“Each story is well-written and expertly crafted.”
~ Under the Covers
SEVEN STONES TO STAND OR FALL is a collection of stories set in the Outlander world by Diana Gabaldon. When this massive book reached my doorstep, I thought it was going to be a full length book but actually it’s an anthology of short stories. Now I hesitate with calling them short stories because while they shorter in comparison to Gabaldon’s other books, the stories included here are all pretty long.
Gabaldon approaches each of these stories the same way as she does with each novel. The characterization is developed right from the beginning and there’s the same level of detail to each so you can definitely expect quality stories from this author no matter what format she decides to write in.
There are seven stories in this book but a few have already been released before. The last two, Besieged and A Fugitive Green, are the new originals that are making their debut in this book. Therefore, I will be sharing my thoughts on those stories in this review.
A Fugitive Green was the one that I was most excited about. It follows the story of Minnie Rennie who I instantly fell in love with. She’s such a strong character despite her age and actually I don’t think there’s a heroine that Gabaldon has written that I don’t like. As I mentioned earlier, the author doesn’t skimp on character development and this is the story that I definitely feel that shows this the most. We see a lot of Minnie’s growth in this story and by the end, I found myself wanting more.
Besieged was a different read for me because it’s about Lord John. This is the story that I think required much more research than the others because it involves Havana. Now, I have a long-time obsession with Havana so my level of excitement was through the roof while reading this. I’m just fascinated by the city so getting to see it through Lord John’s eyes was nice.
Sadly there’s not much of Jamie but there is brief mentions and glimpses here and there. I think this is a great book for die-hard fans of the world. Each story is well-written and expertly crafted. To be honest, they don’t really feel like short stories to me. So you definitely don’t want to miss out on this one!
READING ORDER & BUY LINKS
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[about-author author=”Diana Gabaldon”]
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Adding to my wishlist.
Great review Annie!! Shared on my socials!!
Thanks for the review.
Oh good to see that you really liked the new content ones. It is funny to see her short stories when most people consider them novellas and her novellas are the length of some novels. 😉
I hope to get to this one by this fall.
Yeah, these stories are very detailed and long. Which I can appreciate. Not many authors take the time to write that elaborately these days.
Looking forward to reading this series. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Annie
I’m wondering why the novellas were displayed in that order, differently from the order Diana explained right before at the Introduction.
She wrote: “the detailed listing here shows the sequence of the various elements in terms of the story line”. The order is: Virgins, A Fugitive Green, The Custom of the Army, A Plague of Zombies, A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows, The Space Between, Besieged.
However, in the book, the order is this: The Custom of the Army, The Space Between, A Plague of Zombies, A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows, Virgins, A Fugitive Green, Besieged.
I understand the reason to put the unpublished novellas at the end, but the others aren’t displayed in story line order neither in publication order… I think story line order would be more convenient for the readers.
Could you explain me?
Besides, I’m wondering why is this the final order of the story line, out of chronological order:
“A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows” (1941-3)
“The Space Between” (1778)
“Besieged” (1762)