Gabaldon, Diana(1952– )
Time travel stories are one of the most common
forms of the modern romance novel, and there
have been literally hundreds of them published
during the last 10 years, most of them involving
travel to a handful of historical periods and loca-
tions in Europe and most of them pedestrian in
style and repetitious in plot. Typically a female pro-
tagonist is projected back by some barely explained
and largely irrelevant means—a magic device, a
mysterious storm, a family curse—where she meets
a charming though frequently mysterious man, and
after considerable effort they become romantically
involved. Only a few writers actively using this de-
vice employ authentic historical backgrounds and
skilled writing to produce a genuinely interesting
novel, and none as well and as successfully as
Diana Gabaldon in her Outlander series.
Diana Gabaldon is the pseudonym of Diana
Watkins, whose first novel, Outlander(1991, also
published as Cross Stitch), rapidly became a best-
selling romance. Gabaldon was one of the first to
blend a traditional romantic plot with more serious
literary purposes. The story follows the adventures
of a contemporary married woman who touches a
magic stone and finds herself projected back
through time to 18th-century Scotland, where she
meets a local nobleman with whom she has various
adventures and eventually falls in love. In the first
sequel, Dragonfly in Amber(1992), she convinces
him that she does, in fact, know the future, and
they travel to the royal court to attempt to change
history and avert the Battle of Culloden. Although

they appear to have done just that, they later learn

that there has been treachery, partially instigated

by an ancestor of the man to whom the protago-

nist, Claire, is married in our present.

In Voyager(1994) Claire has returned to mod-

ern time, bearing her lover’s child and convinced

that he died in battle. When she uncovers informa-

tion that indicates he might have survived, she de-

cides to find a way to cross the gap of time again,

even if it means abandoning her daughter. The

daughter, Brianna, becomes the protagonist in

Drums of Autumn (1996), convinced that her

mother has disappeared into another era. She tries

to follow and ends up in Revolutionary War Amer-

ica instead. They are all reunited in America in The

Fiery Cross(2001), along with Brianna’s husband,

but their lives continue to be subject to turmoil and

danger.

Lord John and the Private Matter(2003), al-

though it features a minor character from the se-

ries, is a historical mystery. Gabaldon returned to

Claire and her 18th-century family in A Breath of

Snow and Ashes(2005). Gabaldon has also written

a nonfiction book providing additional detail about

the background and writing of the first four novels,

The Outlandish Companion(1999).

Gaiman, Neil (1960– )

Although Neil Gaiman originally achieved promi-

nence for his work on various graphic novels, par-

ticularly the Sandman sequence during the late

1980s and early 1990s, his career has become de-

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