My life in books

The Space Between, Diana Gabaldon

Interesting novella, set in France and featuring Joan MacKimmie, Jamie Fraser's step-daughter (daughter of his second wife, Laoghaire MacKenzie), and Michael Murray, his nephew. Michael is taking Joan to join a French nunnery as a postulant, and in the process they encounter the Compte Saint Germain - who has his own plans for the young woman he believes to be the daughter of Claire Fraser. What intrigued me the most about the novella was its portrayal of Le Compte (a character whose historical and literary appearances I have some interest in) as not just a magician and alchemist (or a con man of some notoriety) but a time traveller much like Claire and the others so far encountered in the Outlander saga.'



After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, by Nancy Kress

It's very easy to see why this won the Nebula for Best Novella. The story is intense and compelling, the prose lean and yet visceral, and the characters - after, before and during the fall - are so very human in their fears and choices.

The story unfolds in three time - 2035 (after the fall), 2013 (before the fall) and 2014 (during the fall), but characters from after and before connect in various ways, and all three merge at the climax of the fall - a convergence of natural disasters on a massive scale that sparks nuclear devastation and the end of almost all life on earth. But in that climax, the message that one woman from before the fall manages to pass on to the handful of humans surviving after the fall is one that may save the future.


In the House of the Seven Librarians, Ellen Klages

A simple fantasy about a closed and forgotten library, seven librarians who stay there after it closes, keeping order and eating tea and biscuits (the new library that has replaced their beloved home is too modern and soulless for these librarians) and the baby left in the book return chute. I suppose it's technically a children's book, but I loved it. Beautifully illustrated and published by Aqueduct Press.

It seems that there has been a recent rebirth of the novella. I've been finding all sorts of books that are collections of three or four novella-length pieces - most of them in the urban fantasy and paranormal romance categories. Also, some publishing houses, notably Subterranean Press and Aquaduct Press, have been publishing a number of works in the novella to short novel range. And one finds novella-length pieces on various author and magazine websites all over the net. In the list below of novellas I've devoured this past year, if a novella was not acquired as a standalone publication (paper or edoc), I've tried to indicate the name of the book, or website I found it in/on.

As for the novellas themselves, there's quite a range. Many of the urban fantasy/paranormal romance novellas are much of a muchness. I was delighted to find a novella by Michelle Sagara set in her Cast universe, and found the novellas by Yasmine Galenorn and C. E. Murphy interesting enough that I intend to explore their novels.

On the other hand, I was very excited to read more tales set in Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam - Abigail Irene Garrett is a character I am very fond of. The same is true of the late and much lamented Kage Baker's steampunk sequence of novellas associated with her Company books. And I do like Diana Gabaldon's Lord John sequence of novels and novellas. And my devouring of Margaret Frazer's published oeuvre would not have been complete without the domina Frevisse novella.

Marjorie M. Liu, The Tangleroot Palace (Never After)
Marjorie M. Liu, Armor of Roses (Inked)
Marjorie M. Liu, Hunter Kiss (Wild Thing)

Yasmine Galenorn, The Shadow of Mist (Never After)
Yasmine Galenorn, Etched in Silver (Inked)

Mercedes Lackey, A Tangled Web (Harvest Moon)
Mercedes Lackey, Moontide (Winter Moon)
Mercedes Lackey, Counting Crows (Charmed Destinies)

Rachel Lee, Drusilla's Dream (Charmed Destinies)
Catherine Asaro, Moonglow (Charmed Destinies)
Michelle Sagara West, Cast in Moonlight (Harvest Moon) 
Cameron Haley, Retribution (Harvest Moon)
Karen Chance, Skin Deep (Inked)
Eileen Wilkes, Human Nature (Inked)
Maggie Shayne, Animal Magnetism (Wild Thing)
Meljean Brook, Paradise (Wild Thing)
Tanith Lee, Heart of the Moon (Winter Moon)
C. E. Murphy, Banshee Cries (Winter Moon)
Sharon Shinn, The Wrong Bridegroom (Never After)

Elizabeth Bear, In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns (Asimov's)
Elizabeth Bear, Seven For A Secret
Elizabeth Bear, The White City
Elizabeth Bear, Ad Eternum

Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Succubus (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Haunted Soldier (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, The Custom of the Army (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Plague of Zombies (via author's website)

Margaret Frazer, Winter Heart (Smashwords)

Kage Baker, Rude Mechanicals
Kage Baker, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea
Kage Baker, Speed, Speed the Cable

Diana Gabaldon:
Voyager
Drums of August
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Last year, I discovered Diana Gabaldon’s timetravelling romance series about modern-day English nurse (later doctor) Claire Duchamp and 18th century scottish laird and Jacobite supporter Jamie Fraser. I read the first two volumes, Outlanter and Dragonfly in Amber, and enjoyed them very much. I liked the dynamics between the lovers, and the complexities resulting from the displacement of Claire, with her medical experience and modern values, to Jamie’s violent and often superstitious Scotland.

In Dragonfly in Amber, we met Brianna, the grown-up daughter of Claire and Jamie, raised in the 20th century by Claire and her first husband, Frank Randall (the descendent of Captain Jack Randall, the main villain of the first volume), and celebrated at last the reunion of Claire and Fraser after a 20-year separation.

But there were a lot of books in the series still to read, and earlier this year, I read them.

Voyager takes Claire and Jamie from Scotland to the New World, while in the 20th century, Brianna begins to form an attachment with Scottish historian Roger MacKenzie (who is the descendant of the timetraveller Geillis, who is a minor antagonist in the 18th century stoyline, and a collateral branch of Jaime’s own family). Drums of August, The Fiery Cross, and A Breath of Snow and Ashes tell the story of Claire, Jamie, Brianna and Roger in pre-Revolutionary America.

There are many twists and turns, with Jamie re-establishing himself as a landowner and leader of a community of (mostly) Scottish immigrants to the Colonies, trying to negotiate a path between the Crown and the growing revolutionary movement (warned by the timetravelling members of his family that the revolutionaries will win in the end) in an attempt to keep his family and his community safe in violent times.

After six volumes, some of the plot devices are becoming repetitive. This is Jamie and Claire’s second rebellion, this is Jamie’s second time trying to protect the people he counts as his from war and political turbulence. Just about everyone has been abduct at least once, and in some cases more than once, Claire keeps running into other timetravellers at the strangest moments and so on. But the sweep and momentum of the tale remains strong, and the story of Claire and Jamie is just as engaging, even compelling as ever.

I hear the there is at least one more volume coming, and I'll be waiting for it.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon

I have no idea why I waited so long to read this book. I'd heard about this great series about a woman from modern times (well, post-WWII, anyway) who is magically transported two hundred years into the past, where, despite having a nice husband in her own time, she falls in love - somewhat unwillingly - with another nice man in the past, and gets all mixed up in the events preceding the battle of Culloden.

But for some reason I just didn't get around to reading it until recently - and now I find that I must go out and buy about half-a-dozen sequels, because the first book was every bit as good as everyone has been telling me it was.

Outlander begins with one of the lead characters, Claire Randall, an English nurse, on a second honeymoon in Scotland. There's some discussion of the role her husband's ancestor, a Captain John Randall, played in the bloody hisory of the Jacobite Risings - the long attempt by the Highland Scots to return the house of Stuart to the throne of England and Scotland following deposition of James II in 1688, which was finally crushed in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden. (I should digress here to note that I myself am part Scot, part Welsh, and all Celt, and as far as the history of the time is concerned, my sympathies are all with the Scots and not the slightest with the Sassenach.)

While in Scotland, Claire discovers that there is a standing circle near where they are staying, where some of the local women still worship in the "old ways." When she explores the circle herself, she finds herself drawn back to 1745, where she finds herself caught up in the politics of the clans, the cause of the Jacobites, the invading Sassenach - one of whom is her husband's ancestor, and eventually a bold Scotsman named Jamie Fraser who wins her heart.

It's fascinating historical fiction wrapped up in a time-travelling frame, with all the complications that entails, it's a refreshing romance between two people who become friends and partners as well as lovers, and it's - most welcome of all - a story of an intelligent, resourceful, courageous and tough woman who survives and thrives despite being thrown out of her own time and all that she knows and understands.