The Custom of the Army

An Outlander Novella

By: Diana Gabaldon

Narrated by: Jeff Woodman

Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

London, 1759. After a high-society electric-eel party leads to a duel that ends badly, Lord John Grey feels the need to lie low for a while. Conveniently, before starting his new commission in His Majesty’s army, Lord John receives an urgent summons. An old friend from the military, Charlie Carruthers, is facing court-martial in Canada, and has called upon Lord John to serve as his character witness.

Grey voyages to the New World - a land rife with savages (many of them on his own side) and cleft by war - where he soon finds that he must defend not only his friend’s life but his own.

This novella also appears in the collection Warriors, where it is narrated by Patrick Lawlor.

©2010 Diana Gabaldon (P)2012 Recorded Books

Lead-up to "Scottish Prisoner"

I'm a big fan of LJG and can easily see why Diana Gabaldon gave this character his own spinoff series after his relatively brief but completely endearing appearance in the Outlander series' "Voyager." (He appeared even more briefly in "Dragonfly in Amber," but hadn't yet achieved endearment in that one.)

This is a very nice story--not wonderful, but a good, short Saturday afternoon read. A conversation between Lord John and his brother the Duke (interrupted by gurgles and demands from the Duke's treasured baby daughter as she's passed between Daddy and Uncle John) sets up the story and is a priceless example of what lifts Gabaldon's books out of the run-of-the-mill romance/adventure fantasy category and into a class of their own. Humor and melodrama grounded in likeable characters that somehow feel completely real.

This novella describes the events immediately preceding those of "The Scottish Prisoner."

An entertaining story, and great narration!

Diana Gabaldon's novella, "The Custom of the Army", is a highly entertaining story that will appeal to fans of her Lord John books as well as the main OUTLANDER series. Jeff Woodman does an excellent job with all the voices. I particularly liked his voices for Lord John, Hal, Tom Byrd, and the gravel-voiced Sgt. Cutter.

My only complaint is that this audiobook seems expensive for only 2 hrs and 35 minutes worth of recording time. But the recording was well done, and Jeff Woodman seemed to me to be enjoying himself. The enthusiasm comes through in his voice.

Short story of Lord John Grey

The Custom of the Army is sort of a bonus novella in the Lord John Grey series. While Lord John also appears from time to time in Ms. Gabaldon’s Outlander series, in the books that feature him alone there isn’t (at least in the ones I have read) any time travel, and these are strictly historical fiction.

In this book Lord John starts out by going to an electric eel party – apparently a big fad in late 1750’s London – and winds up taking part in the British Army’s capture of Quebec. On the way, he investigates the charge of treason lodged against the friend who has called him to the site of the siege and visits the husband of a female relative to pass along a gift she has sent for him, only to find him shacked up with a local woman.

Lord John is basically a good-hearted soul, and he attempts to straighten all this out before being caught up in the attack on the city. And it looks as if he has had some success. But the vagaries of war and the ravages of a concurrent attack of smallpox (or was it cholera?) pretty much wipe out everything he was trying to do.

Good narration.

ELECTRIC-EEL PARTY!!!!

Must I say anything more than ELECTRIC-EEL PARTY??? Who knew?! Please more Lord John, I'm definitely enjoying these books more than the Outlanders.

Great short story

Great story, narration is excellent. My only negative is that the story ended too soon!

Don't blame the electric eel...

In this short story Lord John Grey, finds himself stunned near to death at an eel party, in a fist fight, then virtually sleepwalking through a duel defending the honor of a lady. By the next morning, the Duke is at his doorstep with mail from outraged nobles, and everything comes into horrifyingly humorous focus.

His brother, Harold, Duke of Pardloe, offers him an alternative to marrying Caroline and having to explain about the demise of an annoyingly rude poet: Go to Canada.

He's come to defend an old friend Caruthers who is about to be court martialed, but an ailing Caruthers means to use the trial expose corruption and brutality by his superiors that echoes the shades of the aftermath of the Rising in Scotland. John also means to locate his cousin's husband to deliver a portrait of their newborn son, but what he finds is not what he expects.

If that weren't enough John is just in time to join the British forces on the outskirts of Quebec, and shortly finds himself joining Wolfe's army, meeting yet another Fraser, climbing the cliffs and taking part in the historic battle of the Plains of Abraham.

Set in the midst of the Seven Years War, The Custom of the Army is a tale that falls between the novella 'The Haunted Soldier' (from Lord John and the Hand of Devils) and the Outlander series crossover novel, The Scottish Prisoner. In fact, I'd say that you really cannot fully appreciate Custom of the Army without reading at least The Scottish Prisoner, and you cannot really appreciate The Scottish Prisoner without reading at least The Brotherhood of the Blade.

Gabaldon's books are like that, unfolding and intertwining the Lord John and Outlander series into a common tale. But in this case, there are events in Custom of the Army that are left unresolved until Scottish Prisoner. I actually got to the end of the story and was left wondering, since Lord John had committed to seeing his friend's quixotic task through until justice was done.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice," Caruthers tells John, but we will have to go hungry until The Scottish Prisoner because you don't get to see that justice move forward in Custom.

Still I cannot fault the story much, and Jeff Woodman again provides the wonderful voices of John Grey as well as all the other characters in his excellent narration.

There are a couple of loose ends addressed, like what happened to his cousin's husband, and what became of the Jacobite conspirator responsible for murdering his father Gerard Grey, 1st Duke of Pardloe (from Lord John and the Private Matter and The Brotherhood of the Blade, respectively).

So in short, if you can't wait for this novella to come out on audio with a few more Lord John short stories (like Plague of Zombies which as of this writing is the latest), get this as a companion piece to The Scottish Prisoner. But if you read it without reading The Scottish Prisoner afterward, Custom of the Army feels unfinished, and you are left doubting Lord John's resolve to see his promise to Caruthers through to the end.

Together, however, they are one of my favorite Gabaldon stories.

Nice

It was good, but a bit shorter than I thought I’d be. Also rather quick, so it was a bit of a disappointment on tying things up in the end.

I love lord john

Can't get enough. Love Jeff Woodman. More adventures to augment the Outlander saga. Not throwaway novellas a wonderful tangent. I

Loving all the Lord John Books

I really have enjoyed getting to know Lord John better. I also love how these books fill in gaps in the Outlander Series. I would recommend these books to anyone that loves the Series. The Lord John books are short and sweet but still full of adventure. you won't be disappointed.

The back story reveals good stuff

I have been enjoying these novellas that are little back stories about how some things, and some people came to be in the Outlander stories. The connection between Lord John and the Frasers is in its early phases . I was hesitant about a different narrator after basking in Davina Porter's voice, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Jeff Woodman's narrating the story. He was able to manage several characters with ease and he put emotions and attitude in their voices. If you follow Outlander, these novellas are a good bridge between stories.