The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [149]
“I bet you do,” I said, trying not to stare at his nipples, which were precisely at my eye level. I figured he must; the only men I know who remove the hair from their chests are models.5 Anyway, he was quite nice (though Elva kept muttering in my ear, “Does his mother know he’s doing this?!“), and stayed for a while to chat. After he left, the Ladies very kindly presented me with all sorts of nice presents, and I signed their books, and tottered off to bed at last around 2:00 A.M. (I had to get up at 6:00, to go talk to the “lads” at the local prison, where I was presenting a writing seminar.)
Oh, the dollar bills. No, I didn’t. (The Ladies did, though! It must have been really uncomfortable, having crinkly paper crammed into one’s sweaty crevices while gyrating.) I waited until he was finished, then stepped forward and handed him my own small wad of bills, saying, “As one exhibitionist to another …”
Anyway, I can’t promise that you’ll find entertainment of that caliber on the LOL Web site, but you likely will find a number of very nice people interested in… er … things Scottish.
THROUGH THE STONES
DCS-Web-Designs.webjump.com/stones/Through_the_Stones.html
This is a really interesting site, of long standing. When I visited recently, it featured (among other things) voting sites, for people to cast ballots for assorted actors and actresses to star in the hypothetical movie. This was much more interesting than most such discussions, as it featured actual pictures of all the potential candidates, noting the number of votes cast so far for each one. It also went well beyond the “Who should play Jamie/Claire?” stage, presenting candidates for Black Jack Randall, Frank, Jenny, and Ian Murray, Young Ian, Colum, Dougal, and even Murtagh (Danny DeVito? Um … no, I don’t think so).
Through the Stones is not only a site unto itself, but also the originating site of an extensive Web ring: related sites that can be accessed through links to this site. A number of the Web ring sites also deal at least peripherally with the books, though some are principally devoted to Celtic culture, rather than to the Outlander novels specifically.
My name is Diane Schlichting and I am a teacher living outside of Toronto, Canada. I am an avid Web enthusiast and have been designing Web sites for the last three years. I created “Through the Stones” as a tribute to Ms. Gabaldon and her wonderful books. I first read Outlander two years ago and was instantly hooked. I was captivated by Jamie and Claire and their romance; Ms. Gabaldon’s characters are so true to life, you feel you know them personally. Her idea of time travel through the standing stones has become so plausible that I feel that if I went to Scotland and laid my hand on a standing stone that I, too, might be whisked back to the past.
THE OUTLANDISH TIME LINE
members.aol.com/sassenak/timeline.html
This Web site has been constructed (over at least two years) by a reader whose screen name is Sassenak@aol.com. It features a time line for the novels noting which events happened when—something that I frequently don’t recall (or didn’t know in the first place) myself! An enormous labor, it’s still in progress, though I believe the time line is complete through Dragonfly in Amber, and may exist through the later books by now.
In addition to the time line, interesting graphics, and the like, one of the features of this site that I found most entertaining was one called “The Body Count.” Created by another reader (screen name BoDiva@aol.com), this is a table of all the people who have died in the novels, including who (or what) killed them, where, and why.
CLAN OUTLANDISH ON AOL
While it is not, strictly speaking, a Web site, I thought I should really mention this reading group, located in Cafe Booka on America Online. Some six hundred members strong, “Clan Outlandish” is dedicated to book discussions, chats, and general outlandish camaraderie. There being neither world enough nor time for me to visit all the online venues regularly,