The issue of a reading order for the Liaden Universe is a complicated one, because the Liaden Universe is not a single series but a setting in which many stories take place, some widely separated and some so close together they overlap. There are many possible ways to approach it, and which is best depends as much on the reader and the situation as anything else.

(The authors have some wise things to say on the subject on the Reading Order page of their own site, which are worth reading.)

Of all the possible approaches to take, I’m only going to address internal chronological order here, since that’s the one I can speak on with some confidence, having just read all the stories in that order, more or less. “More or less” is inevitable: as I’ve already said, some of the stories overlap, and sometimes you just have to make a judgement call about what order to read two things that occur more or less simultaneously.

With that in mind, here is my suggested internal-chronology-based reading order for all the Liaden novels, and then, in case the fancy should some day take you as it took me, for all the stories set in the Liaden universe.

Liaden Novels by Internal Chronology (More or Less)

Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, Balance of Trade, Trade Secret, Fair Trade, Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Mouse and Dragon, Conflict of Honors, Fledgling, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, Plan B, I Dare, Saltation, Ghost Ship, Dragon Ship, Necessity’s Child, Dragon in Exile, Alliance of Equals, The Gathering Edge, Neogenesis, Accepting the Lance, Trader’s Leap, Salvage Right

All Liaden Stories by Internal Chronology (More or Less)

“Dragon Tide” ², “Necessary Evils” ², Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, “Eleutherios” ³, “Where the Goddess Sends” ¹, “The Wine of Memory” ¹, “A Spell for the Lost” ¹, “Standing Orders” ⁶, “Preferred Seating” ⁵, “Ambient Conditions” ⁵, Balance of Trade, Trade Secret, “Out of True” ³, “Dead Men Dream” ⁵, Fair Trade, “Excerpts from Two Lives” ⁴, “Naratha’s Shadow” ¹, “Sweet Waters” ¹, “The Space at Tinsori Light” ³, “Moon’s Honor” ³, “Phoenix” ¹, “Due Diligence” ⁴, “Dark Secrets” ⁵, “Pilot of Korval” ¹, “A Choice of Weapons” ¹, “The Beggar King” ², Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Mouse and Dragon, “Guaranteed Delivery” ³, “From Every Storm a Rainbow” ⁶, “Veil of the Dancer” ², “Heirloom” ¹, “Intelligent Design” ³, “A Matter of Dreams” ¹, “Moonphase” ¹, “Cutting Corners” ⁴, “Command Decision” ⁵, “Fighting Chance” ², “To Cut an Edge” ¹, “A Day at the Races” ¹, “Shadow Partner” ², “Certain Symmetry” ¹, “This House” ², Conflict of Honors, “Changeling” ¹, “Degrees of Separation” ⁴, “Fortune’s Favors” ⁵, Fledgling, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, “Quiet Knives” ², Plan B, “Breath’s Duty” ¹, “Daughter of Dragons” ², “Persistence” ², I Dare, “Misfits” ², Saltation, “Landed Alien” ³, “Moon on the Hills” ², “Code of Honor” ³, “Hidden Resources” ², “Kin Ties” ³, Ghost Ship, “Prodigal Son” ², “Songs of the Fathers” ⁶, Dragon Ship, “Wise Child” ⁶, “Skyblaze” ², Necessity’s Child, “Roving Gambler” ³, “The Rifle’s First Wife” ³, Dragon in Exile, “Chimera” ⁶, Alliance of Equals, The Gathering Edge, “Shout of Honor” ⁵, “A Visit to the Galaxy Ballroom” ⁵, Neogenesis, “Opportunity to Seize” ⁵, Accepting the Lance, Trader’s Leap, “The Gate That Locks the Tree” ⁵, “Block Party” ⁴, “Our Lady of Benevolence” ⁶, “Revolutionists” ⁴

¹ can be found in A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 1
² can be found in A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 2
³ can be found in A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 3
⁴ can be found in A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 4
⁵ can be found in A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 5
⁶ not yet collected in a Constellation: From Every Storm a Rainbow, Wise Child, Chimera, Our Lady of Benevolence, Standing Orders, Songs of the Fathers

[Appendix]

This is an appendix to the Suggested Reading Order post, sketching out my reasons for the order I chose. There will be discussion of plot points, if you haven’t read everything yet and it’s something that matters to you.

Continue reading →

First of all, I have some people to thank:

• The authors of the Liaden Universe, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, without whom there would be nothing for this blog to do, and more importantly for the joy their work has given many readers around the world.
• Everybody whose work has gone into making WordPress such a powerful and easy-to-use blogging platform, with particular thanks to those who worked on the Akismet spam filter and the Editorial Calendar scheduling tool; this project would have been much more difficult and painful without you.
• Every single person who commented on any of the posts.

And now, we’re near the end, which is the traditional time to look back and think about what one has learned. So here are some of the things I have learned doing this re-read:

• Reading one chapter per day works well for a book where all the chapters are about the same length, but not so well for a book where the chapters vary according to the pace of the story and may be anything from one page to fifty pages long.
• An ebook reader is not bad for reading a book straight through, but can be a pain when you want to flip back a couple of chapters to check on something you think you remember being mentioned but you’re not sure exactly where it was. (And worse yet when checking on the thing you think you remember requires flipping back and forth between two different books on the same device.)
• Sharon Lee was right when she told me at the start of this that authors arrange chapters and scenes the way they do for a reason, and to split or rearrange them is to damage the story. Of course she was, but being me I had to try it the other way to realise it. And, all things considered, I’m glad I paid her enough attention to rein things in as much as I did.
• This was a pretty ambitious project, especially since it’s the first time I’ve done anything like this. Eighteen novels is definitely jumping in the deep end. There’s a perfectly good four-novel series that ticks most of the boxes for why I wanted to do this project; if I’d thought of it, I could have done it first as a warm-up. (Part of me still wants to do it next; another part of me is horrified at the thought of ever trying anything like this again.) But the Liaden Universe had one particular appeal that the other options didn’t, which was that there was a new novel due out that was a sequel to one I hadn’t re-read, and I wanted to make time to re-read it before the sequel. Which brings us to the next point:
• It can be tricky to read a series in chronological order when it’s still in the process of being written. I thought I was safe because all the upcoming novels were progressing the story, so I could just stick them on the end, but I didn’t account for all the additional short stories that weren’t so accommodating. As it was, I still got it wrong in places. Not just with the new stories I hadn’t read yet, but also sometimes with older stories that I’d misunderstood or misremembered when they were set. So I can’t, even now, claim with entire honesty to have read the whole series in chronological order. But I am in a good position to advise the next person who wants to give it a go. That’s tomorrow’s post.