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]
By all means start with jamie!
Jamie.
I have to vote for John. It is a Lord John book we are reading, and I think new readers would not grasp the situation and emotional depth (and action) in the Jamie scene.
I do love Jamie to bits, but i have to vote for John in this instance.
I prefer John’s as the opening of the book.
I don’t really care which one starts the book, as I hate the Lord John series altogether. He is only ever worth being a secondary character in the Outlander series, in my humble opinion. The only reason Jaime is in this book is to make it sell more, and try and get people hooked on the Lord John series, well sorry, but it won’t work for me.
I am also saddened to see that the courseness that started to creep into the sex scenes in the last Outlander book, Echo, is prevelant here from the start. I am no prude, and I LOVE the passion between Jaime and Claire, but I don’t really think it is necessary to start with a wanking scene.
Dear d.hewson–
Well, tastes differ. That is one reason for asking what y’all think, after all.
Thanks for your opinion!
–Diana
P.S. If I merely wanted to sell more books, I wouldn’t write the Lord John books at all. I write them because they talk to me.
I wish there was even more fabulous, wonderful, intimate, sensual, soul-consuming, romantic, angry, rough, possessive, gentle, tender, sex, sex, sex, sex!
AMEN, Sista! :o)
Even though I’ve read many good arguments for Lord John’s point of view as the first scene of the book above, I can’t help myself and have to vote for Jamie. Apart from setting the time and the book being called ‘The Scottish Prisoner’, it just feels… better for me, somehow.
My first reaction is JAMIE!! Nothing hooks a reader quite like sex, but the arguments for John are quite compelling. Ugh. Tough choice!!
I think you should go with Jamie. Sure it’s not a conventional way to start out a novel but it definitely grabs one’s attention.
JAMIE! I will always choose Jamie!
I would go with Lord John, not sure why, but it seems more of a proper opening.
However, I simply can not wait much longer for just about anything to be published, so please hurry.
Your books were a salvation to me during some rough times, and I have learned so much through them, about our country, the way we lived, medicines & botany, about Scotland. I truly have my own story to share about how your books gave me a world that I could exist in during my own most troubling times.
Thank you Diana!
One of your fans. Patty
Start with Lord John.
I love Lord John and Jamie (but maybe John a tad bit more) and think either opening will be phenomenal.
However…because this _IS_ the third book in the LORD JOHN series, I think Lord John should open the book to continue the story we saw in “Custom of the Army.” This investigation has been an ongoing theme and while Jamie has been mentioned in the previous books and will take a larger role in this one, many readers tend to gravitate to ONLY Jamie, disregarding Lord John’s own storyline. I know there are many fans out there who have not read the Lord John books because Jamie isn’t in them and they only want their “Jamie fix.” Lots of fans thought Lord John took up too much of the storyline in ECHO, even though he’s an integral part to the overall storyline.
I think if Jamie’s scene opens the book, those fans will ooh and aah over Jamie, and then possibly bypass the rest of the story while they look only for the chapters with Jamie. This isn’t fair to Lord John’s own story, his fans or the way Diana has woven these two story-lines and characters together with their back stories, to show how Lord John and Jamie have gotten to the comfortable friendship depicted in the later books in the OUTLANDER series.
I say let Lord John continue to open _HIS_ series — Jamie’s will continue in Book Eight.
When I mentioned this discussion to my BF who is also a fan of BOTH series, he gave me another insight.
If Jamie’s scene opens the book, it immediately sounds like the beginning of a romance novel – something Diana has tried strongly to veer away from.
Lord John should open.
While I love everything you write, I am a Jamie (and Claire) fan all the way. Lord John just never touched me the way Jamie did. I think Jamie will draw anyone who has an interest much quicker than Lord John. Can’t wait to read…
Ms. Gabaldon,
Thanks for the opportunity to have a vote about your book!
Scottish Prisoner is how Lord John first thought of Jamie. Jamie wouldn’t think of himself as a “Scottish Prisoner”, only as a prisoner because being Scottish is just part of who he is. However, for Lord John, the distinction of “Scottish” bears meaning. So, I think it sound reasoning to start the book with Lord John’s scene first. For those not familiar with the overall story, Lord John’s scene will help bring them into this world. And, for those of us who already love Jamie, we’ll have something to look forward to even if it is heartbreaking.
I’m looking forward to reading some of the story from Jamie’s perspective. While I love Claire and can identify with her character, sometimes I would be interested to know what Jamie is thinking in the first person rather than from Claire’s viewpoint.
Thanks, again, for entertaining our opinions!
El
Team Jamie!
Dear Diana,
First, I would like to sincerely thank you for allowing your fans to voice an opinion in this matter, it is one of the many things that sets you apart as a writer. As to the situation presented, my immediate response was, of course, “Jamie!” since I, like many fans, love him. But upon re-reading your excerpts and thinking some more, I must say that I think the book should begin with Lord John. In the Outlander series when we encounter Lord John, we learn things about him, but we ultimately learn more about Jamie because of his interactions and responses to Lord John. When captured as a young boy at Prestonpans in Dragonfly in Amber we learn of Lord John’s sense of duty and honor, but it is Jamie who the readers gleam more insight concerning, (on a side note, it is a wonderful scene).
In the Lord John series it should be reversed, we should learn more about Lord John because of Jamie. The passion, anguish and longing shown in the Jamie bit, how does it relate to Lord John? We know he’s suffered and lost, but what traits does he share with Jamie, how do they enhance or contrast one another? By beginning with Lord John’s section we are reminded that it is in fact his story, no matter how important Jamie may be to that story and Jamie will have more of his time in Book 8. All of your characters are unique, distinct and engaging, each should shine no matter how much fans, like myself, desire to read Jamie. If your books were a play, Jamie would be the lead, but one of his character traits is that he’s a supporter, whether of Claire, Ian and Jenny or his men. Let him support Lord John in his series and the take the forefront again in the next installment to the Outlander series. Thank you for this opportunity and for your characters (and works) they are wonderful.
All the best wishes,
Alison
Dear Diana,
Being such a huge fan of both these characters makes this a difficult decision….
Oh who am I kidding!
Jamie of course!
Lord John is a great character and the scene makes me laugh, but what a way to start a book!
You are amazingly daring!
Love it all!
Well, Gee Whiz, am I the only guy who reads this wonderful series. Well I do have a preference, and it’s Jamie for the opener. Why. Okay here goes, and I have read all the books. First of all I see the books or plot is about Clair and as the books progress about Jamie and their family and the one they create together. The other people or characters are those who wander thru their lives and add additional interest to the story being presented. They add meat to the plot that would otherwise be dull and and uninteresting, but as I see it that is all they do. Like all those in our lives, they help make us who we are and who we become. So I vote for Jamie. Just one guys thoughts.
Bill
Definitely Jamie – It’s like missing family when it goes too long between books about Jamie and Claire!
Lord John