Title: Dragonfly in Amber
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher: Delta Trade Paperback (2007)
Genre(s): Fiction, Historical Fiction
Length: 743 pages
Synopsis: Claire knows the future. Or rather, she knows the past. Her knowledge, however, is nothing like that of her late husband, historian Frank Randall. More than twenty years ago, she vanished from the face of the earth for three years when she fell through the cracks of time itself and found herself in eighteenth century Scotland. Trapped in the past, she finds the love of her life in the form of Jamie Fraser, a young Scottish lord. When the exiled king James and his son Charles begin plotting to free Scotland from English rule, suddenly Claire's knowledge of history becomes the power to see the future, a future that ends in the bloody battle of Culloden. As she recounts her tale to her daughter Brianna, Claire must reconcile herself to the events of the past, as well as those of the present.
My Rating: 4 Stars
My Opinion: This second book in the Outlander series picks up a good two hundred years from where the first volume, Outlander, left off. The preordained arc of actual history melds almost seamlessly with the far more personal story of Claire and her family. Knowing the story ahead of time, however, leaves Gabaldon rather little wiggle room. Her fictions seem to push against the constraints of fact, wishing for more space to grow but unable to find it. Even more constraining is the nature of this story's telling; Claire is looking back at her past as she relives it for her daughter, so in addition to the preordained nature of history, there's a certain lack of spontaneity in knowing where the story is leading these characters on a personal level. If there was a great deal of character development, this predictable plot wouldn't be as distracting, but Claire and Jamie's romance is well defined and there seem to be few other trials for them as people. Neither are there many well developed secondary characters to offer an alternative source of interest. The book reads like a good television series in its second or third season; the initial device that drives the plot has come to its natural conclusion, but somehow the full story hasn't played itself out yet. There's more to come, but I'm not sure whether Gabaldon was able to keep the contrived feeling that nagged at this book from controlling the sequels. I suppose I'll just have to read them and find out.
My Opinion: This second book in the Outlander series picks up a good two hundred years from where the first volume, Outlander, left off. The preordained arc of actual history melds almost seamlessly with the far more personal story of Claire and her family. Knowing the story ahead of time, however, leaves Gabaldon rather little wiggle room. Her fictions seem to push against the constraints of fact, wishing for more space to grow but unable to find it. Even more constraining is the nature of this story's telling; Claire is looking back at her past as she relives it for her daughter, so in addition to the preordained nature of history, there's a certain lack of spontaneity in knowing where the story is leading these characters on a personal level. If there was a great deal of character development, this predictable plot wouldn't be as distracting, but Claire and Jamie's romance is well defined and there seem to be few other trials for them as people. Neither are there many well developed secondary characters to offer an alternative source of interest. The book reads like a good television series in its second or third season; the initial device that drives the plot has come to its natural conclusion, but somehow the full story hasn't played itself out yet. There's more to come, but I'm not sure whether Gabaldon was able to keep the contrived feeling that nagged at this book from controlling the sequels. I suppose I'll just have to read them and find out.
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