The Fiery Cross (Outlander) - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
The fiery cross, once used to summon Highland clans to war, now beckons readers to take up Diana Gabaldon's fifth installment in the Outlander series featuring the time-traveling Frasers. Historical fiction fans who have waited four long years since the publication of Drums of Autumn will thrill to Gabaldon's trademark detail and sensuality, both displayed liberally throughout the nearly 1,000 pages of The Fiery Cross. In this pre-Revolutionary War period, Claire Fraser and her husband, Jamie, have crossed oceans and centuries to build a life together in the bucolic beauty of North Carolina. But tensions both ancient and recent threaten not only Claire and James, but their daughter, Brianna, her new husband, Roger, and their infant son, Jemmy, as well as members of their clan. Gabaldon delivers on what she does best: poignant storylines, empathetic characters, meticulous detail, and searing passion. Savor every carefully chosen word, readers; it may be a long time until the next installment! --Alison Trinkle

Product Description
Crossing the boundaries of genre with its unrivalled storytelling, Diana Gabaldon’s new novel is a gift both to her millions of loyal fans and to the lucky readers who have yet to discover her.

In the ten years since her extraordinary debut novel, Outlander, was published, beloved author Diana Gabaldon has entertained scores of readers with her heart-stirring stories and remarkable characters. The four volumes of her bestselling saga, featuring eighteenth-century Scotsman James Fraser and his twentieth-century, time-travelling wife, Claire Randall, boasts nearly 5 million copies in the U.S.

The story of Outlander begins just after the Second World War, when a British field nurse named Claire Randall walks through a cleft stone in the Scottish highlands and is transported back some two hundred years to 1743.

Here, now, is The Fiery Cross, the eagerly awaited fifth volume in this remarkable, award-winning series of historical novels. The year is 1771, and war is approaching. Jamie Fraser’s wife has told him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveller’s certain knowledge. To break his oath to the Crown will brand him a traitor; to keep it is certain doom. Jamie Fraser stands in the shadow of the fiery cross—a standard that leads nowhere but to the bloody brink of war.

Customer Reviews: Read 606 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Venting August 1, 2002
162 out of 193 found this review helpful

As I was reading this book, I was trying figure out why it was so tedious and hard to get through. I am an avid reader. I read every night. I feel that if I can get through a James Michener novel I can get through anything. And that is what it felt like reading the Fiery Cross, like reading an interesting historical Michener novel, or a history book. Through the whole book I was analyzing, trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I thought "The writing is exceptionally good, I don't want to skim or miss a word or phrase (which meant rereading pages a lot, as my mind would drift) the characters I already know and love, so what is the problem?" One problem apparent to me, was that there were no feelings of "I can't put it down, what happens next?,I can't turn the page fast enough" in this book. I love reading details of daily living, anytime in history. I love history. Not enough writers, in my opinion, deal with problems like no toilet paper, or tampex, or Pampers, etc. I find those things fascinating, and I am curious, so for me, it wasn't that it was bogged down in details as some of the disappointed fans have stated. I appreciate those details, that bring me more into the time, the place, and the plot. So what was it then? ....the plot? maybe that was the whole problem. The plot was poor and boring, almost non existent. It was almost an insult to the fans, almost megalomania on the part of the author, as if wanting to let us know how much research she has done, and knowledge she has, but neglecting, or forgetting to take the time, and thought, to plan and execute an exciting page turning plot, to go with all those details, of course. I love learning, but at the same time I like to be entertained, that is why I choose novels over history books. I want both, and you are the writer who can do that, Diana, you have done it before. I also agree, as others have stated, that the characters were weak, boring, unlikeable, and yes some almost annoying ...I can't fathom all the fans that thought this was an engaging and exciting book, who have given it more than 3 stars? I came here, after reading the book, to find out if others were feeling as I was, and was gratified to learn that some of the best Gabaldon fans feel the same way. This book took me 3 weeks to get through *sigh*....I would be embarrassed to recommend this book to my friends, at least James Michener novels don't have that weird time travel thing going on, lol. And, I love long books... when I love the characters, time, place, and plot, I never want it to end, but this book was not hard to put down, it was just hard. Where was your editor on this one Diana??? Your editor needs to take some wake up pills for the next one. I do appreciate and acknowledge your hard work on these novels, but please, next time don't forget, to go along with the history lessons, and your great writing skills, the passion and the exciting adventures, the thrill of a skillful and suspenseful plot with interesting characters to love and hate. You know what I mean... that feeling of "OK one more chapter and then I will turn out the light" and three hours later you still can't put it down, because you keep on turning the page to see what is going to happen next. This book was a chore. Well I am all vented all out now...thanks for reading, ...

2 out of 5 stars

All Filler, No Substance January 15, 2002
103 out of 138 found this review helpful

The long-winded long-awaited saga of Jamie and Claire Frazer continues in this 5th volume of the Outlander series. Whereas the first three books of this epic was chuck full of time-travel, adventure, romance, witchcraft and the gritty but fully fascinating details of 18th century life, this latest offering putters to a stall in the slower-moving wake of number 4, "The Drums of Autumn."
The reader re-enters the lives of the Frazers at the Gathering of the Clans on a North Carolina mountaintop in exactly the moment relayed in the last sentence of the 4th book . . . and sadly is stranded without respite from the gruesome and rather boring recounting of daily life--complete with overly ripe details of infant excrement, monthly bloodflows of both the newly nubile and the peremenopausal, as well as the use and postitioning of herbal poultices for pre-Pill birth control.
Yuck!
The intensely real vignettes that worked so well in the other installments very nearly put the reader to sleep as there does not seem to be any theme or plot to the overall novel. Instead of non-stop adventure, I sense nothing but middle-aged angst in the form of philosophical questions. Here's a typical one paraphrased from Jamie--who is ironically described often as the colonies' answer to the universal Scots laird, instilling all around him with that legendary sense of loyalty and safety attributed to any great leader while equipped with an elephantine anatomy that any woman would lust after---"after Claire stops her monthly bleeding, will she still want me in her bed?" This middle aged nonsense is not reserved for just the middle aged, the book's other primary couple, 20-something Breanna and Roger, ask themselves similar relationship-destroying queries. For what purpose? None, that I can see, except as filler. Simply put, Ms Gabaldon's technique of writing parallel stories and then stringing them together like pearls on a string works only when the pearls are of different sizes and quality. Every little episode related in this huge novel is likened to a small pearl with little value; the necklace produced is mediocre, a mere ornamentation that could have been something much more.
After waiting over two years for this sequel to be published, I must say plainly that I am disappointed. I wondered briefly if that within those two years my reading tastes had matured just a bit and that what I thought fresh, interesting and page-turning prior to this had soured with over-exposure. But, I don't think this is the case, I have come to the conclusion that a 5th book was needed to stretch out the timeline and that the "real" meat of the Jamie and Claire saga will be offered up properly in the last and final book.
Instead of buying and reading "The Fiery Cross", I suggest refreshing your mind by rereading the first three books and perhaps the fourth if time permits. Keeping account of all those characters and their positionings in the plot requires expert bookkeeping skills that sadly dull after waiting two long years!

5 out of 5 stars

Diana's best yet. November 7, 2001
94 out of 108 found this review helpful

I can say that experience shows highly here in Diana's 4th. Her imagination does not run wild but keeps perspective to the time frame in which she writes, 1700's to 1900's. I don't care what anyone says, fantasy can be stupid, and a stupid waste of time if it is too inventive, Diana keeps the balance. I want to read the book again, not because I didn't understand it, I want to go back and re live it. I also want to recommend another book like this, Karl Mark Maddox's SB 1 or God.

2 out of 5 stars

An Average Entry in the Saga November 10, 2001
69 out of 92 found this review helpful

Having been hooked by Outlander, I anxiously awaited the sequels, and despite my vow not to purchase The Fiery Cross when it came out after waiting 2(?) years and suffering through Diana's Outlandish Cookbook (read: money-making scheme!), I broke down and purchased the new novel.

I should have trusted my first instincts and waited for paperback! I finished the book in three days and not because it was a page-turner...I was just waiting for SOMETHING to happen! This book is about 700 pages too long and the reader is forced to suffer through the menses of each character, more breast-feeding passages than a baby-rearing text, and countless (and I DO mean COUNTLESS) descriptions of Jamie's "flowing molten tresses." Although the central theme of the novels is the love story between Jamie and Claire, it seems as though the first 300 pages of this book was simply there to re-establish just HOW MUCH they STILL love one another. Ditto Roger & Brianna. By page 250, the author had established that Claire & Jamie and Roger & Bree would STILL sleep together...and that's IT! There's a vague plot about the Revolutionary War coming on, also some other kind of plot involving Stephen Bonnet...but mostly the author resorts to flogging the reader with vignettes of Jamie & Claire and Roger & Bree's homelife. I have a home life with the every day banalities of kids and dishes and laundry and menses, etc. -- I don't want to spend my time reading about it too! This novel made me wonder if Diana is being paid per written word.

So -- if you're a rabid fan of the series, invest the (price) for the book. Or if (like me) you're tired of the author trying to turn spoiled Brianna and dull Roger into the exciting Jamie & Claire of Outlander, wait for the paperback. Overall, a disappointing entry in an otherwise good series.

5 out of 5 stars The Fiery Cross November 6, 2001
48 out of 59 found this review helpful

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the previous Diana Gabaldon books about the tales of Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall this was simply a book I had to read. Up until around page 300 I kept wanting to put it down, hoping to come back and find it as enthralling as I found the previous books. And I did, I found myself smiling at the dry sense of humour Jamie possess. I found tears rolling down my cheeks and at other times found I was holding my breath. The attention to detail and Diana's ability to draw you into the story was wonderful. It is a long read at 976 pages and even though I kept waiting for something to happen ( as per previous books ) I wouldn't have missed reading it.

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