Tuesday, October 6, 2009

An Echo in the Bo- . . .

Yeeeeaaars ago, when I bought the first book in Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" trilogy, I had never heard of it. I read to the end and was completely indignant at the idea of such a cliff-hanging finish. It was as if the last sentence was not intended to be the end of the book at all. As if the publisher had made a mistake in the book-binding process and omitted the final few pages.

Of course, I finally clued up and, as of now, the whole world has heard of Strider (well, Aragorn), Gandalf, and Frodo. They no longer belong
just to me.

According to the reviews by readers on Amazon, author Diana Gabaldon has done a similar thing with the latest book of her "Outlander" series: "An Echo in the Bone." She even put a (sort of) disclaimer on her web site which I quote:

A word about the ending...I did say, did I not, "Nobody's going to hit the end of _this_ book, and think it's the last one?"

One of the reader/reviewers on the Amazon site recommended that people not read this one until the next one comes out.

If it were not already in transit to my account at the library, I might think about doing that - for about two seconds. I do appreciate the heads up, though. I won't gallop through it in order to find out what happens next. I will savor and enjoy as I go, in the knowledge that the end will indeed leave me a-la-Tolkien.

Forewarned, and all that . . .

2 comments:

ol-Doc said...

Oh, my - can she write or not!! Aren't the characters all friends by now? And if I come to the end of the thing and it's not the last book - I'll just be glad and impatient to get hands on the next book in (all together, now...) THE SERIES!

RANGER said...

Let's hope it doesn't take her so long to do the next one. I haven't started the series over, yet, but it is tempting to reread them one right after another without having to wait years for her to finish the next one.