A Breath of Fresh Air

I just finished reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon, and as usual at the end of a good novel, I'm already impatient for more. It's the sixth novel in the Outlander series - I read the first book in the series, Outlander, probably 12 years ago. Actually, now that I think about it, I really started with the second in the series, Dragonfly In Amber, unaware that it was a continuing story.

When I first started reading these books, I thought they were your average smutty romance novel - you know, the bodice-ripper historical romances. I'm not a frequent reader of bodice-rippers, but they occasionally suffice for a good, quick, brainless read. I quickly learned the Outlander series was not your average bodice-ripper romance. It's definitely a romance, and it's historical - although it actually deals with real historical events, like the 1745 Jacobite Rising and the Revolutionary War. There's also a science-fiction element thrown in, in addition to superstition, mystery and a kind of 18th century ER.

I'm a fan of science fiction, and the element that pulled me in to this series was time travel. The main character, Claire, gets throttled back from 1945 to 1743, after stumbling through a cleft in a rock at a stone circle. In the midst of her confusion, she runs into her husband's ancestor - Johnothan Randall - an English army officer who also happens to be a sadistic pervert. Disconcerted by his resemblence to her husband, she's thrown into even more confusion, then abducted by Highlanders on a cattle raid. She meets Jamie Fraser, and nurses wounds he incurred in the raid. As the story develops, she falls in love with Jamie, and marries him to avoid being turned over to Randall as a suspected spy.

Ok, the part in the 1700's may sound like a smutty romance novel, but it progresses as Claire knows they are close to the brink of war - the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. Can it be prevented? Can thousands of Highlanders' lives be saved with her knowledge? It's quite interesting to wonder - if time travel were possible, what exactly can be changed, and what are its implications for the future?

In the second novel, Claire ends up going back through the stone circle to the future, pregnant with Jamie's child. He was trying to save her and the baby from assured death in the war. So now she's back in the future, had a child that was concieved in the past, then 18 years later finds out Jamie actually made it through the war alive!

Those were basically the first two books - I'm not going to launch into a book report on the rest, but Claire ends up traveling back to the past, Jamie and Claire end up in America, their daughter travels back to the past to warn them of their death notice she saw in historical documents - death in the burning of their house in North Carolina. There are other time-travelers in the book as well, and they play quite a part in the unfolding events.

What's interesting is the knowledge the time-travelers posess of the future - the upcoming Revolutionary War, medical practices (Claire is a doctor) which propose the interesting question - did significant inventions arise solely from the invention process, or were they just re-invented from people who could travel back in time? Claire saved countless lives with penicillin she developed from mold, and in this last book she was able to perform an appendectomy due to her ability to synthesize ether and anesthetize her patient. All done before penecillin or anesthesia was invented.

This last book had me turning pages in a frenzy in some spots, getting a little misty-eyed in others, and laughing along with the characters in other spots. And dammit if it didn't have to end with a bit of a cliffhanger, leaving me impatient for the next and final installment.

If anyone is looking for an excellent read of romance, science-fiction, history, war, intrigue, or humor, complete with wichcraft, indians, pirates, whiskey-making, and murder - this is definitely the story to read!

Heck, I'd take a good story like this over the rot on TV any day!