books

[thanate]

good grief... (future of reading quote montage, cadged from reabhecc) I had not looked into the digital media books previously (since I don't want to be reading a book off my computer screen, anyway-- the resolution isn't good enough, and it's really just not the same) except for the fact that not just some but all of the wall ads leaving the Lafante Plaza metro station on Saturday were duplicates for somebody's new digital reader.

But speaking of reading, is anyone familiar with an author called Diana Gabaldon? I'm unclear as to whether she writes historical fiction or time-travel fantasy, but Donna keeps telling me about how good her books are, and how all of her other "Society for Creative Achronism" friends *love* this author, and what she writes is just so *real* that you feel like you're actually there, and all the things that people say which make me wonder if this is advice that I in fact wish to listen to. Besides the fact that the only other thing I know about her SCA friends is that she once made one of them an amazing bead embroidered bellydance belt, which does not necessarily instill me with confidence about their level of historical accuracy.

Comments

[stanci.livejournal.com]

Read it. Enjoyed it. I'd classify it more as "historical romance" than anything else. The line is rather blurry as to whether it was historical fiction or time-travel fantasy.
And, besides, it's post period, as the Outlander books take place during the whole Bonnie Prince Charlie thing in Scotland. (which really means that I don't know near enough to comment on the historical accuracy of the books)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Ok, thanks. It was just one of those problems of when someone whose taste in literature I don't know anything about starts telling me about something I absolutely must read, I tend to be a bit... cautious.

[gcbiggles.livejournal.com]

I read the first three or four in the series about seven years ago and would definitely class them as romance comma historical. There is a lot of period detail (which I of course have no idea if it's accurate or not).
I didn't *love* them the way a lot of people do. I didn't like the main character much (thought she was too 21st-century to be a WWII-era girl), and they're not super-well-written despite the level of detail. And there was sexual violence between the romantic leads, which really put me off; in one scene they essentially raped each other and I couldn't stomach it.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

fascinating. Donna said "don't read the Lord John Grey series" because apparently it has intimate details about his homosexual experiences, but apparently she doesn't mind icky hetro details & dynamics? Distressing.

What I want to know is why people insist on detailing events in their characters' lives that they [in most cases, I hope] wouldn't tell the world about their own. I mean, really...

(oh, and I hear you're in need of congratulations? I take it you made it to the married state without undue ulcers or panic attacks?)