Diana Gabaldon's Blog

THE SCOTTISH PRISONER is out TODAY (well, yesterday…sort of…I work late, OK?) in trade paperback, for the US and Canada! (It came out in paperback already in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.)

Besides the story–half Jamie, half Lord John (and below is the beginning of the book)–this book also includes several preview excerpts from WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD, the next upcoming OUTLANDER novel. Some of you will already have seen some of these excerpts, some of you won’t. FYI, the excerpts...

THE METHADONE LIST – Good Crime Fiction by a Couple of Roberts What I Know: Rob Byrnes and Robert Dugoni

I was amused, but pleased, to have my novella, “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” recently nominated for an Edgar award by the Mystery Writers of America, for “Best Short Mystery Story” of 2011. Given that that particular story is not exactly a mystery, and certainly isn’t short [g], I didn’t really expect to win (which was a good thing, since I didn’t), but certainly was flattered to be...

“THE CUSTOM OF THE ARMY” will be released as an e-book on MAY 21!

Click to pre-order from Amazon or barnesandnoble.com!

And see below for an explanation:

Well, now. Over the last few years, I’ve written occasional short(er) pieces for anthologies. An anthology, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a collection of short stories or novellas (a novella is shorter than a novel, but longer than a short story), written by a number of different authors.

The notion behind an anthology is that readers...

WELL, HERE’S A NIC E THING!

In honor of my fans’ obvious enthusiasm , Audible.com told me they would put ALL of the OUTLANDER audiobooks (the main books of the series) on sale for $7.49 each, until May 1st! (If you have or create an audible.com account–if you don’t have one, it doesn’t cost anything to make one, and you don’t need to sign up for their monthly membership credits unless you want to–then you’ll see the sale price on the books when you go to the page.)

Here’s their message, with li...

About the TOURNAMENT OF AUDIOBOOKS

This is a letter for the organizers at Audible.com (if I can figure out how to send it to them!), but I wanted to share it with all of you–especially the kind folk who’ve been supporting THE FIERY CROSS all through the tournament.

I know the lengths to which some of Ms. Stevens’s fans have gone, and I’m not comfortable about any of you guys wasting your time in similar endeavors. So–

An Open Letter to the Organizers and Supporters of the Audible.com 5th Tournam...

Since a nice reader just reminded me in the comments to the previous post–I’m very flattered to find that THE FIERY CROSS has made it to the Final Round of Audible.com’s Tournament of Audiobooks! That took a LOT of voting to propel the book through the four previous rounds, and I’m really grateful to all of you who did vote. I think it’s a huge compliment–and completely earned!–to Davina Porter, who’s done such a fabulous job with all my books, and did her usual masterly work with THE FIERY C...

TIMELINE

Barbara Schnell, who maintains the German version of this website (to go there, just click on the German flag at the top of the Home page), has compiled an elegant and helpful timeline of historical and fictional events from the books, and has helpfully provided an English version as well!

In addition, she has a link to a constantly-updated list of interesting interviews and reviews, which you can find here.

Danke, Barbara!

Andrius, the nice Almalittera publicist who organized my appearance at the Vilnius Book Fair, met me at the airport and drove me into the city to my hotel, the Radisson in the Old City (there's a New City, too, but I saw very little of this). Vilnius is an old (founded in 1527) Eastern European city, only twenty years free of Soviet occupation; it's a little worn around the edges. At the same time, there's a lot of evidence of vitality; a lot of new shops, and a large number of Extremely ...

Now, normally I travel Business Class only when someone else is paying for it [g], or when conditions seem to warrant the extra expense. In this case, it was the latter.

Vilnius is one of those places where you can't get there from here–wherever "here" is. It takes a minimum of three flights (and 22 hours) to get there, and two weeks before I left, the nice person who was making my travel arrangements apologized for the delay, saying that it was -30 degrees F., and "too cold for anybody to d...

P.S. WHERE ALL THE SHORT PIECES ARE:

"Lord John and the Hellfire Club" (short story—14,000 words) – originally published in the anthology PAST POISONS, edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Also published in the collection titled LORD JOHN AND THE HAND OF DEVILS. This story _precedes_ the novel LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER.

"Lord John and the Succubus" (novella – it's around 25-30,000 words) – originally published in the anthology LEGENDS II, edited by Robert Silverberg. Also published in the...