Lord John and the Plague of Zombies

Author:Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical,Mystery, Novella

Rating: A-

 “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” takes Lord John Grey to Jamaica, where he must deal with slaves, rebellions, corrupt Englishmen, snakes, and zombies, although not in that order.  At the start of the novel Grey has just arrived at Jamaica, summoned by the Governor to suppress a slave rebellion.  The rebellion is not entirely what it seems, with those rebelling against the English rule being not slaves but rather the descendants of the descendants of runaway slaves, no one knowing just who technically owns them.  What’s more is that the Governor’s home is overrun by snakes and a slave warns Grey to stay away from the Governor or else run the risk of being assaulted by a flesh eating zombie.  As per usual, it all goes to hell from there.

This story would have fit in well within the Lord John and the Hand of Devils anthology, had it been published later.  The way in which Gabaldon brings up the idea of the supernatural and then dismisses it is handled very nicely, although she does less dismissing than done in the previous novellas.  There are still a few questions that one could ask, although none that are of any great significance.  I really liked the way in which she continued to bring in old foes for Grey to encounter – even going so far as to re-introduce a foe from the early Outlander books.  I really like the way that each of these stories is for the most part a standalone story, with the plot being largely resolved by the story’s conclusion, but at the same time are all interconnected.  “Plague of Zombies” is like this, with elements of the story coming from The Scottish Prisoner and “The Custom of the Army.”  The one thing that I did dislike a bit was that there wasn’t really indication as to just when this story takes place; I know that it is at some point after the events of The Scottish Prisoner and before some of the events of the Outlander novel Voyager, but not exactly when. As such, it’s a bit discombobulating, trying to figure out just exactly what the time frame is.  Hopefully when Gabaldon publishes “Plague of Zombies” in her own anthology she remedies this by including a date at the start of the work. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Scottish Prisoner

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical, Mystery, Fantasy

Rating: A-

In the course of The Scottish Prisoner Lord John Gey and Jamie Frasier team up in order to arrest a dishonourable Englishman and maybe stop a Jacobean plot on the way.  The plot is as such: after returning to London Grey receives a package of letters that detail the illegal doings of Major Gerald Siverly, who Grey and his brother, the Duke of Pardloe, decide needs to be brought to London for justice – a task which requires journeying to Ireland.  Within the package is a poem written in Irish Gaelic, so Pardloe summons Frasier in order to translate it as best as possible.  While all this is going on, Frasier has also been approached by Irishman Tobias Quinn, who he knew before the Rising of 45.  Quinn talks of another Rising, this one in Ireland, and it doesn’t take a genius to put one and two together to see where this plot is going.

In the course of The Scottish Prisoner Lord John Gey and Jamie Frasier team up in order to arrest a dishonourable Englishman and maybe stop a Jacobean plot on the way.  The plot is as such: after returning to London Grey receives a package of letters that detail the illegal doings of Major Siverly, who Grey and his brother, the Duke of Pardloe, decide needs to be brought to London for justice – a task which requires journeying to Ireland.  Within the package is a poem written in Irish Gaelic, so Pardloe summons Frasier in order to translate it as best as possible.  While all this is going on, Frasier has also been approached by Irishman Tobias Quinn, who he knew before the Rising of 45.  Quinn talks of another Rising, this one in Ireland, and it doesn’t take a genius to put one and two together to see where this plot is going.

I think this novel really tied up some of the loose ends of the previous Lord John books, particularly in regards to the friendship between the two men.  Having read the Outlander books I know that they become good friends again, and The Scottish Prisoner shows just how they do so.  Things might not be exactly perfect between the two of them at novel’s end, but I at least have an idea of how they’re going to end up at the point of friendship that they’re at by Drums of Autumn.  I am getting a bit bored of the Jacobean threat plot line in the Grey books, it seems to pop up every other book or so.  At the same time, though I only have one more story (to date) in the Lord John series to read, and I suspect that Gabaldon will have to stretch a bit to write a story connecting Jacobeans and zombies.  While this wasn’t my favourite story in the series, I did like it, overall.  For the most part it was able to really stand on its own, although as usual there are many references to events both in earlier Lord John novels and in Voyager, so I wouldn’t recommend skipping over them before reading this one – even if Gabaldon’s note at the start of the novel says otherwise.

The Custom of the Army

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical, Mystery, Novella

Rating: C+

I’m not entirely sure the purpose of “The Custom of the Army.”  The pretense of the plot is as such: While attending an electric eel party (which involves connecting as many people as possible then having one brave soul touch an electric eel) Lord John Grey enters into a scuffle over a lady’s honour, which results in a duel.  The next day it is revealed that the man with which Grey duelled is dead, his father demanding that Grey be tried for murder – and the lady’s father demanding that Grey enter into a marriage for the sake of his daughter’s honour.  Rather conveniently at the same time a letter appears requesting that Grey serve as a witness to the court martial of one Captain Charles Carruthers, in Canada.  Deciding that the wilderness of Canada is a much safer place than London society, Grey very quickly decides to flee the country.  This journey gives Grey the opportunity to reunite with his new cousin-in-law, last seen in Lord John and the Private Matter, and partake in the British Conquest of New France.

When I say the pretense of the plot, however, I really do mean the pretense.  The reason for which Grey goes to Canada in the first place are rather flimsy and quickly forgotten.  As is common with the Lord John series, matters are for the most part nicely wrapped up by the end of the story, but I found that I wasn’t really happy with the resolution.  It just seemed a bit too forced, too rushed.  Almost as though Gabaldon had intended to write a much longer story, but realized that for this anthology she could not do so.  As such, rather than really developing the plot she just kind of winged it, wrapping everything up like an afterthought, or like a present that you buy at a gas station on the way to Christmas dinner.  The characters in the story are, as always, excellently written, but the story is lacking.  Where “Custom” does succeed, however, is as an in between.  It provides a good connector between its predecessor, "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier" and its successor, The Scottish Prisoner.

Lord John and the Hand of Devils

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Mystery, Anthology
Rating: B

I've already reviewed the three individual novellas that make up this collection, "Lord John and the Hellfire Club," "Lord John and the Succubus," and "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier," but I thought that I might also review the collection as a whole.  The theme that connects each novella, asides from the overall connection of being a Lord John novella, is an initial apparent connection to the supernatural - although as each novella climaxes it becomes clear that supernatural elements are not entirely at play.

My one big problem with this collection was the fact that, while arranged chronologically, if you want to read the story entirely chronologically you cannot sit down with this work and read from cover to cover - there are two novels whose events happen in between the events of these stories.  Lord John and the Private Matter takes place between "Hellfire Club" and "Succubus" and Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade occurs in between "Succubus" and "Haunted Soldier."  It kind of makes reading this a bit of a hassle, having to go from one book to another and then back again, although I do appreciate having these stories collected in general - the other option being tracking down the anthologies in which they were initially written (which I have had to do for the later Lord John novellas, "Custom of the Army" and "Lord John and the Plague of Zombies").  My smaller problem is the lack of a historical note for these stories - "Succubus" does have a small one, but the others don't.  Given as I know that Gabaldon's publishers are willing to let her write lengthy tomes, I think she could have gotten away with adding a bit more to discuss the history that she utilizes in her books.

Despite those problems, however, I really did like this collection.  I really liked how these stories were related thematically, and I really enjoyed the fact the way that they each referenced each other.  Events in one novella affect the events in the next novel, or even another novella.  Secondary characters reappear, and the overall antagonists in the series all make appearances.  If you're a fan of Gabaldon's work, then I think this is a good addition to your collection.

Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Novella, Historical, Mystery
Rating: B-

There were elements of  "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier" that I liked, and elements that I disliked.  The story deals with the consequences of the explosion of a cannon. Tom Pilchard, that Lord John momentarily is in command of during Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade.  An inquiry has been formed as Grey's cannon was not the only one to explode: in the previous ten months, a total of eight cannons have exploded, causing a lot of death and injury among the British army.  During the inquiry it is insinuated that Grey is at fault for the explosion of his cannon and that the overall fault lays in faulty gunpowder - gunpowder that is produced by Grey's elder half-brother, Edgar DeVane.  Once again, it is up to Grey to take up his own investigations and ensure his family's honour.

The one thing that I really liked about this story was the fact that by this point in the series a group of antagonists are clearly being established.  While none of these antagonists are actual villains in any of the books they do appear regularly and their dealings are often antagonistic to that of Grey's.  I am looking forward to the point at which Grey actually faces off with these individuals directly, and I wonder if he will do so one-on-one or if it will be a great face off between him and all of them.  The book was also very fast paced, which was nice in comparison to its predecessor.  Gabaldon doesn't bog herself down with the details (a rarity) and focuses most on telling the story.  That having been said, I really wasn't attracted by the story.  I found parts of it interesting, but when it was all said and done I felt like the whole thing was handled a bit too easily.  Once again, a lot of it really felt a bit contrived.  Overall, not Gabaldon's best work, but also not her worst.

Week in Review: July 15 - 21

Movies - This weeks reviews were High School Musical 3, Magic Mike, and Batman Begins.  An interesting twist happened here: the worst movie of the week was High School Musical, which in turn was probably the best movie of its trilogy.  The best movie was Batman Begins, the worst of its trilogy.

Books - Book of the week was Diana Gabaldon's Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, the second novel and fourth instalment in the Lord John series.  Not as much of a mystery as the other stories, although there is a nice Jacobean plot to it (as is typical of Gabaldon's work), but there's a lot of really interesting character development.

TV - TV show of the week was the first season of The Big Bang Theory, because I seem to have a thing for the first season of shows lately.  Not the best season of the show, but still a good show.

Recommendations - Movie-wise the big one is, of course, The Dark Knight Rises, although DVD releases did include two 60th anniversary editions, Singing in the Rain and High Noon.

Next Week - I plan on continuing the Batman trilogy with reviews of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, while the book review is going to be Bernard Cornwell's Stonehenge.  Cornwell is one of my favourite authors and this is one of my favourite of his books, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Requests - Anything out there that you'd like me to review?  A book? A movie? A TV show?  Let me know in the comments and I'll try to get to it.

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Mystery
Rating: A

I think, to date, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade has been my favourite of the Lord John series.  It is the most action packed of the series, with Grey actually commanding in Germany for a bit (and thus, putting to good use his title of Major), and also the most revealing, as Grey begins to tell the reader more of his and his family's history.  By the end of the novel you have a much firmer understanding of who Lord John Grey is and what it was that occurred in order to cause him to be such - and in order to cause his family to be the way that they are.  One of my favourite aspects of the Lord John stories is the way in which he interacts with his family.  Most of the interactions between Grey and his elder brother, Earl of Melton, are a bit stiff with Grey thinking about how close he and Melton are, but Melton being... well, a bit of an ass.  I was really happy to see moments in this book where Melton proves to be as good of a brother as Grey, even if he does so in a manner that is far from direct.

Brotherhood picks up with Grey having returned to England from his stint in Prussia.  From here he is plummeted into yet another mystery, although this one takes some time to develop.  At the start of the novel a page from the last journal that Grey's father, the Duke of Pardloe, wrote before his death turns up; Grey had always been told that the journal had been burned before Pardloe's death, with this page making it apparent that someone has the journal and thus knows the secrets that it contains.  A scandal surrounded the circumstances of Pardloe's death: at the time there had been rumours of a Jacobite plot, with it being insinuated that Pardloe was a member of it.  His suicide was taken to be a confession of sorts, the shame of which has haunted the Grey family since - as such, Grey's elder brother refuses to use his title of Duke of Pardloe, preferring instead to remain Lord Melton.  While both Melton and the Dowager Countess, Grey's mother, refuse to reveal any more about the issue, Grey embarks upon a journey to discover the circumstances of his father's death and to confirm once and for all that his father was not a Jacobite.  Throughout all of this is the marriage of the Dowager Countess to her third husband, General Sir George Stanley, and consequently the re-introduction of Stanley's step-son, the dashing Percy Wainwright.

I think a huge part of the reason why I enjoyed this novel is because it answered a lot of questions for me.  I have previously read Gabaldon books set in later periods that make a lot of references to this one, albeit without actually revealing the full details of what happened in it.  I've always questioned just who Percy Wainwright was and what his relationship with Grey was, which is nicely addressed in Brotherhood.  There is also a lot more of the family relationship developed in this novel, and in my opinion you get for the first time the real development of Grey's mother.  Despite being fictional, this family feels like a real one.  They turn to each other for help and worry about how things might affect other family members.  Likewise, they argue and bicker, coming to passes when the desires of one conflict with the desires of others.  Melton and the Dowager Countess are often seen trying to protect Grey and shield him from the potential shame of his father's actions.  Grey, in change, acts very much like the stubborn younger son and goes his own way.  The stubbornness of this family just makes them feel all that much more real.

There are a few problems with this book, though.  Despite the fact that the novel is more action packed than other Lord John stories it is also a lot slower.  It takes a long time for the mystery of the novel to progress, with much of the novel doing more to develop the characters than the actual plot.  For me, this worked as I was as much interested in the characters as the plot itself.  There is a bit of a squick factor in the relationship between Grey and Percy, and in the beginning I really felt like the whole relationship was a bit contrived.  As it developed I became more of a fan of the relationship in general, and I found it really interesting where Gabaldon took it.  Finally, there is the subplot of sodomite spies for the French.  In general, I think this plot was a bit convoluted and I'm not really sure how the whole sodomite aspect came into play - the one interaction with a character accused of being such makes it clear that he is not gay - so it also felt a bit contrived.  I couldn't help but feel that the only reason why that aspect of it was introduced was so that Gabaldon could show readers just how eighteenth century European society reacted to homosexuality - which as a reader I appreciated.  Seeing that aspect of it really explained just the constant threat to Grey's safety because he is a homosexual.  It made things a bit more real, and really made me wonder just who in Grey's family is suspicious of his inclinations and how they would react were they to find out.  In the end, a lot of the problems of the novel are really justified by the overall nature of the book.

Week in Review: July 9 - 14

Movies - This week we've reviewed  The Amazing Spider-Man, People Like Us, and The Spiderwick Chronicles.  The best of the bunch was Spider-Man, while the worst was Spiderwick Chronicles, but I doubt anyone is really surprised by that.

Books - Book of the week was George R.R. Martin's novella "The Sworn Sword," the second in his Tales of Dunk and Egg series.

TV - TV show of the week was the first season of Grey's Anatomy, which I will eventually be following up with the rest of the series.

Recommendations - There isn't actually anything out in movies this week that I think I'm likely to see in theatres - the recommendations were either for movies that I'm a bit iffy about or else are only getting a limited release.  The DVD releases were, for the most part, DVDs I haven't heard of before but they've all caught my attention - that, and American Reunion, which I already know to have been good.

Next Week - Next week, I plan on reviewing Diana Gabaldon's Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Magic Mike, and, in celebration of the new Batman movie, Batman Begins. I plan on re-watching the first two films in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy before catching the midnight show of The Dark Knight Rises, so look forward to those reviews.

Requests - Anything out there that you'd like me to review?  A book? A movie? A TV show?  Let me know in the comments and I'll try to get to it.

Lord John and the Succubus

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Novella, Historical, Mystery

Rating: A

Once again I’m going to start off a review of a Lord John story by referencing the first Lord John story, "Lord John and the HellfireClub."  My critique there was that because of the brevity of the work some of the plot was lost due to all the details that Gabaldon includes in her writing.  This issue is remedied in "Lord John and the Succubus".  Part of this remedy is because of the increased length, while still being a novella it is much longer than "Hellfire Club", but the greater part is because in "Succubus" Gabaldon has learned how to nicely balance the detail and the plot.

"Succubus" picks up much roughly where Lord John and the Private Matter left off: Lord John Grey has gone to Germany (or what would later become Germany) to join the staff of Captain Stephan von Namtzen, Landgrave von Erdberg.  Here men begin to die of a mysterious cause, and rumours of a succubus begin to spread.  Once again, it is left up to Lord John to investigate the matter and figure out just how these men have died and whether or not the succubus is real.  He also must contend with the not-so-subtle advances of the Princess Louisa von Lowenstein, while trying to figure out whether or not Stephan is attracted to him.

The story here is nicely done, Gabaldon weaves the threat of the supernatural with the real deaths together very nicely.  In the earlier parts of the story I really did begin to wonder if the succubus might be real, despite the fact that Gabaldon’s stories are, time travel aside, largely set in the real world.  Gabaldon conveyed the real fears of the men very well, and showed the mixture of firm belief and strong disbelief, as well as many points in between the two.  The language in which much of the story takes place had me a bit confused; it is set in a Germanic part of Europe, thus the majority of the characters should be speaking a dialect of German.  While Gabaldon does make it clear that Grey has some German, and the many upper class characters are all proficient in English, in the first chapter of the book Grey does in fact have some difficulty understanding the language, particularly if spoken rapidly.  Throughout the book there are points when the dialogue is written in German, implying that unless otherwise noted the dialogue is in English.  Grey’s early struggles with understanding some things combined with this note makes me question just how he’s able to interview some of the characters in a language that they logically wouldn’t be able to speak – I really don’t buy that Austrian gypsies in the nineteenth century are fluent in English.  But then, I could really just be reading into this too much and over thinking things.  As such, if this is my biggest flaw with the story then it stands to reason that it’s a pretty good story.

Lord John and the Private Matter

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical, Mystery

Rating: A-

While I wasn’t particularly a fan of Diana Gabaldon’s first foray into the Lord John series, I was pleasantly surprised by its successor.  In Lord John and the Private Matter everyone’s favourite gay, nineteenth century English lord is back to solve another mystery.  This time, Grey is charged with investigating the death of one Tim O’Connell, a sergeant in their regiment and a suspected spy.  O’Connell had been under watch since the regiments return to England but died before the papers he had stolen could be recovered – and the man watching him disappeared the same night that O’Connell died.  While going about this, Grey is also investigating into the affairs of his young cousin’s fiancé, whom Grey believes has syphilis and wishes to find a way to end the engagement without creating a scandal that will shame his family.

I really liked the way in which Gabaldon tied the various plots of the story together.  It’s not something I really expect in a Gabaldon novel; the Outlander books really aren’t known for their closure (although one hopes that by the end of the series things are all nicely wrapped up, with a bow on top), but Private Matter has plenty of closure.  The immediate issues O’Connell’s death, espionage, and syphilis are all brought together and resolved in a manner that one probably wouldn’t have expected – in a manner that I really didn’t expect myself.  Lord John isn’t my favourite of Gabaldon’s characters, I’ve always found him to be a bit stale and somewhat flat, and I usually can’t help but feel that his sexuality is just a new way for Gabaldon to introduce more sex, and with a variety of partners (I’m rather certain that of Gabaldon’s protagonists, John Grey has the largest number of sexual partners).  I have no problem with gay characters, I just kind of roll my eyes when it seems apparent that the character was created so that he can have sex with this guy, and this guy, and this guy.  In previous stories, Grey has always appeared to be one such creation, but in Private Matter he becomes more than just a slightly promiscuous gay English lord.  His sexuality is actually a part of the plot, and for the first time Gabaldon divulges into the sexual underworld of London.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The one thing that I did dislike about Private Matter, and really the one thing that I dislike about most of Gabaldon’s books, is the historical note.  II love historical fiction and the thing that I’ve always enjoyed about books by authors like Bernard Cornwell is the way that, in the end, there is a historical note telling you about the real things relating to what you’ve just read: Cornwell’s can be a good twenty pages long, telling you what characters were made up and what are historical figures, as well as where he embellished, made changes, and made assumptions, and where he didn’t, making little notes of details of the plot.  In Gabaldon’s novels (and her novellas) the historical notes are always lacking.  For someone who puts so much detail into her writing, she is lacking in detail in her historical note and, while it doesn’t take away from the overall story, to me it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Lord John and the Hellfire Club

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Novella, Historical, Mystery
Rating: C

In "Lord John and the Hellfire Club" Lord John Grey (of the famed Outlander series) witnesses the murder of one Robert Gerald, the cousin of Grey’s friend and colleague, Harry Quarry.  Even before rumours begin to circulate about Gerald’s sexuality Grey had vowed to find the murderer, a search which brings Grey to the Hellfire Club, where the story becomes more about the danger that threatens Grey’s life than discovering who murdered Gerald.

I was actually rather disappointed by this story.  Going into it I understood that it was a novella and that Diana Gabaldon had never written a novella before, but this still really didn’t meet my expectations.  The detail that you can expect in one of her books is still there, but because of the brevity of the story itself this actually takes away from things.  When writing a novella there is a word count, and unlike in books when you can simply add pages (or divide books into two parts, à la George R.R. Martin) if you surpass that count your work is going to be cut.  Thus, in order to add details Gabaldon has to take away from other elements – in this case, she deprives the plot.  Everything happens too quickly and too easily, and without any real depth to it.   Furthermore, the suspense of the story is somewhat diminished by the fact that this novella is a prequel of sorts; any fan of the Outlander series knows that Grey appears in books set after this novella, thus when his life is endangered there’s a large “meh” element to it.  I’m not worried about whether or not Grey survives, because I know he has to.  I’m not even worried about him being grievously harmed or disfigured, or even if his reputation is tarnished and his secret exposed – I know it doesn’t happen.  Which is why all of that seems to be a large part of the suspense of the novella; Gabaldon wants readers to be asking what’s going to happen and if Grey is going to emerge from this story alive.  She seems to almost forget that we already know the answer.