• “The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics.”—Salon.com
  • A time-hopping, continent-spanning salmagundi of genres.”
    —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
  • “These books have to be word-of-mouth books because they're too weird to describe to anybody.”
    —Jackie Cantor, Diana's first editor

Jamie, or John?

Oookay, then!

Sorry to be so late in getting this post up; I’ve been in New Mexico for the last week, and the internet connection there was Just Abysmal; could barely keep it open long enough to tweet, let alone upload anything longer.
First things first: Upcoming appearances.

I’m flying to New York on Monday, and will be appearing (briefly) at the RWA convention, held at the Marriott Marquis. Appearances will be:

The Literacy Signing, where most of the published authors taking part will be available to sell/sign books—this is from 5:30-7:30 on June 28th, at the Marriott Marquis. This event _is_ open to the public, and I _believe_ that you’re allowed to bring in up to three of your own books from home to be signed, if you like.
The opening panel of the convention, where I’ll be taking part in a discussion with two other Random House authors, Steve Berry and Tess Gerritsen. This is part of the convention and open only to convention attendees. It’ll be from 8:30-10:00 AM on June 29th.

Then on July 5th—publication date for the cool new 20th-anniversary OUTLANDER edition!—I fly to Laramie Wyoming, where I’ll be doing the keynote speech for the Sir Walter Scott conference at the University of Wyoming. The conference program is here http://www.uwyo.edu/scottconf2011/program.html , but I don’t yet have a detailed personal schedule. I _will_ be doing at least one public book-signing, though; will post time and place as soon as I get them.

On July 8th, I fly _back_ to New York, for ThrillerFest, at the Hyatt. There, I’ll be doing a Livestream event with James Rollins (Powell’s Books is supplying books to be sold during this event—and I certainly _hope_ they’ll have the 20th-anniversary edition!) from 2-4:00 PM on July 8th.

On the evening of July 8th, I’ll be doing a joint signing with several other authors for a collaborative mystery novel called NO REST FOR THE DEAD. (This is one of those for-charity efforts—proceeds for this one go to cancer research—where a number of well-known authors take turns writing chapters, and the editor then goes through and kind of smooths things out so the story is coherent. Or so we hope, anyway.)

The signing will be held at 7:00 PM at the Center for Fiction, (17 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017), and authors attending will include Peter James, Marcia Talley, John Lescroart, RL Stine, Diana Gabaldon,Jeffery Deaver, Gayle Lynds and Andrew Gulli. (Just for my own part, I’m fine with people bringing their own books to be signed, too.) This is open to the public.

Aaaand, on July 9th, I’ll do a Spotlight Interview (at the Hyatt) for ThrillerFest, Kathleen Antrim being the interviewer. That’s from 1:00-1:50 PM. And then I’ll do a book-signing for the convention (open only to convention attendees) from 5:00-6:00 PM at the convention bookstore in the hotel.

Then I rush home on the 10th {g}, and do the Official Launch Party for the 20th-anniversary OUTLANDER on July 11th, at The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale. 7:00 PM!

Righto. Now, I had promised to show you the two openings I have for SCOTTISH PRISONER. As it stands, I’m opening the book with Jamie’s point of view—but I _could_ open with Lord John’s first chapter instead, and do Jamie’s second.  I did it this way because I’d like people to realize right away that this is Jamie’s book, as much as Lord John’s—but it _is_ a Rather Unusual {cough} way to open a book.

So—those of you who don’t read excerpts should stop Right Here.

Those of you who _do_…here you go, and hope you enjoy them! Let me know what you think: Jamie first, or Lord John?

THE SCOTTISH PRISONER
(Copyright 2011 Diana Gabaldon)
Chapter 1:

Helwater, the Lake District
April 1, 1760

It was so cold out, he thought his cock might break off in his hand. If he could find it. The thought passed through his sleep-mazed mind like one of the small, icy drafts that darted through the loft, making him open his eyes.
He could find it now; had waked with his fist wrapped round it and desire shuddering and twitching over his skin like a cloud of midges. The dream was wrapped just as tightly round his mind, but he knew it would fray in seconds, shredded by the snores and farts of the other grooms. He needed her, needed to spill himself with the feel of her touch still on him.
Hanks stirred in his sleep, chuckled loudly, said something incoherent, and fell back into the void, murmuring, “Bugger, bugger, bugger…”
Jamie said something similar under his breath in the Gaelic, and flung back his blanket. Damn the cold.
He made his way down the ladder into the half-warm, horse-smelling fug of the barn, nearly falling in his haste, ignoring a splinter in his bare foot. He hesitated in the dark, still urgent. The horses wouldn’t care, but if they noticed him, they’d make enough noise, perhaps, to wake the others.

Wind struck the barn and went booming round the roof. A strong chilly draft with a scent of snow stirred the somnolence, and two or three of the horses shifted, grunting and whickering. Overhead, a murmured “‘ugger” drifted down, accompanied by the sound of someone turning over and pulling the blanket up round his ears, defying reality.

Claire was still with him, vivid in his mind, solid in his hands. He could imagine that he smelled her hair in the scent of fresh hay. The memory of her mouth, those sharp white teeth …he rubbed his nipple, hard and itching beneath his shirt, and swallowed.

His eyes were long accustomed to the dark; he found the vacant loose-box at the end of the row and leaned against its boards, cock already in his fist, body and mind yearning for his wife.
He’d have made it last if he could, but he was fearful lest the dream go altogether and he surged into the memory, groaning. His knees gave way in the aftermath and he slid slowly down the boards of the box into the loose piled hay, shirt rucked round his thighs and his heart pounding like a kettle drum.

[end section]

(more stuff in this chapter, of course)

Chapter 2: The Fate of Fuses

London
Argus House

Lord John Grey eyed the ribbon-tied packet on his knee as though it were a bomb. In fact, it couldn’t have been more explosive had it been filled with black powder and equipped with a fuse.
His attitude as he handed it to his brother must have reflected this knowledge, for Hal fixed him with a gimlet eye and raised one brow. He said nothing, though, flicking loose both ribbon and wrapping with an impatient gesture and bending his head at once over the thick sheaf of densely-written sheets that emerged.

Grey couldn’t stand to watch him read through Charles Carruthers’s post-mortem denunciation, recalling each damning page as Hal read it. He stood up and went to the window of the study that looked out into the back garden of Argus House, ignoring the swish of turning pages and the occasional blasphemous mutterings behind him.

Hal’s three boys were playing a game of tigers and hunters, leaping out at each other from behind the shrubbery with shrill roars, followed by shrieks of delight and yells of “Bang! Take that, you striped son of a bitch!”

The nurse seated on the edge of the fish-pool, keeping a tight grip on baby Dottie’s gown, looked up at this, but merely rolled her eyes with a martyred expression. Flesh and blood has its limits, her expression said clearly, and she resumed paddling a hand in the water, luring one of the big goldfish close so that Dottie could drop bits of bread to it.

John longed to be down there with them. It was a rare day for early April, and he felt the pulse of it in his blood, urging him to be outside, running bare-foot through young grass. Running naked down into the water… The sun was high, flooding warm through the glass of the French windows, and he closed his eyes and turned his face up to it.

Siverly. The name floated in the darkness behind his eyes, pasted across the blank face of an imagined cartoon major, drawn in uniform, an outsized sword brandished in his hand, and bags of money stuffed into the back of his breeches, obscene bulges under the skirt of his coat. One or two had fallen to the ground, bursting open so that you could see the contents–coin in one, the other filled with what looked like poppets, small wooden doll-like things. Each one with a tiny knife through its heart.

Hal swore in German behind him. He must have reached the part about the rifles; German oaths were reserved for the most stringent occasions, French being used for minor things like a burnt dinner, and Latin for formal insults committed to paper. Minnie wouldn’t let either Hal or John swear in English in the house, not wanting the boys to acquire low habits. John could have told her it was too late for such caution, but didn’t.

He turned round to see Hal on his feet, pale with rage, a sheet of paper crumpled in one hand.

“How dare he? How dare he?”

A small knot he hadn’t known was there dissolved under John’s ribs.

“You believe Carruthers, then?”

Hal glared at him.

“Don’t you? You knew the man.”

He had known Charles Carruthers–in more than one sense.

“Yes, I believed him when he told me about Siverly in Canada–and that–” he nodded at the papers, thrown in a sprawl across Hal’s desk, “–is even more convincing. You’d think he’d been a lawyer.”
He could still see Carruthers’s face, pale in the dimness of his attic room in [town], drawn with ill-health but set with grim determination to live long enough to see justice done. Charlie hadn’t lived that long, but long enough to write down every detail of the case against Major Gerald Siverly, and to entrust it to him.

He was the fuse that would detonate this particular bomb. And he was all too familiar with what happened to fuses, once lit.

[end section]

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364 Responses »

  1. Jamie IS the Scottish Prisoner. My personal vote is Jamie, but either way it would be a good opening. When you think about this book who is the first person that comes to your mind? I’m very much looking forward to reading it either way!

  2. I have to go with Lord John. I LOVE Jamie’s excerpt, but LJ’s “goes” more with other Lord John books, and definitely pulls the reader into the story.

  3. Both are wonderful, but I think John’s section is the better beginning.

  4. Poor Jamie – to have such a dream on April Fool’s Day!

    (did they have that in 1760? April Fool’s, that is . . .)

    (I *know* they had the, er, other . . .)

    Anyhoo –

    Sex. Jamie.

    Elaine, the one from MI

  5. Starting with Jamie would be a hoot!! I vote that you start with the Lord John chapter. It seems to lead into the plot better. Is there some way that you could include Custom of the Army in the book? I do have the book that contains it, but not everyone does. Much as I love Lord John and want to read everything that you write about him, I still love Jamie and Claire more. Please hurry up and finish “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” and “Terror Daemonium” and work real hard on book #8. I can’t wait to see how you tie up all the loose ends from the last book.

  6. I would go with Lord John.

  7. I have only recently started reading the Lord John novels and I must say I have a new appreciation for this character. However I have to admit that Jamie Fraser is by far on the top of my list. To start the story with Jamie’s point of view would be wonderful since get more glimpses of what his life was like after Claire.

  8. Jamie all the way !! Yes, it’s a Lord John book, but let’s be honest, we all want Jamie, Claire, and all the sex scenes that are necessary to tell the story !!

  9. Jamie. What a way to ease into a book. Bang! Love it.

  10. Lord John should be first.

  11. Diana,

    As much as I am in love with Jamie and his passion for Claire, I would have to agree that it would be a better flow and hook to have the opening be with Lord John.

    Thank you for allowing us to participate in these developments.

    Patricia Pearsell
    Whitby, Ontario

  12. I vote for Jamie because it’s clearer. I have trouble understanding the LJG version.

  13. First off, I agree with starting with Lord John.

    Second, I was wondering if there are plans to re-release all of the books in the same style as the 20th anniversary Outlander? I discovered the books when Outlander was free to read online and devoured all of the books over the next few months to the detriment of my medical school studies. (I had a love and hate relationship with some of the descriptions of infectious diseases because I was reading them at the same time I was trying to learn them.) Mainly, I would like to know if there is any reason to wait to buy all the books.

    Third, do you have any plans to come to the southeast??

    • Dear Danielle–

      I’ll be at DragonCon over Labor Day weekend–that’s in Atlanta.

      I wouldn’t wait for all the books to be released in 20-year editions. A) I have no idea whether the publisher would consider doing that, and B) even if they did, the books would be released at intervals of 2-4 years, which is a long time to wait.

      (You can get the regular hardcover editions–signed–anytime, from The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale.)

      –Diana

  14. I would love to see Jamie’s chapter first, it is so heart wrenching and will keep us in the mind that this is Jamie’s as well as John’s story.

  15. I love both of them. Jamie’s grabs you by the shirt collar and yanks you in. John’s is more like peeping in the window and you just have to go in to find out exactly what is going on!

  16. I think starting with Jamie would be a change from the other Lord John books, but a refreshing way to hang them all into the Outlander saga. (If there happens to be a soul out there that doesn’t know they are related :o) I enjoyed both of them, so it really doesn’t matter to me.

  17. Those of us who joined the ranks in the Outlander wonder why you gave up on Jamie and Claire. If you are no longer interested in the characters perhaps you might let us know. They are after all not “ours” but yours and yet we expect them to play the integral part in the narrative. Have you answered the question about the dearth of them in the last novel that I might have missed? it was appallingly derivative and many of us were left feeling vastly disappointed and, how odd, furious. I will wait for the reviews about what ever comes next and hope for the best.

    Not interested in Lord John beyond his relationship to Jamie, perhaps others are as obviously are you. I wonder why.

    • Dear Sylvia–

      No idea what you mean by “dearth of Jamie and Claire” in the last novel (I suppose you mean ECHO?), but you’re certainly entitled to your own opinion. No, I haven’t lost interest in them–not sure where you get that notion, either.

      If you’re only interested in Lord John with regard to his relationship with Jamie, though–you’ll certainly enjoy THE SCOTTISH PRISONER, which is a two-man book, with an alternating viewpoint between Jamie and Lord John.

      –Diana

      • Regarding your response to “Sylvia”, I would like to make this observation. I think that you used considerable restraint and diplomacy in your answer. Concerning the “dearth” of Jamie and Claire in Echo, anyone who reads these novels and does not perceive that Jamie and Claire literally scream out at you from every page is simply not getting it. Whether the dialogue is about Lallybroch, Jemmy, Willie, Jenny or whomever, it all has to do with Jamie and Claire – bottom line.

        I would not want you to change one thing about the way you write these books. I cannot comprehend where people get the idea that they should be written for their personal mindset about how they should progress.

        Keep writing and I will keep waiting (ahem) patiently for the next installment.

  18. Taking everything into consideration, I’d do Lord John first.
    Thanks for letting us share an opinion.

  19. I vote for the Jamie chapter first. However, I’ll buy the book no matter which chapter you put first. I just love your books!

    • My inital thought is “Jamie” all the way. But…after reading both again (over and over again actually) my vote if for the “Lord John” chapter. Jamie’s chapter blows your mind and makes your heart hurt all at the same time but, feels like it’s just Jamie’s story. Lord John’s chapter reminds you that you’re in a Lord John story and feels like it sets the stage for how the two men will tie together. Really though, the novices giving advice to the Master (or Mistress)…c’mon!!! We love you and will read anything you throw at us.

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