Diana Clarifies All QUICK SUMMARY FOR THE BUSY OR IMPATIENT:  NO, A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES is NOT the last book in Jamie and Claire's story.  YES, there will be another book about Jamie and Claire.  Maybe two.    NO, I don't have a title for this book. NO, I haven't written it yet. NO, I don't know when the publication date will be.  Publishers kind of like to have a book in hand — or at least see one approaching on the horizon — before they set pub dates (well, actually, I have had a publisher try to set a pub date before I finished writing a book.  Didn't work all that well). YES, there are more Lord John stories: TWO more novels (at least), and one more novella (at least). YES, I know the titles for these:  LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE (novel), "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier" (novella), and "LORD JOHN AND THE SCOTTISH PRISONER" (novel).  NO, I don't have pub dates for these yet, except for the GERMAN edition of a COLLECTION OF "Lord John" SHORT PIECES — that's announced for August 6 of this year.  FOR THE MORE LEISURELY OR BORED,… NOW, LET'S ALL JUST PAY ATTENTION HERE FOR A MINUTE…          My assistant, my German translator, and lots of other friends who hang in more online places than I do report that Wild Rumors regarding what I'm writing, what I've written, and what will be published when, are flying through cyberspace like bats out of hell — driven on, no doubt, by faceless minions from amazon.com, wielding whips made of live scorpions.          I have therefore been requested by the aforementioned assistant and translator (who are getting sick of trying to answer the avalanches of email in multiple languages) to write up a manifesto (or at least a bulleted list) regarding What's Published, What's Next, When, and What Comes After That?  (And This Isn't the END,  is It?   Answer - No, it isn't.)          Now, in order to do this effectively, we will first require a short Review of Vocabulary.  (My apologies to the people who already know what a novella is.  They can skip the following and join us further down the page)          I notice that a great many of my interlocutors (look it up, babe <g>; people who read my books own dictionaries — or at least know where to find one online (www.dictionary.com suggests itself , though if you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster's Third International Unabridged (my own favorite), so much the better)) apparently don't recognize the terms "novella," "anthology," and "short story," and thus are inclined to translate all these terms indiscriminately as "BOOKS!" and write frenzied queries about not being able to find a book titled HELLFIRE (which they can't find among the novels because it is a short story) or SUCCUBUS (which is not on the shelf with my novels because it is a novella, published in an anthology under the editor's name), etc., etc.           In fact —          A SHORT STORY is a story told in (usually) 15,000 words or less.  Mind, the length is kind of arbitrary, and you'll find slightly different length standards — but the point here is that this is a story that is short.  I.e., not the size of a novel, and hence, not usually published in a book by itself (unless it's "Brokeback Mountain" and someone makes a hit movie of it, in which case some publisher most assuredly will bind it as a (very thin) book and try to charge you ten dollars for it, in hopes that you won't realize it was originally published in a short story collection by Annie Proulx and go buy that instead (it was, and you should. CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES, it's called).            A NOVELLA  is defined either as a "short novel," or a "long short story" (just to make things difficult).  The standards of length are even fuzzier than they are for a short story, and vary depending on who you're talking to, but for general purposes of discussion, we'll say the average novella usually runs somewhere between 20-40,000 words.   Yes, this is confusing.           However, a novella is demonstrably shorter than the average novel, and thus also is not usually published in book-form by itself.           So, the fact that short stories and novellas are not usually published by themselves leads us ineluctably to the conclusion that they must be published along with other stories, QED.  (All right, I'll tell you that one, since people write and ask all the time.  QED is a well-known (no, really) abbreviation (like PDQ, SNAFU, or FUBAR), which stands for the Latin phrase, Quod erat demonstrandum.  Which in turn means "That which has been demonstrated," or more loosely, "Thus it has been shown" (or if you want to be crude about it, it's the Latin form of "Ta-dahh!").   It's commonly used (or at least it was, when I learned geometry back in the Dark Ages) to indicate the conclusion of the proof of a theorem, and how people get along without it in daily life, I simply don't know.          Anyway, the point here is that both SHORT STORIES and NOVELLAS are normally published in books that contain a number of similar objects.  Such a book of short stories is sometimes called a "collection," but is also known by the technical term, "anthology."          AN ANTHOLOGY (or COLLECTION, if you prefer) is a book in which some perspicacious editor has assembled a selection of several short pieces.  These short pieces may be by the same author (in which case, the term "collection" is most frequently used) or by a lot of different authors (in which case you usually call it an anthology).          Now, the difference here is that a COLLECTION of stories by the same author is — reasonably enough — published under that author's name, just as if it were a novel, a book of nonfiction (e.g., The Handbook of  Tractor Repair or The Dietary Habits of the Birds of the Colorado River Valley), or a book of poetry (no, many thanks to those of you who asked, but I really don't write poetry, nor do I have any interest at the moment in writing children's fiction (what is it with the children's fiction?  Why does everyone assume that all writers must be writing kids' books on the side, or harbor a long-term desire to do so?  Writing kid-lit is a very specialized and difficult skill, requiring — among other things — the ability to tell an effective story in a very small space.  I patently don't possess that skill <g>, so why on earth do you think I'd write children's books?)).          An ANTHOLOGY, composed of pieces by a number of different authors, obviously can't be published under the name of just one of those authors.  Ergo, it's published under the name (or names) of the editor (or editors) who selected the pieces for inclusion.          OK, I'm kind of figuring that y'all do know what a NOVEL is.  That's a stand-alone book of fiction (yes, this means the author is allowed to make things up and is not trying to pull a fast one on the audience), composed of one internally-cohesive (well, we hope) story, usually written by one single author under his or her own name (or pseudonym, as the case may be.  And NO, I don't write under any pseudonyms, for heaven's sake.  I have people breathing down my neck day and night for the next book — which will, thanks for all great blessings, probably sell reasonably well — and you figure I'm not writing the next book, I'm off writing something else under another name that likely wouldn't sell nearly as well?  What do you think I am, nuts?  Besides, if I wanted to use a pseudonym in the first place, I sure would have picked something easier to spell and pronounce than "Gabaldon"  (It's GAH-bul-dohn – rhymes with "stone."  It's Hispanic.  It's also mine, so please stop calling me "Mrs. Gabaldon".  My husband's name is something else, but I only use that one for talking to schools and pediatricians  (actually, if you insist on a formal title, it's Dr. Gabaldon <g> (Ph.D. in Quantitative Behavioral Ecology — don't worry about it, it's just animal behavior with a lot of statistics), but most people just call me Diana, which is perfectly fine)).           Good.  Now that we have our terms and definitions straight, we can begin.          So, OK.         Starting with what I have written: I have (so far) written seven NOVELS, one NOVELLA, one SHORT STORY, and a nonfiction "Companion" in a gigantic series which no one can describe *, but luckily, people still seem to want to read. For the sake of convenience, the US publisher normally refers to this series as "The OUTLANDER saga/series," the first novel having been entitled OUTLANDER.   (All right, I'm not mad-keen on "saga," just because it sounds rather turgid and/or Scandinavian, and whatever else people say about my books, nobody's ever called them boring or Swedish.  I'd prefer "epic," myself, but what the heck.) Now, a certain difficulty arises when we deal with other countries, owing to the fact that the first book isn't called  OUTLANDER, even in other English-speaking countries. The first novel is titled CROSS STITCH in the UK/Australia/New Zealand axis (long story; it's in The Outlandish Companion, if you're wildly interested in where titles come from and other such things).  Rather than call it "the CROSS STITCH series," the Brits have opted to call it "The Jamie and Claire series," which is pretty blah, if you ask me, and makes it sound like either a soap opera or a children's book — "See Jamie run.  See Claire stab.  Look, look at the Loch Ness Monster.  Run, Jamie, Run!" (though I suppose the size should tip people off, there).  The Germans like the more comprehensive, "Die Highland-Saga."  Which would be fine, save that not all the books take place in the Scottish Highlands, but then, they do take place at least partly in the mountains of North Carolina as well, so I suppose it isn't inaccurate. Anyway, whatever you want to call this whopping sequence of enormous novels  (I did suggest to Barnes and Noble, when they finally saw the light and moved the books out of Romance and into Fiction, that they celebrate the occasion by doing displays of my books, along with Sho-Gun, The Thorn Birds, Gone with the Wind, and more recent entries like The Historian or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, under a sign reading, "I Like…Big…BOOKS!" (with apologies to Sir Mix-A-Lot), but I don't think they took this suggestion, oddly enough.), there are actually two distinctly different types of novels in it, as well as one book of nonfiction (how is it possible to write nonfiction about fiction?  You got me, but I seem to have done it). The Jamie and Claire Books – There are six (so far) novels, which are focused on the evolving affairs and ever-present dangers of James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser — Highland farmer, dauntless warrior, and intermittent criminal — and his wife, Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser — nurse / doctor / healer / witch, time-traveler, and habitual smartarse — to say nothing of their family, friends, picturesque enemies (featuring a bisexual sadistic pervert (it's not the bisexual part that's perverted, btw, it's the "sadist" part — for the benefit of any hypercritical PC-type readers (not that I have many of those; I think they all imploded after the first book and went away)) and an Irish sociopath (no, I don't have anything against the Irish; this was just a nice sociopath who happens to be Irish, OK?) and assorted livestock.        These novels are (in order of publication): OUTLANDER (aka CROSS STITCH, aka FEUER UND STEIN — and a lot of other things in other languages, but we'll just do German and English for now) DRAGONFLY IN AMBER (DIE GELIEHENE ZEIT) VOYAGER (FERNE UFER) DRUMS OF AUTUMN (DER RUF DER TROMMEL) THE FIERY CROSS (DAS FLAMMENDE KREUZ) (Note to the astonishingly large number of persons who apparently have never seen the word "fiery" and keep asking me in dubious tones whether that's pronounced "feery"?:  Is the word "F-I-R-E pronounced feer?  No.  Does the word "fiery" mean "on fire"?  Yes.  So we logically conclude that it is pronounced "Fy-ree," do we not?  Also see "dictionary," above.) A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES (EIN HAUCH VON SCHNEE UND ASCHE) All the novels above are available (in the US, at least) in hardcover, trade paperback (the big size), and mass-market paperback — except for A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES, which is still only in hardcover.  YES, you can get them without searching eBay; I don't care what the nimrod behind the desk at your local bookstore told you.  Any bookstore worth its salt can order you any of these and get them in a matter of days; otherwise, amazon.com has all of them, in any format. STILL TO COME IN THE JAMIE AND CLAIRE STORYLINE – AND NO! IT ISN'T WRITTEN YET! (What do you people think I am, a machine?)  - at least ONE (maybe TWO, I don't know.  How do you expect me to know these things — what am I, psychic or something?) further novel(s), UNTITLED. (It — or they — are untitled because a) I haven't yet come up with a working title, and b) if I did, I wouldn't say what it was in public, because bloody amazon.com would promptly snatch it and start taking orders.   Watch — just watch — I'll bet within a week of my posting this, if you do an Amazon search on my name, it will pop up a "new novel!" titled…UNTITLED.  I kid you not.  They do this.) *  So far, the best description is one supplied by Salon.com magazine: "the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting "Scrooge McDuck" comics." The Lord John Grey novels (and shorter pieces) – OK, Lord John is a minor but important character from the main series.  The novels and stories about him are thus much shorter than the gigantic Jamie and Claire books, and tend to be fairly tightly-focused, with the general structure of historical mystery novels/novellas. These novels and short pieces are: "Lord John and the Hellfire Club" ("Die Flammen der Hölle") – short story, originally published in a UK anthology of historical crime stories, titled PAST POISONS, edited by Maxim Jakubowski.  Presently reprinted in the back of the US trade paperback edition of LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER, and eventually to be included in a collection of short Lord John pieces. LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER – novel (Published as DAS MEER DER LÜGEN, in German)  "Lord John and the Succubus" ("Der magische Pakt") – novella.  This one was originally published in a fantasy anthology, titled LEGENDS II: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy (<cough> - hey, I didn't pick the title), edited by Robert Silverberg.  It will eventually be included in the aforesaid collection of short pieces. LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE – novel – in progress.  I will finish this in 2006.  I have no idea when anybody will publish it, but as soon as I find out, I'll let you know.  "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier" – novella.   (OK, here's where we stop to be confusing again. <g>  The German publishers intend to publish the COLLECTION of three short Lord John pieces — "Hellfire," "Succubus," and "Haunted Soldier" sometime this summer, under the title DIE HAND DES TEUFELS (THE HAND OF THE DEVIL).  We presently have no arrangements to publish this collection in English, but I'll be wildly surprised if the US/UK publishers don't do just that, the minute they learn it's available.  So no pub date for an English version, but probably sometime this year — 2006.) (The even more confusing part is that — in terms of Lord John's personal chronology, BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE precedes "Haunted Soldier."  However, the Germans evidently plan to publish the short-pieces collection before BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE.  Bear this in mind. <g>) LORD JOHN AND THE SCOTTISH PRISONER – novel – not yet started. Nonfiction THE OUTLANDISH COMPANION Well, THE OUTLANDISH COMPANION is my attempt to answer all the questions people asked me about the Jamie and Claire novels during the first seven or eight years.  It covers the first four novels in the series, and includes: Detailed synopses of the first four novels (for the use of people who want to refresh their memories without necessarily re-reading two-and-a-half-million words) A Cast of Characters, listing everyone (almost) who appeared in any of the first four novels, along with notation indicating in which book(s) that character appeared. Essays on my research methods, how I create characters, where my titles come from, how I wrote novels while holding down a full-time job and having three small children without losing my mind, and other matters of general interest. Also, A glossary and pronunciation guide to the Gaelic and other foreign phrases used in the books. Illustrations of some objects and places from the books. An appendix of the poetry and other quotations used in the book, with sources. A bibliography of the 600-odd (and some of them were pretty dang odd) books I used as reference while writing the first four novels, And a lot of other interesting stuff that I don't want to bother typing in here. ... to be continued.