The Navi-Gator: a Gator's Guide to Library Resources

Pages: 627

 

Yes, yes, yes, unless you've been living under a rock, people are well aware of the hit television series based upon this book series.  In fact, at the time of me writing this, commercials are airing so frequently about the upcoming season that it's sort of becoming old news even before the first frame of the season hits our screens. So I may not even need this plot summary, but I'll include it anyway for those still living under a rock. Claire Randall is a nurse living in post World War II England. She had been serving on the bloodiest fronts of the war and is just returned and reunited with her husband, Frank, who had been serving in intelligence.  In order to reconnect, and in order for Frank, a historian in his professional life, to do some genealogical research, they take a second honeymoon in Scotland.  While enjoying themselves, Claire, an avid herbalist, finds a rare herb near a circle of mystical stones.  Upon visiting the circle and touching the stones, Claire is hurled back in time to the mid-740s, an era of great and tumultuous change in Scotland.  After a bunch of confusion, and almost being assaulted by a man that looks like her husband's twin, she finds herself among a gang of upper-class Jacobite men, one of which is James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Frasier. Hiding her future origins, Claire becomes the healer for the Mackenzie clan, of whom Jamie is nephew to the clan chief.  Through various, trials, tribulations, and conspiring, Jamie and Claire find themselves married to each other (for Claire's own protection).  We also learn that the man who looks like Frank is British Army officer Jonathan Randall, a man with such a sadistic soul that his nickname "Black Jack" is well earned.  He and Jamie have been playing an eternal game of cat and mouse for years and Claire's presence only worsens the situation. This culminates in some horrific events near the end of the novel.

 

This first book in the long lasting, evergreen series, (it's still being written), is probably one of the best in the series.  I, honestly, am close to not finishing the series because the later books have issues that the first three books in the series do not have.  Gabaldon, in later books, is sacrificing tight plot for a lot of unnecessary details to seemingly make a page count which will give the illusion of epic-ness to her series.  It's like she must hit a page count above 1100 and it results in meandering plots and oft repeated tropes including the repeated assaults upon the members of the Frasier family which gets tiresome.  However, this first book has a tight plot, regardless of it's over 600-page-count length.  Through this, we also learn a surprising amount of genuinely good Scottish history, as this takes place at a time which part of the Scottish populace is rebelling against their English overlords. The characters in these first few books are memorable and fully fleshed out (also another weakness of the later half of the series, when many of the characters start to become one dimensional caricatures, including the main characters who we get introduced to in this book). Jamie is a chivalrous yet problematic man of his time (he does have a controversial scene post marriage with Claire that many fans of the series still debate to this very day).  His Uncle Dougal, clan war chief, is greedy and jealous of Jamie yet loyal to clan and the Jacobite cause.  Murtaugh, Jamie's godfather, is supportive.  Frank is solid yet boring.  Then there's Claire, who brings a sarcastic, practical, yet unwise voice to the mid-Eighteenth century.  (There's a story that Gabaldon wanted to write a period novel only but this modern voice kept on intruding, and thus was born Time-Traveler Claire.)  The only character who lacks nuance is Black Jack, himself, here lies no sympathetic villain but a black-hearted demon reminiscent of some horrible nightmare fairy story.  The sins he commits against Claire and Jamie are truly trigger warnings.  

 

This book is a massive tome of popular fiction with tight plot, excellent characters, and an entertaining story. Its both a highfaluting, literary, period piece while also being a sort of trashy summery lurid romance..  I suggest that if you do continue through the series, stop after The Fiery Cross; A Breath of Snow and Ashes is unfortunately the beginning of the meandering, repetitive plots, and the caricature-izations.