Sunday, April 11, 2010

Outlander

Started reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (thanks for the tip, Mari!). It's a time-travel story and a sort of a cross between sci-fi, historical fiction and romance. According to the author it was originally meant to be a historical novel, and sci-fi and romance appeared later.

There are in theory eight books; seven have been written so far, and I have read four so far. Every book has its own sensible story arc, so the absence of the last one is not too frustrating.

One thing that I really love about the series is the protagonist who for the most part does not give a flying fuck about history and whether or not she is fucking it up. It's refreshing because of being rather unusual, and is especially fun in contrast with Connie Willis's time-travel novels, where characters are extremely concerned with effects on history.

1 comment:

Markku said...

Such a concern would be foolish indeed. The only way time travel would be possible if there were a loop in time-space or if there were (countless) multiple universes instead of just one. The whole concept of "effects on history" is bunk.