[347]≫ [PDF] Drums of Autumn Outlander Diana Gabaldon 9780385335980 Books

Drums of Autumn Outlander Diana Gabaldon 9780385335980 Books

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Drums of Autumn Outlander Diana Gabaldon 9780385335980 Books

Nothing I'm going to say should deter you from choosing to read Drums of Autumn, the fourth book in the Outlander series. However, because Amazon tends to want readers to review, I am going to mention some elements of this book that gave me pause and kept it from being perfect. Overall, the book is as well written, researched and detailed as the previous three and worth the time I invested it it, but for me this one is not as thrilling and at times, felt ponderous. I plan to read the fifth book, but I am approaching it with the trepidatious fear of a decline in the overall quality of the series.

******************************************************SPOILERS**********************************************************

This book centers on the relationship between Claire's and Jamies' daughter, Brianna and Roger McKenzie Wakefield a historian and friend to Claire and Bree. They are two throughly modern young people in their early to late 20s. Both time travel to the mid-18th Century, Bree in search of her mother and father, Roger in search of Bree. I found it easier to accept Claire's initial time travel and subsequent return because both her generational upbringing ( England in the 20s and 30s) and her marriage to a scholarly historian would give her just a bit if a leg up on making the transition. Bree, on the other hand is a child of the 50s and 60s. She's been brought up in America and retains her fairly modern speech patterns and many of the idioms. Those idiosyncrasies don't seem to cause much if a stir among the strangers that she meets. It's not a huge thing, but it did notice it.

My second and somewhat larger complaint lay in Bree's Olympic quality conclusion jumping. She and Roger become married by hand fasting and consummate their relationship. Two days later she is raped by a pirate. Upon finding herself pregnant she is immediately convinced that it is the child of the pirate. Much of the relationship angst between her and Roger revolves around that assumption. I found it a bit drawn out and contrived, but then many of Bree's actions and attitudes fell into that category for me. Bottom line, I found Bree to be impulsive, headstrong and a bit of a pain in the backside.

The best thing Ms. Galbadon does is to write characters who are very, very human. In other words, flawed. I am giving Ms. Galbadon the benefit of the doubt that that was her thinking behind the writing of Bree's character.

My last concern centers on a scene with Claire as she performs inguinal hernia surgery on a man in the midst of a dinner party. Even in the barbaric American colonies, a woman performing surgery in the region of a man's testicles in the midst of a dinner party strains credulity. The fact that this surgery was witnessed almost without comment by the dinner guests breaks it completely. It was a well written scene, but I just couldn't "buy it."

I've enjoyed these books up to this point. Fingers crossed that the author's imagination doesn't stray too far in to the realm of incredulity in the next books.


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Drums of Autumn Outlander Diana Gabaldon 9780385335980 Books Reviews

I have been readying all of the books and also watched the Star's serious so I got through this book but I do not think it was one of the best. These book are meant to be part of a series but also supposed to be able to stand alone. If this is the first book I picked up, I would not have read another. It was too slow and got into too much detail about the activities of daily living. I did find a lot of that interesting from a historical point of view but it got rather tedious and would have preferred more fast paced adventure like in the first two books. I am now on the next book and it a lot better. I will continue to read the series because I love all of the characters so much. If you are reading the series, I would recommend that you read this book just so you know what is going on but if you are going to read just this one, don't bother.
I never thought I'd be the kind of person who would get swept up in a series of thousand-page epic fantasy adventure book, but here I am having finished book #4, mad that I have to wait a couple of days until the next installment arrives in the mail. I spoiled myself a little for Drums of Autumn, not so much on its contents, but I became aware that many fans consider this to be one of their least favorites, and one of the slowest of the books. So I went into it with a bit of a bias that I have to say was happily proven incorrect. For me, this book almost lived up to Voyager, and was miles above Dragonfly in Amber.

Not going to lie, for me one of my favorite elements of the series will always be the Highlands, and I'm still disappointed we didn't get more time there. I assumed I didn't love DiA as much as the others because the setting moved from Scotland to France. But that wasn't it, because the move to the American colonies I had been dreading wound up working well. I think what went wrong with DiA was the remake of Jamie into kind of a dandy, trying to fit in with the silly French noble class. Jamie just doesn't make sense to me as a character outside of a rugged setting with a battle to fight. I worried I wouldn't enjoy the expanding cast of characters, or the shift in focus outside the Jamie/Claire dynamic, but it wasn't as clumsy as I'd feared. That said, I like both Brianna and Roger a little less after this book. In large doses, they are both super annoying. But I could read about Ian (and Rollo!) and Lord John all day.

I didn't think the plot was slow. In fact, it gets a little old for me when Jamie and Claire have to escape death every 20 pages. But there was still a lot of story movement here. Enough to make it a page turner for me, for sure.
Nothing I'm going to say should deter you from choosing to read Drums of Autumn, the fourth book in the Outlander series. However, because tends to want readers to review, I am going to mention some elements of this book that gave me pause and kept it from being perfect. Overall, the book is as well written, researched and detailed as the previous three and worth the time I invested it it, but for me this one is not as thrilling and at times, felt ponderous. I plan to read the fifth book, but I am approaching it with the trepidatious fear of a decline in the overall quality of the series.

******************************************************SPOILERS**********************************************************

This book centers on the relationship between Claire's and Jamies' daughter, Brianna and Roger McKenzie Wakefield a historian and friend to Claire and Bree. They are two throughly modern young people in their early to late 20s. Both time travel to the mid-18th Century, Bree in search of her mother and father, Roger in search of Bree. I found it easier to accept Claire's initial time travel and subsequent return because both her generational upbringing ( England in the 20s and 30s) and her marriage to a scholarly historian would give her just a bit if a leg up on making the transition. Bree, on the other hand is a child of the 50s and 60s. She's been brought up in America and retains her fairly modern speech patterns and many of the idioms. Those idiosyncrasies don't seem to cause much if a stir among the strangers that she meets. It's not a huge thing, but it did notice it.

My second and somewhat larger complaint lay in Bree's Olympic quality conclusion jumping. She and Roger become married by hand fasting and consummate their relationship. Two days later she is raped by a pirate. Upon finding herself pregnant she is immediately convinced that it is the child of the pirate. Much of the relationship angst between her and Roger revolves around that assumption. I found it a bit drawn out and contrived, but then many of Bree's actions and attitudes fell into that category for me. Bottom line, I found Bree to be impulsive, headstrong and a bit of a pain in the backside.

The best thing Ms. Galbadon does is to write characters who are very, very human. In other words, flawed. I am giving Ms. Galbadon the benefit of the doubt that that was her thinking behind the writing of Bree's character.

My last concern centers on a scene with Claire as she performs inguinal hernia surgery on a man in the midst of a dinner party. Even in the barbaric American colonies, a woman performing surgery in the region of a man's testicles in the midst of a dinner party strains credulity. The fact that this surgery was witnessed almost without comment by the dinner guests breaks it completely. It was a well written scene, but I just couldn't "buy it."

I've enjoyed these books up to this point. Fingers crossed that the author's imagination doesn't stray too far in to the realm of incredulity in the next books.