Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 18 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Brianna making a dream journal entry. She was dreaming of her time in her own time period, events of things that happened. That leads to her thinking about hot water. It is something that could be possible in theory, but she needs to figure out how.

She’d need a power source and something to hold onto the water. The power source is pretty easy, but holding the water means getting her hands on some metal. That is a precious substance in this time period. Jamie got his hands on metal thanks to some gambling.

When she goes back to her thoughts about making hot water later in the chapter, she thinks about taking the laundry pot. Mrs. Bug would throw a fit about that. And they all need to do laundry! That wouldn’t be practical.

I just love how we see Brianna’s engineering brain work. She even thinks about how inventions may have been created by other time travelers based on items they remember from their own time. Is that the case, really? Just how many time travelers are there?

We also see Roger making an item from his own time. He makes a wooden car for Jemmy to play with, and uses the “Vroom!” sound for it. Jemmy wants to know what it’s called, and there’s a twinge of sadness in this chapter. Brianna calls it a “Vroom.” What else can they call it right now when automobiles aren’t even considered a thing just yet. Even the steam engine hasn’t been invented yet.