Saturday, August 1, 2015

Awesome Outlander Book-Reading Newbies

Karen over at Outlandish Observations is running a poll to see how long fans have been reading the Outlander series.  She has run these polls before...but her current motivation?  The Starz TV series!  The show has brought so many new fans to the Outlanderverse...and Karen wants to see just how many TV-to-book fans there are!

17 comments:

  1. Thanks very much for mentioning my poll! The response so far has been phenomenal, with more votes in the first 24 hours than I had in the July poll for the whole month! I love hearing how other fans found the books. :-)

    So far about 18% of the people responding have said they started reading the OUTLANDER books within the last year.

    Karen

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    1. Karen, I find it fascinating that the answers are spread out so much!! I thought it would be all "over 10 years" or "since Starz came out," But the answers are so varied! Verra cool poll, sassenach! :)

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  2. I came across the show in April i think. Watched all the episodes and have now bought all the books. I am on book eight and hope she keeps writing! I cant bear to think of no more Jamie and Claire! Have never been taken by a show or books before!!

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    1. That's awesome, Anon. I am like that with Poldark. Just watched the Season 1 finale and am reading the first book. :)

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  3. Read the first two books when they first came out way back when and then after receiving a Mother's Day gift of the DVD of the first half of the TV show I have purchased all the rest of the books ... including re-buying the first two and have been reading them ... almost non-stop.

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    1. There's that "non-stop" phrase again! :) Diana Gabaldon will do that to a person! :)

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  4. just posted above and forgot to say I've also been reading up on the history of North Carolina revolutionary war period and sadly found Jamie and Claire and family have just returned to the mountains in 1778 ... and the British begin their push to invade those mountains and rid them of "Patriots" in 1780 .... oh no!

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  5. Found the series on STARZ in April 2015. Loved the show so much I thought I should read the books. Broke my ankle in May so read pretty much non-stop for 3 months. Reading MOBY right now, but had to wait for someone to return it first, so. I read The Scottish Prisoner in the meantime. Now I have to read the Lord John Gray series! Will it never end? I hope not! LOL

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    1. LOL Mairi...this reminded me of Jamie saying to Claire, "Does it ever end? The wanting?" :)

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    2. Dare I say, the wanting never stops
      Jane

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  6. I just finished watching the first season of Poldark. I LOVED IT!! I came over here to see if you girls were watching it. 😃 Let us know how the books are. Thanks!!

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  7. I too watch Poldark, and yes I do love it. It's a soothing balm for the discomfort of "droughtlander".

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  8. Hi Guys -- It's Auntie,

    and I'm bustin' with two theories I just had to get A) Off My Chest and B) out among the MOL peeps for discussion at the MOP Chat Monday 8/10. I really wanna talk about them ....

    THEORY ONE: FRONTAL WARS
    We, on MOP Chat, are notorious for our discussions of "peen" (giggles). Since the moment in "Lallybroch" when Tobias as BJR whipped it out and got laughed "down" by Laura as Jenny, we have been speculating about it and about whose we'd see in the future and when. Well, we got another look at Tobias in the final episode as he strode across the floor the morning after buggering the great love/obsession of his life, Jamie. (I don't care what ANYONE says: whatever else he is, BJR IS gay!) Anyway, since then there has been mad speculation about whose we'd see -- the next time. Many are waiting/eager to see Sam('s). Not me. All things considered, I'd really rather not see more peen of ANY ilk (on the show, that is), including more of Tobias. I could have done without it in the first place. I think we had ample non-peen evidence that BJR was a sick perv (the finger in Jenny's mouth; BJR cutting open the back of Jamie's shirt AND licking his scars; plus the myriad revolting things BJR said). With good writing and good actors, I just don't think it's called for. Anyway, here's why I don't think we're likely to see any more or anyone else's: THE COMPARISONS. Imagine the gifs that would be all over the interwebs illustrating discussions of whose is bigger or more aesthetically pleasing? You know it would happen. Apart from the fact that it would be so unseemly, I just can't see Ron Moore subjecting his dear Tobias (or any of the other actors) to the indignity. And since we know he's the uber-editor of all episodes, I think he keeps future peen out, despite his suggestion that anything is possible (especially since even this "exposure" failed to net Tobias an Emmy nom). Thoughts?.

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  9. Auntie back, with

    THEORY TWO: WHY NO CASTING YET FOR BRIANNA & ROGER, HOW TO HANDLE A 13-EPISODE SEASON, WHY NO RENEWAL FOR BOOK THREE, AND WHAT "MORE FRANK" AND "ADAPTATION" REALLY MEAN
    I have labored to come up with a theory that combines the facts that 1) with over half of Season 2 scripted and/or in the can, we have no inkling who will be playing the very major characters of Brianna Randall Fraser and Roger Wakefield McKenzie; 2) We have yet to hear that the series itself has been renewed any further than the end of Book/Season 2; 3) Season 2 is but 13 episodes as opposed to 16 for Season 1, which was based on a much shorter book.

    We have been repeatedly told that the Outlander TV series we are viewing is an ADAPTATION. What this meant for Season 1 was that the Jamie Fraser character itself and the Jamie/Claire love story would be UNDERwritten and replaced with A LOT of Frank and two ENTIRE episodes that OVERexpanded and embellished way beyond the action in the book, to the detriment of the final resolution of the Season 1 story line.

    Now we come to Book 2, which setting-wise jumps between two centuries. The "modern" action requires the characters of adult Brianna and Roger; there's no getting around it -- if they're going to show the modern action at all, that is. But we've also heard from RDM that he plans to INJECT MORE Frank Randall into Season 2 - a story, which, based on the book, has only a small amount of Frank in it; although it has a good deal of Black Jack.

    We have no indication that the STARZ network has any intention of carrying on with the Outlander series past the end of Season 2; this despite the fact the series has been a ratings, artistic, and financial success -- far beyond anything that network has ever done. So, crazy as it seems, Outlander could be doomed.

    OK so, based on all this -- no prospect of Brianna or Roger; fewer episodes to work with in season 2; no prospect yet of a season 3; a concept of "Adaptation" which invites massive changes from the books; and a promise from the Showrunner of "More Frank" in Season 2 -- here is what I imagine happening:

    1) We see nothing of Brianna, Roger, or any action from the 1960's; and see only a bit of 1940's action -- part of the "more Frank" necessary to lay the groundwork for the return of Claire.

    2) In the 1740's action, which proceeds as it does in the book in rough outline, Claire has recurring dreams and thoughts about Frank, more than the few she has in the book (More Frank), which cause her to regret more and more her decision to stay with Jamie. Similarly, Jamie has massive, recurring nightmares about his treatment by Black Jack (again, WAY more than he has in the book), thus permanently poisoning his love for Claire. Even seriously injuring BJR in a duel fails to give Jamie relief.

    3) On the eve of Culloden, having failed to stop the battle and realizing that Claire is pregnant with a child she might lose or who might die with her in the aftermath of the battle; Jamie sends her back to Frank and prepares to die in the battle. Claire and Jamie have a parting encounter in which she acknowledges that she was wrong to leave Frank, Jamie admits that he could never be "a real husband" to Claire or any woman after what he suffered at the hands of BJR, and they agree that Claire will raise and care for their child with Frank in the 1940's in memory of the love she and Jamie had for a fleeting moment before it got ruined. Claire returns to for a tearful, but joyful, reunion with Frank, and they live happily ever after, raising Jamie and Claire's SON, which they name Frank Jr. Jamie does return to the battle of Culloden, where he kills Black Jack but (as planned) dies himself of wounds suffered in their final duel. Thus ends the TV series. Lots of Frank; no more Jamie; no books 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.

    Discuss?

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  10. I just did some searching and you are correct, there is no promise yet of a Season 3.
    With figures like this:
    Starz's pre-release strategy for Outlander netted the pilot 900,000 views before last Saturday's official premiere, and by the end of the weekend, the show had scored 3.7 million total views on various platforms, the largest debut in Starz's history.
    Please Starx, dont leave us waiting!!!
    Imagine the backlash of Claire saying she was wrong to leave Frank and then ends up staying in the 20th century - canna imagine anyone being brave enough to do that :-)
    Jane

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    1. I agree - there'd be some major Bastille-storming if anything like my (slightly facetious) scenario actually materialized. One of my purposes in writing it in the first place was to show that given how things have shaken out so far, none of it's completely beyond the realm of possibility, given Starz' criminally-inept management behavior (their PR dept. just blows!) and RDM's anti-Jamie proclivities ("King of Men," my fat a$$!!). My pitchfork is at the ready, should anything remotely like it materialize.

      I seriously DO believe, however, that our realistic chances of seeing the adult Brianna and/or Roger in S2 are dwindling to zero with each passing day.

      Best,
      Auntie

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