 5:30 pm; Manila/
Singapore/Hong Kong [H]

***Roundtable
Got a question? This is a question and
answer panel that will address questions
from the audience. S. Chastain, D.
Dixon, J. Moore, C. Douglas, J. St. Giles,
D. Gabaldon; Mon 1:00 pm; Manila/
Singapore/Hong Kong [H]

***The Future of Fantastic Fiction
This panel explores markets with wellestablished
authors making suggestions
for audience members. G. Hayes, A.
Martin, E. Moon, J. St. Giles, D. Gabaldon;
Mon 4:00 pm; Manila/Singapore/Hong
Kong [H]

*** I’m sorry to miss these events—especially the “Hour with Diana”!—but the unfortunate fact is that the DragonCon programming committee didn’t bother to send me this schedule. I got it from a fan who’d picked it up from the website three days ago—by which time I (rather naturally) had already booked my flights, leaving Monday morning. Will hope to catch up with y’all at one of the other events over the weekend, though!

Cliffhangers

2010-08-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

Why, yes, actually I _have_ (in and amongst everything else) been working on Book Eight. [g] I think I showed you a brief snip of the pickup to the Jem-in-the-tunnel cliffhanger last month; here's a likewise brief snip of the one between Jamie and Lord John:

Excerpt, Book Eight
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon

He’d been quite resigned to dying. Had expected it from the moment that he’d blurted out, “I have had carnal knowledge of your wife.” The only question in his mind had been whether Fraser would shoot him, stab him, or eviscerate him with his bare hands.

To have the injured husband regard him calmly, and say merely, “Oh? Why?” was not merely unexpected, but…infamous. Absolutely infamous.

"Why?" John Grey repeated, incredulous. "Did you say 'Why'?"

"I did. And I should appreciate an answer."

Now that Grey had both eyes open, he could see that Fraser's outward calm was not quite so impervious as he'd first supposed. There was a pulse beating in Fraser’s temple, and he'd shifted his weight a little, like a man might do in the vicinity of a tavern brawl, not quite ready to commit violence, but readying himself to meet it. Perversely, Grey found this sight steadying.

"What do you bloody mean, 'why'?" he said, suddenly irritated. "And why aren't you fucking dead?"

"I often wonder that myself," Fraser replied politely. "I take it ye thought I was?"

"Yes, and so did your wife! Do you have the faintest idea what the knowledge of your death _did_ to her?"

The dark blue eyes narrowed just a trifle.

"Are ye implying that the news of my death deranged her to such an extent that she lost her reason and took ye to her bed by force? Because," he went on, neatly cutting off Grey's heated reply, "unless I've been seriously misled regarding your own nature, it would take substantial force to compel ye to any such action. Or am I wrong?"

The eyes stayed narrow. Grey stared back at them. Then he closed his eyes briefly and rubbed both hands hard over his face, like a man waking from nightmare. He dropped his hands and opened his eyes again.

"You are not misled," he said, through clenched teeth. "And you _are_ wrong."

The Laird of Balnamoon

2010-08-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well, having embarrassed the heck out of Mr. Scott-Douglas, [cough] allow me now to introduce you to Mr. Kevin Walsh!

(I showed this picture to our excellent web-mistress, who said, “Does every Scot have a kilt pic? What they don’t realize is, all they have to do is go on any Diana Gabaldon fan board, and pick up any single woman they want, from anywhere in the world! *g* Doesn't even matter what they look like, they just need the kilt and the accent.” )

Kevin is both the singer and the song. By which I mean that he’s the composer and creator of all the music for the Outlander: The Musical CD—and also sings the voices of Dougal MacKenzie and Ian Murray _on_ the CD. (You can hear him as Dougal in “The Message” and as Ian in the hilarious “Why Did I Marry a Fraser?” (in which Jamie and Jenny bicker in the background as Ian and Claire condole with each other: Ian/Claire: “[Frasers]…they’re awkward/and sulky/bad-tempered/and vain” (Jamie: “VAIN?!” Claire: “Yes, you strut about there like a Highland John Wayne…”)) as well as a brief bit in “I Am Ready”).

Kevin’s also aka the Laird of Balnamoon – pronounced, he says, “Bonny Moon” in old Scots—this being the name of his house, “Cotton of Balnamoon,” an ancient structure once belonging to a Jacobite laird named James Carnegy-Arbuthnott*)

* James Carnegy-Arbuthnott, Laird of Balnamoon, favoured the Jacobite cause and was known as the Rebel Laird. He was Prince Charles Edward Stuart's Deputy-Lieutenant of Forfarshire and an officer in Lord Ogilvy's Angus regiment. He survived the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and fled to Glen Esk where he was harboured by locals until he was betrayed by the local Presbyterian minister. Sent for trial in London, he was acquitted on a misnomer. (In 1745 he had added his wife's surname and territorial designation of Arbuthnott of Findowrie to his own name, from whence arose the confusion). [From Wikipedia]

Pictures, You Say...

2010-08-21T15:20:00.001-07:00

Pictures, you say. Well….see, the thing is, if I’m taking pictures, I’m always looking around for something to take a picture _of_. Which is not an unreasonable thing to do, but it stops me actually _seeing_ things.

And it gets in the way of the things that are looking for me.

For instance, the last bit of the recent trip was two and a half days in Ireland. This was research, as part of SCOTTISH PRISONER takes place there—but rather random research, as I wasn’t looking for a specific battlefield or anything of that sort, but just absorbing the vibes of County Galway and Limerick (as well as Dublin) and sitting around in pubs listening to people talk (I have some slight ear for Scots, but none at all for Irish regional accents or idiom).

Well, so. Our path to Limerick took us (by plan) through Athlone, as a certain amount of 17th-century Jacobite plotting went on there, and I thought it might be useful. Nothing specific in mind, though, so we were just driving through the city, looking round in a vague way for the castle. “You don’t know where it is?” asked my husband (gallantly doing all the wrong-side-of-the-road driving, and thus slightly white-knuckled in the narrow streets).

“Nope,” I said cheerily. “I may not even need it, but if I do, I’m sure we’ll find it.” So on we went, reaching the far side of the city pretty fast (it’s a small city, Athlone). Rather than get onto an unfamiliar motorway, we pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center—which was across the street from a park, with a river running through it.

OK. One of my basic principles when on foreign ground is that you always head for water. River, lake, ocean, pond—it doesn’t matter. Something interesting is always going on near water. So we crossed the road, and Doug headed—with logic—right for the river. I stopped dead, at a ratty little poster in a frame, showing faded depictions of the flora and fauna to be found on the River Shannon (that being what we standing next to). I took a quick, but intense look at this, and when I spotted “amphibious bistort,” I heard, clear as anything, the following:
“Fraser glowered at the plant in his hand.

“And what’s that?”

“An amphibious bistort, if I’m not mistaken,” Grey replied, with some pleasure at the name.

“Can ye eat it?”

Grey surveyed the spindly thing critically and shook his head.

“Not unless you were starving.”

“I’m not. Put it back and let’s go.”

Right. So the River Shannon and the amphibious bistort were looking for me—but I certainly wouldn’t have found them, if I’d been looking for church spires or cud-chewing cows to take photos of. (No, I have no idea why these people are where they are; I just know they _are_, because I’ve just seen them there.) And on the way back through town, sure enough, Castle Athlone materialized right in front of us, and I spent a blissful twenty minutes climbing through it. So when the time comes, I can pull that memory up entire, from the tiny flowering plants growing in the cracks of the black stone, to the way the arrow slits widen on the inner aspect, to allow for someone drawing a bow—and I know that a bow-shot from one of those slits would have reached a boat coming ashore from the Shannon (having come down from Lough Rea—don’t ask me who’s in the boat or who’s shooting at them; I don’t know that yet), because I know how far it is from the Castle to the River—not far at all.

And that’s why I don’t take pictures when I travel. (I _do_ collect postcards from art museums.)

So I’m afraid the only picture I came home from Scotland with is the one above, of me and Big Bir—er, me and Mr. Allan Scott-Douglas (the voice of Jamie Fraser on the outlanderthemusical CD), who very graciously came to have a drink with me and sign a bunch of CD’s. (NO, I have _not_ just made some scandalous remark that caused Mr. Scott-Douglas to blush—would I do that? He’s just got a ferocious sunburn from outdoor rehearsals for his next show, “King Arthur”, which is being performed at Craigcrook Castle near Edinburgh, later this month. See here for details.)

[As an afterthought, it seemed only fair to show you a photo of Allan _in_ character, though he's no less charming as himself.]

Oh—before I forget, there’s a brand-new video of the song-snips from Outlander: The Musical, here! (And many, many thanks to the talented Michelle Moore, who made it!)

2010-08-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Not that I have been _entirely_ frivolous over the last couple of weeks. I've also just finished a novella titled "Lord John and the Plague of Zombies," and here's a bit of it, for your entertainment--hope you enjoy it!

“Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” - excerpt
Copyright 2010 Diana Gabaldon

[This will be published in an anthology titled DOWN THESE STRANGE STREETS, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. No, I don’t have a pub date for this yet, but am assuming sometime in 2011.]

“Your servant, sah,” he said to Grey, bowing respectfully. “The Governor’s compliments, and dinner will be served in ten minutes. May I see you to the dining room?”

“You may,” Grey said, reaching hastily for his coat. He didn’t doubt that he could find the dining-room unassisted, but the chance to watch this young man walk…

“You may,” Tom Byrd corrected, entering with his hands full of grooming implements, “once I’ve put his lordship’s hair to rights.” He fixed Grey with a minatory eye. “You’re not a-going in to dinner like that, me lord, and don’t you think it. You sit down there.” He pointed sternly to a stool, and Lieutenant-Colonel Grey, commander of His Majesty’s forces in Jamaica, meekly obeyed the dictates of his nineteen-year-old valet. He didn’t always allow Tom free rein, but in the current circumstance, was just as pleased to have an excuse to sit still in the company of the young black servant.

Tom laid out all his implements neatly on the dressing-table, from a pair of silver hairbrushes to a box of powder and a pair of curling tongs, with the care and attention of a surgeon arraying his knives and saws. Selecting a hairbrush, he leaned closer, peering at Grey’s head, then gasped. “Me lord! Tthere’s a big huge spider--walking right up your temple!”

Grey smacked his temple by reflex, and the spider in question—a clearly visible brown thing nearly a half-inch long—shot off into the air, striking the looking-glass with an audible tap before dropping to the surface of the dressing-table and racing for its life.

Tom and the black servant uttered identical cries of horror and lunged for the creature, colliding in front of the dressing table and falling over in a thrashing heap. Grey, strangling an almost irresistible urge to laugh, stepped over them and dispatched the fleeing spider neatly with the back of his other hairbrush.

He pulled Tom to his feet and dusted him off, allowing the black servant to scramble up by himself. He brushed off all apologies as well, but asked whether the spider had been a deadly one?

“Oh, yes, sah,” the servant assured him fervently. “Should one of those bite you, sah, you would suffer excruciating pain at once. The flesh around the wound would putrefy, you would commence to be fevered within an hour, and in all likelihood, you would not live until dawn.”

“Oh, I see,” Grey said mildly, his flesh creeping briskly. “Well, then. Perhaps you would not mind looking about the room while Tom is at his work? In case such spiders go about in company?”

Grey sat and let Tom brush and plait his hair, watching the young man as he assiduously searched under the bed and dressing-table, pulled out Grey’s trunk, and pulled up the trailing curtains and shook them.

“What is your name?” he asked the young man, noting that Tom’s fingers were trembling badly, and hoping to distract him from thoughts of the hostile wildlife with which Jamaica undoubtedly teemed. Tom was fearless in the streets of London, and perfectly willing to face down ferocious dogs or foaming horses. Spiders, though, were quite another matter.

“Rodrigo, sah,” said the young man, pausing in his curtain-shaking to bow. “Your servant, sah.”

He seemed quite at ease in company, and conversed with them about the town, the weather—he confidently predicted rain in the evening, at about ten o’clock--leading Grey to think that he had likely been employed as a servant in good families for some time. Was the man a slave? he wondered, or a free black?

His admiration for Rodrigo was, he assured himself, the same that he might have for a marvelous piece of sculpture, an elegant painting. And one of his friends did in fact possess a collection of Greek amphorae decorated with scenes that gave him quite the same sort of feeling. He shifted slightly in his seat, crossing his legs. He would be going into dinner soon. He resolved to think of large, hairy spiders, and was making some progress with this subject when something huge and black dropped down the chimney and rushed out of the disused hearth.

All three men shouted and leapt to their feet, stamping madly. This time it was Rodrigo who felled the intruder, crushing it under one sturdy shoe.

“What the devil was that?” Grey asked, bending over to peer at the thing, which was a good three inches long, gleamingly black, and roughly ovoid, with ghastly long, twitching antennae.

“Only a cockroach, sah,” Rodrigo assured him, wiping a hand across a sweating ebon brow. “They will not harm you, but they are most disagreeable. If they come into your bed, they feed upon your eyebrows.”

Tom uttered a small strangled cry. The cockroach, far from being destroyed, had merely been inconvenienced by Rodrigo’s shoe. It now extended thorny legs, heaved itself up and was proceeding about its business, though at a somewhat slower pace. Grey, the hairs prickling on his arms, seized the ash-shovel from among the fireplace implements and scooping up the insect on its blade, jerked open the door and flung the nasty creature as far as he could—which, given his state of mind, was some considerable distance.

Tom was pale as custard when Grey came back in, but picked up his employer’s coat with trembling hands. He dropped it, though, and with a mumbled apology, bent to pick it up again, only to utter a strangled shriek, drop it again, and run backwards, slamming so hard against the wall that Grey heard a crack of laths and plaster.

“What the devil?” He bent, reaching gingerly for the fallen coat.

“Don’t touch it, me lord!” Tom cried, but Grey had seen what the trouble was; a tiny yellow snake slithered out of the blue-velvet folds, head moving to and fro in slow curiosity.

“Well, hallo, there.” He reached out a hand, and as before, the little snake tasted his skin with a flickering tongue, then wove its way up into the palm of his hand. He stood up, cradling it carefully.

Tom and Rodrigo were standing like men turned to stone, staring at him.
“It’s quite harmless,” he assured them. “At least I think so. It must have fallen into my pocket earlier.”

Rodrigo was regaining a little of his nerve. He came forward and looked at the snake, but declined an offer to touch it, putting both hands firmly behind his back.

“That snake likes you, sah,” he said, glancing curiously from the snake to Grey’s face, as though trying to distinguish a reason for such odd particularity.

“Possibly.” The snake had made its way upward and was now wrapped round two of Grey’s fingers, squeezing with remarkable strength. “On the other hand, I believe he may be attempting to kill and eat me. Do you know what his natural food might be?”

Rodrigo laughed at that, displaying very beautiful white teeth, and Grey had such a vision of those teeth, those soft mulberry lips, applied to—he coughed, hard, and looked away.

“He would eat anything that did not try to eat him first, sah,” Rodrigo assured him. “It was probably the sound of the cockroach that made him come out. He would hunt those.”

“What a very admirable sort of snake. Could we find him something to eat, do you think? To encourage him to stay, I mean.”

Tom’s face suggested strongly that if the snake was staying, he was not. On the other hand….he glanced toward the door, whence the cockroach had made its exit, and shuddered. With great reluctance, he reached into his pocket and extracted a rather squashed bread-roll, containing ham and pickle.

This object being placed on the floor before it, the snake inspected it gingerly, ignored bread and pickle, but twining itself carefully about a chunk of ham, squeezed it fiercely into limp submission, then, opening its jaw to an amazing extent, engulfed its prey, to general cheers. Even Tom clapped his hands, and—if not ecstatic at Grey’s suggestion that the snake might be accommodated in the dark space beneath the bed for the sake of preserving Grey’s eyebrows, uttered no objections to this plan, either. The snake being ceremoniously installed and left to digest its meal, Grey was about to ask Rodrigo further questions regarding the natural fauna of the island, but was forestalled by the faint sound of a distant gong.

“Dinner!” he exclaimed, reaching for his now snakeless coat.

“Me lord! Your hair’s not even powdered!” He refused to wear a wig, to Tom’s ongoing dismay, but was obliged in the present instance to submit to powder. This toiletry accomplished in haste, he shrugged into his coat and fled, before Tom could suggest any further refinements to his appearance.

###

WHEW!

2010-08-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

I’m actually a trifle disappointed. I have a nice official-looking card, signed by my surgeon, informing the world that I have a knee replacement, to be presented to the TSA as needed—and I didn’t need it! Apparently my new knee doesn’t contain enough metal (or not the right kind of metal) to set off most metal detectors in airports. Not that this is a ¬_bad_ thing, mind you…I was just all prepared to have sirens go off and then…nada. Quite the let-down!

On the other hand, if you’re going to spend 21 hours (count ‘em, 21! That’s just about One Whole Day _and_ Night!) getting home from Scotland, having been routed from Edinburgh to Paris to Minneapolis to Phoenix, anything that makes the passage through airports even minimally less complicated is welcome.

(I now have a new unfavorite airport. Granted, Charles DeGaulle is not _quite_ as horrible as JFK—where all the worst experiences of my long traveling life have taken place—but only because it’s newer and the people are somewhat more polite (no, really) while doing irrational things (after sending us through _two_ levels of security, including a hand-search of our cabin luggage, they sent us down a ramp to the gate. Only there wasn’t a plane at the end of it; we debouched into the street _outside_ the terminal, where we were obliged to wait fifteen minutes for a bus--whose driver then got LOST on the way to the plane (not kidding; he circled the terminal three times and kept making U-turns, dodging sewage-pumping trucks and construction equipment as we got closer and closer to flight time). It’s fortunate that among the few French things I know how to say is, “C’est mon mari!” (“That’s my husband!”), because otherwise, I would have lost Doug in CDG for sure…)

But we’re HOME, which is wonderful—the dachshunds were ecstatic at our reappearance and went in for exaggerated writhings of welcome, flinging themselves on the floor at my feet and peeing on the floor in demonstration of their delight--and we had an absolutely great time, zipping (in a leisurely fashion) from Edinburgh to Inverness to London to Ireland and back to Edinburgh.

We arrived in Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival, and left it on the first weekend of the regular Edinburgh Festival—both times, staying at The Scotsman, a delightful (if really eccentric—it used to be the office building for “The Scotsman” newspaper, and rather than gut the building, they just sort of…fitted…bedrooms into it, resulting in some truly peculiar rooms) place on the North Bridge, just off the Royal Mile.

Which I mention only because the Royal Mile in Festival time is something to see. There’s a great Scots word for that—“hoaching.” As in, “the place was hoaching with…” In this case, with hundreds of visitors fighting their way up and down the Royal Mile, or sprawling in tiny chairs outside restaurants with ice cream cones and pints of beer, or—like one family we saw, consisting of a father and four small boys—simply sitting on the pavement in a row, legs outstretched among the throng, placidly eating chips and vinegar out of cardboard trugs.

The Edinburgh Festival is a great cultural extravaganza: plays, musical performances, art exhibitions, literary readings, the Military Tattoo… “Fringe” is the Fringe Festival; a period before the regular Festival, featuring everything anybody wants to do and can find a place to do it in. The whole town becomes a warren of numbered “venues” (ranging from regular theaters to disused toilets), and street performers (you don’t see that many mimes and living statues anywhere else, even in Italy) and hawkers of Fringe performance tickets just about out-number the visitors. It’s the sort of experience that people call “colorful,” out of sheer inability to describe it more closely.

Now, I’ve performed myself a couple of times at the Edinburgh Literary Festival (a separately organized bookish part of the Festival season), but had never experienced “Fringe” before. As Doug observed, the people who benefit most economically during Fringe are the printers, who work day and night madly printing handbills, cards, brochures, posters, tickets, etc. for the constantly-changing array of performances—and the people (mostly young girls) who are hired to cruise through the crowds with litter-grabbers, picking all this stuff up off the street.

Naturally, some of what’s going on is great, and a lot of it is…well, it’s entertaining (or at least forces you to look at it, in the manner of traffic accidents). One heck of a lot of energy, though; the Royal Mile zaps and sparks like an electrical conduit, pretty much twenty-four hours a day. (Both Fringe and Festival occupy a lot more space than the Royal Mile, of course—but given limited time and the location of our hotel, we hung out mostly on the Mile and up in New Town.)

We were privileged to be invited to the dress rehearsal of one of the Fringe plays, a musical comedy translated from the Czech original, called “Desire.” Deeply entertaining, though I admit that attending in a mildly intoxicated state (believe me, the whole _town_ is mildly intoxicated during Fringe) probably helped.

Edinburgh wasn’t strictly for fun, though; while there, I met with Mike Gibb and Kevin Walsh, the creative team behind Outlander: The Musical, and we went together to confer with a couple of nice folk at the Scottish Department of Culture, regarding possibilities both for doing the showcase of songs at Tartan Day in New York next April, and for expanding to a full-scale stage production. A lot of encouragement, some useful suggestions—and Mike tells me he’s been sequestered at his hideout in Perthshire for the last two weeks, working feverishly on the complete libretto—can’t wait to see that!

In re knees, though, I will say that hauling up, down, and sideways over the steep terrain of Edinburgh did a lot for my rehab efforts. The next stop in Scotland did even more, that being a castle with a 99-step spiral staircase [g]—and a haunted room at the top. But it’s 4 AM here now, so Castle Stuart is a story for tomorrow!

Live Launch!

2010-08-01T10:35:00.001-07:00

Just a quick report from the Aberdeen front: The official “live” launch of OUTLANDER: The Musical took place yesterday, as part of the Aberdeen Tartan Day festivities, and a Really Good Time was had by all, or so I’m told. [g]

Here’s the Official Tartan Day Photo (as taken by the Official City of Aberdeen Photographer—meaning it’s in focus) of the scene in St. Nicholas’s Kirk. And here is the link to the slightly less official but very exciting photos taken by Shona Duthie during the performance. (The white-haired gentleman visible in one of these photos is Mike Gibb, the lyricist who wrote the songs.)

I’ve had lovely emails and enthusiastic messages from a number of people who were there, and Mike reports: “Great performances and amazing audience reaction. Quite a few American and Canadians in the audience who were ecstatic about the whole thing. We were basically full for all three performances with SRO at the first.”

I have family visiting, so we celebrated modestly with a bottle (or two) of wine, and I played the songs for the assembled company from my laptop, showing the pictures from Aberdeen. Spontaneous applause, much admiration for Allan’s socks [g] (not sure that the ladies viewing them realized that he’s wearing ghillies with wrapped garters, rather than having a truly eccentric Argyll pattern decorating his ankles—hard to see fine detail on a laptop screen (well, and there was Rather a Lot of wine, too…), and a general hope that he grows his hair out longer before the next appearance. Sue’s and Allan’s vocals hugely enjoyed, and general raising of glasses to Mike, Kevin, and all the performers (being not limited to the actual stage, I could play them the whole song-cycle. We waited until the young men in the party (aged 17 to 26) went off to their own devices before playing “Say the Words” (the duet between Jamie and Black Jack Randall in Wentworth), though.)

Anyway, congratulations to all involved with OUTLANDER: The Musical!

Anyone wanting to check out song samples, or order a CD of the complete song-cycle, can do so here.

And now I must go and start packing for Scotland! So I’ll be scarce online for the next couple of weeks—might manage one more post before I leave-- but will hope to come back with nice pictures.

And Here's Claire!

2010-07-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

Or rather, Sue Robertson [g], who sings the role of Claire (and _very_ beautifully, too; she's got a lovely warm, cut-crystal voice).

Sue Robertson (Claire)

Sue started on stage at the grand old age of 16 with Dundee Operatic Society (DOS) with whom she has played many principal roles over the years such as Nancy in ‘Oliver’, Minnie-Fay in ‘Show Boat’, Adelaide. in ‘Guys & Dolls’ and Millie in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’. Sue has also had the privilege of working alongside playwright Mike Gibb playing the part of Grace on four occasions during 2005 - 2007 in theatres across Scotland in his musical play ‘Five Pound & Twa Bairns’ and Barbara in ‘Sunday Morning on Dundee Law’ which Kevin Walsh wrote the music for. She has also been in the ‘The Steamie’ playing Doreen in 2002 and again in 2004. Sue has recently enjoyed playing the ‘mad’ role of Helen for the second time, working with the cast of ‘The Berries – Twa an’ a Half Pence a Pund’, written by her husband Dundee author, poet and playwright Gary Robertson.