My Own Personal Outlander

[This post is safe for non-readers of the books and non-watchers of the television series.  *cough*Natalie*cough*]

As he did with Battlestar Gallactica (or so I’m told because I never watched it), Ronald D. Moore does podcasts for every episode of Outlander.  I came across them only recently and decided to listen to them in chronological order rather than jumping in with the most recent episode.  My preferred method of listening to the podcast is to synch it with the televised episode (sound off, close-captioning on).

Watching one episode per day (or thereabouts), last night I came upon the highly disturbing “The Garrison Commander” (106).  For this podcast Ron was accompanied by his three cats, the third of which is named Romeo.

Hey Ron, is your Romeo this handsome?

I have a Romeo, too!  I bet Ron’s isn’t as handsome as my boy is.

This fact might not have been blog-post worthy, were it not for something I came across the night before while reading Voyager, Diana Gabaldon’s third book in the Outlander series.

My Kindle app tells my I’m 65% of the way through Voyager, but recent going has been slow.  Glancing ahead to the next chapter (to determine how far I’d read before turning off the light), I espied a word familiar to me, but had never encountered in fiction.  It took me a moment or two to realize what I’d read.

The purser on board the HMS Porpoise is named “Mr. Overholt.”  I’ve seen Overholtzer in creative works before, even Overholtz, but never Overholt.

This Mr. Overholt is described as a bald-headed, short, rotund fellow, so he can’t be related.  All of the Overholt men I know are either very tall, hair-gifted, or both.

I may have to change my opinion of Ms. Gabaldon.  But I probably won’t.

Thoughts on Dragons

The announcement of Cressida Cowell’s latest book, The Incomplete Book of Dragons (or The Complete Book of Dragons in the U.S. because we apparently are stupid) inspired this post yesterday a couple days ago. In describing the different covers, I remembered something I’ve been thinking about for a while—how the movie might possibly have influenced the books.

Book #9’s cover features Hiccup and his Windwalker

As every fan of the books knows, the movie is only loosely based on the books.  Hiccup is significantly older in movie, there is no Astrid (although there is Camakazi, whose dragon is named Stormfly), and Toothless is an entirely different type of dragon (as is Stormfly).

In the books, Toothless is a small Common or Garden dragon, much like the Terrible Terrors of the movie.  He’s also exceptionally noisy, self-centered, and disobedient.  (But in a lovable way.)

Hiccup’s riding dragon in the books is the Windwalker.  Personally, I think he’s based (at least partially) on the movie’s Night Fury Toothless.  He’s completely black and among the fastest flyers of the dragon species.  When Hiccup first picked him, the Windwalker was rather pathetic.  He was timid, appeared to have been abused, didn’t speak (book-Hiccup is able to speak Dragonese), and he was physically damaged.  Even now, six books later, he still has a bandaged foot.  (Well, except for his featured cover.)