• “The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics.”—Salon.com
  • A time-hopping, continent-spanning salmagundi of genres.”
    —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
  • “These books have to be word-of-mouth books because they're too weird to describe to anybody.”
    —Jackie Cantor, Diana's first editor

“PLAGUE OF ZOMBIES” – Publication, and an Excerpt!

I’m delighted to announce that there’s a brand-new Lord John novella out TOMORROW (October 4th)—though a few people have already emailed to say they’ve got a copy and are…er…devouring it with gusto. (Really. That’s what they said.)

The title of the novella is “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies.” Please note that this is NOT a stand-alone book. It’s a novella of {going off to run a quick word-count}…27,000+ words. It’s _in_ an anthology (a collection of stories by different authors; this one includes pieces by Charlaine Harris, Carrie Vaughn, and a number of other cool writers), and the anthology is called DOWN THESE STRANGE STREETS (don’t ask me; I didn’t think that one up). Here’s the Amazon link to it—though as always, if you’d like a signed or personalized copy of the book, email patrick@poisonedpen.com. I’ll sign a bunch this week, and they’ll ship them out immediately, anywhere in the world.

Right, so what is this story about? Well, the title is _very_ descriptive. {g} In this tale of adventure, murder, snakes, revenge, and zombies, the Royal Governor of Jamaica sends an SOS to
London, asking urgently for help in putting down a burgeoning slave rebellion. London replies by sending Lieutenant-Colonel Lord John Grey, with half a battalion of infantry, a company of artillery, and his trusty valet, Tom Byrd.

Lord John knows from the instant he enters Government House that things are not what they seem: “There was a snake on the drawing-room table. A small snake, but still. Lord John Grey wondered whether to say anything about it. “

The situation quickly reveals itself to be more than a simple rebellion: ““Zombie,” he said carefully. Mindful of the Governor’s reaction earlier, he asked, “Is a zombie perhaps a snake of some kind?”
Rodrigo gasped, but then seemed to relax a little.
“No, sah,” he said seriously. “Zombie are dead people.” He stood up then, bowed abruptly and left, his message delivered.

Lord John’s investigations take him to remote mountain plantations, to an interview with the notorious witch of Rose Hall, and a close brush with _something_: “He smelled it first. For an instant, he thought he had left the tin of bear-grease ointment uncovered—and then the reek of sweet decay took him by the throat, followed instantly by a pair of hands that came out of the dark and fastened on said throat.”

But zombies and armed slaves are not the only challenges Jamaica holds for his lordship:

“Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” – Excerpt (not a spoiler)
Copyright 2011 Diana Gabaldon

“Your servant, sah,” he said to Grey, bowing respectfully. “The Governor’s compliments, and dinner will be served in ten minutes. May I see you to the dining room?”

“You may,” Grey said, reaching hastily for his coat. He didn’t doubt that he could find the dining-room unassisted, but the chance to watch this young man walk…

“You may,” Tom Byrd corrected, entering with his hands full of grooming implements, “once I’ve put his lordship’s hair to rights.” He fixed Grey with a minatory eye. “You’re not a-going in to dinner like that, me lord, and don’t you think it. You sit down there.” He pointed sternly to a stool, and Lieutenant-Colonel Grey, commander of His Majesty’s forces in Jamaica, meekly obeyed the dictates of his nineteen-year-old valet. He didn’t always allow Tom free rein, but in the current circumstance, was just as pleased to have an excuse to sit still in the company of the young black servant.

Tom laid out all his implements neatly on the dressing-table, from a pair of silver hairbrushes to a box of powder and a pair of curling tongs, with the care and attention of a surgeon arraying his knives and saws. Selecting a hairbrush, he leaned closer, peering at Grey’s head, then gasped. “Me lord! Tthere’s a big huge spider–walking right up your temple!”

Grey smacked his temple by reflex, and the spider in question—a clearly visible brown thing nearly a half-inch long—shot off into the air, striking the looking-glass with an audible tap before dropping to the surface of the dressing-table and racing for its life.

Tom and the black servant uttered identical cries of horror and lunged for the creature, colliding in front of the dressing table and falling over in a thrashing heap. Grey, strangling an almost irresistible urge to laugh, stepped over them and dispatched the fleeing spider neatly with the back of his other hairbrush.

He pulled Tom to his feet and dusted him off, allowing the black servant to scramble up by himself. He brushed off all apologies as well, but asked whether the spider had been a deadly one?

“Oh, yes, sah,” the servant assured him fervently. “Should one of those bite you, sah, you would suffer excruciating pain at once. The flesh around the wound would putrefy, you would commence to be fevered within an hour, and in all likelihood, you would not live until dawn.”

“Oh, I see,” Grey said mildly, his flesh creeping briskly. “Well, then. Perhaps you would not mind looking about the room while Tom is at his work? In case such spiders go about in company?”

Grey sat and let Tom brush and plait his hair, watching the young man as he assiduously searched under the bed and dressing-table, pulled out Grey’s trunk, and pulled up the trailing curtains and shook them.

“What is your name?” he asked the young man, noting that Tom’s fingers were trembling badly, and hoping to distract him from thoughts of the hostile wildlife with which Jamaica undoubtedly teemed. Tom was fearless in the streets of London, and perfectly willing to face down ferocious dogs or foaming horses. Spiders, though, were quite another matter.

“Rodrigo, sah,” said the young man, pausing in his curtain-shaking to bow. “Your servant, sah.”

He seemed quite at ease in company, and conversed with them about the town, the weather—he confidently predicted rain in the evening, at about ten o’clock–leading Grey to think that he had likely been employed as a servant in good families for some time. Was the man a slave? he wondered, or a free black?

His admiration for Rodrigo was, he assured himself, the same that he might have for a marvelous piece of sculpture, an elegant painting. And one of his friends did in fact possess a collection of Greek amphorae decorated with scenes that gave him quite the same sort of feeling. He shifted slightly in his seat, crossing his legs. He would be going into dinner soon. He resolved to think of large, hairy spiders, and was making some progress with this subject when something huge and black dropped down the chimney and rushed out of the disused hearth.

All three men shouted and leapt to their feet, stamping madly. This time it was Rodrigo who felled the intruder, crushing it under one sturdy shoe.

“What the devil was that?” Grey asked, bending over to peer at the thing, which was a good three inches long, gleamingly black, and roughly ovoid, with ghastly long, twitching antennae.

“Only a cockroach, sah,” Rodrigo assured him, wiping a hand across a sweating ebon brow. “They will not harm you, but they are most disagreeable. If they come into your bed, they feed upon your eyebrows.”

Tom uttered a small strangled cry. The cockroach, far from being destroyed, had merely been inconvenienced by Rodrigo’s shoe. It now extended thorny legs, heaved itself up and was proceeding about its business, though at a somewhat slower pace. Grey, the hairs prickling on his arms, seized the ash-shovel from among the fireplace implements and scooping up the insect on its blade, jerked open the door and flung the nasty creature as far as he could—which, given his state of mind, was some considerable distance.

Tom was pale as custard when Grey came back in, but picked up his employer’s coat with trembling hands. He dropped it, though, and with a mumbled apology, bent to pick it up again, only to utter a strangled shriek, drop it again, and run backwards, slamming so hard against the wall that Grey heard a crack of laths and plaster.

“What the devil?” He bent, reaching gingerly for the fallen coat.

“Don’t touch it, me lord!” Tom cried, but Grey had seen what the trouble was; a tiny yellow snake slithered out of the blue-velvet folds, head moving to and fro in slow curiosity.

“Well, hallo, there.” He reached out a hand, and as before, the little snake tasted his skin with a flickering tongue, then wove its way up into the palm of his hand. He stood up, cradling it carefully.

Tom and Rodrigo were standing like men turned to stone, staring at him.

“It’s quite harmless,” he assured them. “At least I think so. It must have fallen into my pocket earlier.”

Rodrigo was regaining a little of his nerve. He came forward and looked at the snake, but declined an offer to touch it, putting both hands firmly behind his back.

“That snake likes you, sah,” he said, glancing curiously from the snake to Grey’s face, as though trying to distinguish a reason for such odd particularity.

“Possibly.” The snake had made its way upward and was now wrapped round two of Grey’s fingers, squeezing with remarkable strength. “On the other hand, I believe he may be attempting to kill and eat me. Do you know what his natural food might be?”

Rodrigo laughed at that, displaying very beautiful white teeth, and Grey had such a vision of those teeth, those soft mulberry lips, applied to—he coughed, hard, and looked away.

“He would eat anything that did not try to eat him first, sah,” Rodrigo assured him. “It was probably the sound of the cockroach that made him come out. He would hunt those.”

“What a very admirable sort of snake. Could we find him something to eat, do you think? To encourage him to stay, I mean.”

Tom’s face suggested strongly that if the snake was staying, he was not. On the other hand….he glanced toward the door, whence the cockroach had made its exit, and shuddered. With great reluctance, he reached into his pocket and extracted a rather squashed bread-roll, containing ham and pickle.

This object being placed on the floor before it, the snake inspected it gingerly, ignored bread and pickle, but twining itself carefully about a chunk of ham, squeezed it fiercely into limp submission, then, opening its jaw to an amazing extent, engulfed its prey, to general cheers. Even Tom clapped his hands, and—if not ecstatic at Grey’s suggestion that the snake might be accommodated in the dark space beneath the bed for the sake of preserving Grey’s eyebrows, uttered no objections to this plan, either. The snake being ceremoniously installed and left to digest its meal, Grey was about to ask Rodrigo further questions regarding the natural fauna of the island, but was forestalled by the faint sound of a distant gong.

“Dinner!” he exclaimed, reaching for his now snakeless coat.

“Me lord! Your hair’s not even powdered!” He refused to wear a wig, to Tom’s ongoing dismay, but was obliged in the present instance to submit to powder. This toiletry accomplished in haste, he shrugged into his coat and fled, before Tom could suggest any further refinements to his appearance.

***

WHAT TO READ WHEN

Chronology of the Lord John Novels: When to Read What?

The Lord John novellas and novels* are sequential, but are built to stand alone; you don’t need to read them in order.

In terms of their relationship to the larger Outlander novels: These books are part of the overall series, but are focused for the most part on those times in Lord John’s life when he’s not “onstage” in the main novels. This particular book (THE SCOTTISH PRISONER) focuses also on a part of Jamie Fraser’s life not covered in the main novels.
All of the Lord John novels take place between 1756 and 1766—SCOTTISH PRISONER is set in 1760—and in terms of the overall Outlander novels/timeline, they thus occur more or less in the middle of VOYAGER. So you can read any of them, in any order, once you’ve read VOYAGER, without getting lost.

*There are also a couple of short stories—and will eventually be more—dealing with minor events, minor characters, and/or lacunae in the main books. These are presently published in various anthologies, but will eventually be collected in book form.

“A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows” appears in the anthology SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH (edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. This is a short story set in WWII that tells the story of what really happened to Roger MacKenzie’s parents, Jerry and Dolly.

“The Space Between” is a novella that will appear in an anthology titled THE MAD SCIENTIST’S GUIDE TO WORLD DOMINATION, (edited by John Joseph Adams) which will likely appear sometime in 2012. This story is set mostly in Paris, and involves Joan McKimmie (Marsali’s younger sister), Michael Murray (Young Ian’s older brother), the Comte St. Germain (no, of course he’s not dead, don’t be silly), and Mother Hildegarde.

Sedona Book Festival this Saturday!

I’ll be appearing THIS SATURDAY (October 1) at the Third Annual Sedona Book Festival! This is being held at Yavapai College: Sedona Center for Arts & Technology – 4215 Arts Center Drive – Sedona, Arizona.

See here for details and directions.

The Festival is from 9 AM to 5 PM. I’ll be speaking at 2 PM, and signing books afterward. The Well Red Coyote bookstore will be supplying books (if you’re not able to attend, you might want to call or email the bookstore to ask them to have a book signed for you).

Email: books@wellredcoyote.com

Telephone:928-282-2284 (Mountain Time)

Yes, I’ll probably be reading excerpts from THE SCOTTISH PRISONER _and_ from WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD.

See you there!

THE SCOTTISH PRISONER – description

Now, if you don’t want to know _anything_ about this book before reading it–stop right here. {g} This is the original catalog-copy for THE SCOTTISH PRISONER; the general description of the book that I wrote for use by editors (who write the flap-copy and back-cover copy), agents (who write descriptions for their own catalogs for use at international book-fairs), and publishers (who write brief descriptions of new books for the catalogs their sales reps use when describing new books to their accounts). This is the basic description of the book, on which all those things are based. So, for those of you who want to know just what SCOTTISH PRISONER is…read on!

There are only two compensations to Jamie Fraser’s life as a paroled Jacobite prisoner-of-war in the remote Lake District: he’s not cutting sugar cane in the West Indies, and he has access to William, his illegitimate (and very secret) son, otherwise known as the ninth Earl of Ellesmere. His quiet life comes suddenly apart with the appearance of Tobias Quinn, an Irishman and an erstwhile comrade from the Rising.

Some Jacobites were killed; others, like Jamie, imprisoned or transported. Others escaped. And many of them didn’t give up. Quinn still burns with passion for the Stuart Cause, and he has a Plan. A singularly dangerous plan, involving Jamie Fraser and an ancient relic of Irish kingship—the sacred cup of the Druid King.

Jamie has had enough of politics, enough of war—and more than enough of the Stuarts. He’s having none of it.

*********

In London, Lord John Grey has brought home from Quebec a packet of papers that might as well have come equipped with a fuse, so explosive are their contents. Material collected by a recently deceased friend, the papers document a damning case of corruption and murder against a British officer, Major Gerald Siverly. For the sake of his friend, and his own honor as a soldier, John is determined to bring Siverly to justice.

John’s brother Hal, the Duke of Pardloe, takes this cause as his own, and enlists the help of his wife, Minnie, a retired spy in her own right. The Greys show Minnie a mysterious document from the dangerous docket—what appear to be verses, written in a language they don’t recognize. Minnie does recognize the language. It’s Erse, she tells the brothers. The language spoken by Irishmen and Scottish Highlanders.

Erse. The word gave Grey a very odd sensation. Erse was what folk spoke in the Scottish Highlands. It sounded like no other language he’d ever heard—and barbarous as it was, he was surprised to learn that it existed in a written form.

Hal was looking at him speculatively.

“You must have heard it fairly often, at Ardsmuir?”

“Heard it, yes. Almost all the prisoners spoke it.” Grey had been governor of Ardsmuir prison for a brief period; as much exile as appointment, in the wake of a near-scandal. He disliked thinking about that period of his life, for assorted reasons.

“Did Fraser speak it?”

Oh, God, Grey thought. Not that. Anything but that.

“Yes,” he said, though. He had now and then overheard James Fraser speaking in his native tongue to the other prisoners, the words mysterious and flowing.

“When did you see him last?”

“Not since last spring.” Grey spoke briefly, his voice careful.

Not careful enough; Hal came round in front of him, examining him at close range, as though he might be an unusual sort of Chinese jug.

“He is at Helwater, is he not? Will you go and ask him about Siverly?” Hal said mildly.

“No.”

“No?”

“I would not piss on him, was he burning in the flames of hell,” Grey said politely.

One of Hal’s brows flicked upward, but only momentarily.

“Just so,” he said dryly. “The question, though, is whether Fraser might be inclined to perform a similar service for you.”

Grey placed his cup carefully in the center of the desk.

“Only if he thought I might drown,” he said, and went out.


But needs must when the devil drives—and Lord John and Jamie are shortly unwilling companions on the road to Ireland, a country whose dark castles hold dreadful secrets, and whose bogs hide the bones of the dead.

In Case You Thought All A Writer Does is Write…

Home again, after DragonCon, with different kind of work to hand: The publisher sent _both_ the copyedited ms. _and_ the first-pass galleys to my hotel in Atlanta, with the request that I process them simultaneously (ak!), to save time. Which means, theoretically, reading the copyedit and responding to queries, checking marks, etc.–then transferring all markings to the first-pass galleys, and in the process, proof-reading the galleys, in case of errors introduced by the typesetting. _And_ in the process, filling in any still-missing square brackets/additional bits.

The kicker here being that this is my first AND ONLY chance to read and correct the ms. before it goes to the printer. And it needs to be done by Sept. 20th.

Oooookay. So my plan is:

1. Proof the galleys first. Read with no distraction, fix any errors, mark anything (like empty square brackets or questionable bits) for later fill-in.

2. Read the copyedited ms., side by side with galleys (mind, the pages don’t _match_, as the copyedit was done on a printout of the revised ms., not on a printout of the galleys), answer all queries, and transfer all approved markings to the galleys. This will be the slowest part.

3. Paste in/append insertions of Gaelic–these are numerous, and owing to the fact that Gaelic is unfamiliar to typesetters (i.e., they can’t tell what a Gaelic word is _supposed_ to look like, and can therefore easily misspell them), the bits need to be provided _in type_, rather than handwritten (know from bitter experience that typesetters routinely mistake “r” for “v” and “n” for “m” when reading Gaelic insertions done by hand). I’ll print the pieces (on separate pages) and staple them to the relevant galley pages.

4. Write, print, and append auxiliary material: Dedication, Acks, Author’s Notes, and Glossary. (The Author’s Notes are mostly written already, and the Acks roughed out. Dedication is the work of a few moments–but the Glossary needs to be compiled _from_ steps one and two, above, words being added as I go through the ms.) These then need to be proofed, as well.

5. Consult all notes from beta readers and be sure all errors and questions have been addressed.

6. If time, read Whole Damn Thing again when complete. Also if time, make copy of WDT and have assistant proof-read, too, extra eyes being useful (but not all that useful during preliminary phases, as many errors will have already been caught and new stuff hasn’t been added yet).

That’s the Major Thing that needs to be done over the next weeks. On the other hand, really don’t want to go without writing for that long (and wanting very much to dig into WRITTEN); likewise, doing too much proofing at a stretch is counter-productive, because you start reading too fast and imagining–rather than really seeing–what’s on the page. So goal is to proof for an hour or so at a time, with a goal of processing 150 pages a day (I can effectively proof/process about 30 pages an hour), and during breaks, write stuff. (Besides WRITTEN, I have an essay on “Dr. Who” for a small anthology, and the novella about Michael and Joan, due in November. And, of course, there’s always stuff for OCII…). Also resume regular exercise routine (can’t usually keep this up while traveling, particularly not if doing constant events)–walk five miles a day, regular stretches and weights in the morning, half-hour stationary bike or swim in evening.

BOOK EIGHT HAS A TITLE!

Which is….

WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD

(I still want an octopus on the cover, but we’ll deal with that later.)

*****************************************************

Now home from DragonCon!! Had a good time, but good to be back. Further info on title, pursuant to questions:

Y’all are assuming I _know_ everything about that title, which is not the case. {g} I do know a _few_ things, though:

First off, it has to do with the printing trade, the written word, and its effect on the American Revolution (and the effect of the Revolution on the printers and writers, for that matter). That’s why it specifically needs the “written with…”–

Though that part has also to do with Roger, but I’m not going to tell you why.

And as I said (I think) earlier, it has to do with the Gaelic term “A chuisle,” meaning, “my heart’s blood”–to refer to a beloved child. (You recall that Jamie uses it of his adopted grandchildren as well as those who really _are_ of his physical blood.) Ergo, possibly—you think?–to do with family relationships, of which there are One Heck of a Lot in this book.

I can’t think why some folk assume there’s anything ominous about the title. It just means that something’s done–e.g., written–with passion, not that someone’s stabbing themselves in the chest with a quill and going GAK! on their desk. Have we never heard of imagery or metaphor, for heaven’s sake?

And no, it certainly doesn’t give any intimation that this is the last book. What about it sounds like “THIS IS THE END?” IF it should turn out to be the last book, I’d tell you straight out. At the moment, I’m thinking the odds are against it being the final one, but I won’t know that for a few months yet.

As for the person who thought someone was going to die in this book….well, I can give you pretty good odds on that one. I’ve never written a book that didn’t have anybody dying in it. (And fwiw, Jamie’s _been_ dead for at last part of every single book in the series. It isn’t necessarily fatal, you know. {g})

And as for not sounding like the other books in the series–it has the same number of words, the same number of syllables, and the same rhythm as A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES. Most of the books are paired, in terms of title structure: OUTLANDER/VOYAGER, DRAGONFLY IN AMBER/DRUMS OF AUTUMN, A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES/WRITTEN WITH MY HEART’S OWN BLOOD (I’m leaning toward “Heart’s Own,” if only because “HOB” is easier to pronounce). Only THE FIERY CROSS and AN ECHO IN THE BONE are unlike the others. (I didn’t do this on purpose, btw, with the exception of DRUMS OF AUTUMN–that one _was_ chosen specifically to echo DRAGONFLY (and is subsequently the weakest title of the bunch).)

DRAGONCON/Decatur SCHEDULE

Gonna be a busy weekend!

First off–I’m not doing the Decatur Book Festival this year, only DragonCon. I _will_ be doing a signing in Decatur, though, for those who don’t want to brave the zoo (I walked through the lobby of one of the five host hotels for DragonCon last year, and remarked to a friend, “It doesn’t just _look_ like the cantina scene in “Star Wars”–it _is_ the cantina scene in “Star Wars.”), or pay for the privilege of rubbing shoulders with Darth Vader, young girls with pink, blue, and yellow hair, and hundreds of steampunk explorers.

Now, if you _are_ going to DragonCon, here’s my schedule:

Saturday, 1 PM – signing in the Autograph area, Marriott M301-304. I’m happy to sign whatever you have, but don’t know whether there will be books available for sale, there.

Saturday, 8:30 PM – Title: Whiskey, Haggis, & Madmen: Myths & Reality of the Scottish Highlands
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1)
Description: The stories that made Scotland famous: why kilts, why Braveheart was an inspiring fairy tale, and how the Scots invented everything. Yes, everything.
Panel (with other people). I’ll be available to sign books afterward, but we might have to do it in the hall, depending on whether there’s another panel scheduled afterward.)

Sunday, 3PM – talk/reading/signing at Eagle Eye Books. There _will_ be books available for purchase; definitely the 20th Anniversary OUTLANDER, plus others.

2076 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA 30033-5306
(404) 486-0307

Sunday, 7:00 PM – DragonCon – solo reading/talk

Title: An Hour with Diana Gabaldon
Time: Sun 07:00 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1)
Description: The best-selling author discusses her time-traveling Outlander series, and more!

It’ll be busy, but it’ll be fun! {g}

See you there!

[Photos courtesy of Loretta McKibben - from BuboniCon 2011]

Bubonicon, DragonCon – and an Excerpt

Ooookay. THIS weekend (August 26-28) is Bubonicon, which takes place in Albuquerque, NM, at the Airport Sheraton Hotel. I’ll be there from Friday evening through Sunday, and will be doing several different appearances:

8:30 PM on Friday night—a panel on “Beyond Goddess/Whore”

1:00 PM Saturday–a panel on Jules Verne

4:00 PM – Mass Autographing (with other authors) – I _think_ this is open to the public, but can’t swear to it, and

10:00 AM Sunday – a 70-minute talk/reading (with Sam Sykes)

I’ll also be taking part in the Sunday afternoon tea, and will just be generally around most of the time. See you there!

Or if not at Bubonicon….

NEXT weekend (Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-4), I’ll be at DragonCon in Atlanta. I’m doing two appearances there:

Title: Whiskey, Haggis, & Madmen: Myths & Reality of the Scottish Highlands
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1)
Description: The stories that made Scotland famous: why kilts, why Braveheart was an inspiring fairy tale, and how the Scots invented everything. Yes, everything.

Title: An Hour with Diana Gabaldon
Time: Sun 07:00 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1)
Description: The best-selling author discusses her time-traveling Outlander series, and more!

Now, I’m _not_ doing the Decatur Book Festival this year, but with due regard for Atlanta-area folk who might want to see me and get a signed book, but don’t want to fight their way through the DragonCon zoo {g} (or pay for the privilege of doing so)….I _will_ be doing a talk/reading/signing event in Decatur (about three miles from downtown Atlanta):

3 PM Sunday – Talk/reading/Q&A/signing
Eagle Eye Book Shop
2076 N. Decatur Road
Decatur, GA 30033
404-486-0307
www.eagleeyebooks.com

This is a free public event, so for any of y’all that can’t make it to DragonCon (or turn pale at the thought {g})—I’ll see you in Decatur!

******************************

Righto. Now, with business out of the way, I did promise to post the excerpt that made tents full of people gasp in Fergus last week. {g}

*********************************

WARNING/WARNING/WARNING/WARNING/WARNING/WARNING

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE SPOILERS FROM BOOK EIGHT

DON’T READ THIS!!!

(still with me?)

(OK, then….)

Excerpt, Book Eight: Roger in the Past
Copyright 2011 Diana Gabaldon

[You may recall that at the end of AN ECHO IN THE BONE, we left Roger embarked on a quest through the stones to find his son Jem, whom he believed had been taken into the past. From Craigh na Dun, Roger goes immediately to Lallybroch, figuring that if Jem had managed to escape from his captor, he’d head for home.]

His heart rose in spite of his anxiety, when he came to the top of the pass and saw Lallybroch below him, its white-harled buildings glowing in the fading light. Everything lay peaceful before him; late cabbages and turnips in orderly rows within the kailyard walls, safe from grazing sheep—there was a small flock in the far meadow, already bedding for the night, like so many wooly eggs in a nest of bright green grass, like a kid’s Easter-basket.

The thought caught at his throat, with memories of the horrible cellophane grass that got everywhere, Mandy with her face—and everything else within six feet of her—smeared with chocolate, Jem carefully writing “Dad” on a hardboiled egg with a white crayon, then frowning over the array of dye-cups, trying to decide whether blue or purple was more Dad-like.

“Lord, let him be here!” he muttered under his breath, and hurried down the rutted trail, half-sliding on loose rocks.

The dooryard was tidy, the big yellow rose brier trimmed back for the winter, and the step swept clean. He had the sudden notion that if he were simply to open the door and walk in, he would find himself in his own lobby, Mandy’s tiny red galoshes flung helter-skelter under the hall-tree where Brianna’s disreputable duffel-coat hung, crusty with dried mud and smelling of its wearer, soap and musk and the faint smell of her motherhood: sour milk, fresh bread, and peanut butter.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, “be weeping on the step, next thing.” He hammered at the door, and a huge dog came galloping round the corner of the house, baying like the bloody hound of the Baskervilles. It slid to a stop in front of him but went on barking, weaving its huge head to and fro like a snake, ears cocked in case he might make a false move that would let it devour him with a clear conscience.

He wasn’t risking any moves; he’d plastered himself against the door when the dog appeared, and now shouted, “Help! Come call your beast!”

He heard footsteps within, and an instant later, the door opened, nearly decanting him into the hall.

“Hauld your wheesht, dog,” a dark man said, in a tolerant tone. “Come in, sir, and dinna be minding him. He wouldna eat you; he’s had his dinner.”

“I’m pleased to hear it, sir, and thank ye kindly.” Roger pulled off his hat and followed the man into the shadows of the hall. It was his own familiar hall, the slates of the floor just the same, though not nearly as worn, the dark wood paneling shining with beeswax and polishing. There was a halltree in the corner, though of course different to his; this one was a sturdy affair of wrought iron, and a good thing, too, as it was supporting a massive burden of jackets, shawls, cloaks and hats that would have crumpled a flimsier piece of furniture.

He smiled at it, nonetheless, and then stopped dead, feeling as though he’d been punched in the chest.

The wood paneling behind the halltree shone serene, unblemished. No sign of the saber-slashes left by frustrated redcoat soldiers, searching for the outlawed laird of Lallybroch after Culloden. Those slashes had been carefully preserved for centuries, were still there, darkened by age but still distinct, when he had owned—would own, he corrected mechanically—this place.

“We keep it so for the children,” Bree had quoted her uncle Ian as saying. “We tell them, ‘This is what the English are.””

He had no time to deal with the shock; the dark man had shut the door with a firm Gaelic adjuration to the dog, and now turned to him, smiling.

“Welcome, sir. Ye’ll sup wi’ us? The lass has it nearly ready.”

“Aye, I will, and thanks to ye,” Roger bowed slightly, groping for his 18th-century manners. “I—my name is Roger MacKenzie. Of Lochalsh,” he added, for no respectable man would omit to note his origins, and Lochalsh was far enough away that the chances of this man—who was he? He hadn’t the bearing of a servant—knowing its inhabitants in any detail was remote.

He’d hoped that the immediate response would be, “MacKenzie? Why, you must be the father of wee Jem!” It wasn’t, though; the man returned his bow and offered his hand.

“Brian Fraser of Lallybroch, your servant, sir.”

[end section]

Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games: Dingbats and Whale Penises

Had a wonderful (if very busy!) time at Fergus last weekend! Thanks to everyone who came, and my apologies to all the Very Patient People who waited in line for _hours_. (Not that I was slow signing, but there were a heck of a lot of people, and many of them took me at my word when I said I’d sign anything they felt like lugging through the fairgrounds. {g})

And speaking of such Patient People, here’s a charming blog post from MichelleK’s anotherlookbookreview, on her own Fergus Experience. {g}

I had a good time speaking to y’all–and for those who asked about the whale penises {cough}–

I was explaining about what-all goes on with a book _after_ I deliver the manuscript (and why the book doesn’t appear instantly on the shelves the moment I finish writing it), and had got to the part about the book designer–that wonderful person who decides what the pages will look like, what typeface will be used, how wide the margins are, how the lines are spaced, where the page number appears….and what dingbat to use to delineate one scene from another. A dingbat is a symbol that’s used generally as a spacer or placeholder in the text; you might see asterisks, curlicues, or some other scenic bit–there are a lot of them, but the same dingbat has been used in all my books as a spacer between scenes. It’s a graceful sort of thick curvy shape, which my beloved first editor invariably referred to as a “whale penis.”

That’s because, around the time the first book was being laid out, I happened to tell her the story of what happened when my eldest daughter’s fourth-grade teacher asked me to come and talk to the class–not about writing, but about marine biology. (I used to be a marine biologist, briefly, at one point in my scientific incarnation.)

Well, we were getting along nicely, the fourth-graders and me, talking about pelagic (free-swimming) and sessile (fixed in place) organisms, when one intelligent lad asked me, “If barnacles are stuck in one place, how do they mate?” So I explained–they shed their gametes into the water, where they fertilize and develop into free-swimming forms, which then settle down and stick to the substrate. This evidently started a train of thought, though, because the kid’s next question was “Do whales have penises?”

“Indeed they do,” I said. Which led naturally to the next question. (About six feet) And the next–why don’t you ever see a whale’s penis at Seaworld? “Well, they’re retractable,” I said. “You know–drag.”

At this point, I observed the teacher in the back of the room, who had evidently turned into a pillar of salt. Oddly enough, I was never invited back to talk to the students about marine biology.

But that’s the story of the whale penises.

And yes, I _will_ put up the excerpt that made a tent full of two hundred people gasp out loud–but not tonight. {g}

One nice gentleman took a brief video of me signing, and I’ll _try_ posting a link to that here, but no guarantees. (I have my laptop working momentarily and wanted to take advantage of the ability to upload pictures.)

Thanks to Lynn Boland Richardson, Warren Trask, and the other amazing people who organize the Fergus Festival–this was their 66th anniversary, and a great time had by all!

And many thanks also to Iwona, who sent me the photos here, of me with her son’s fiancee, Natasha, her daughter, Farida, and herself–in the bottom photo, with me and my husband, Doug.