For autopope, and others who may be too shy to ask

[rolanni]

Down in the comments of the last post, autopope asks the musical question:

Speaking of the Liaden books, is there any chance you can do a blog post with a suggested reading order?

There's a list of suggested reading orders here. Yes, that's right -- plural orders. And it's worth noting that some readers have made their own determination of which order the books are best read in, for them.

There are a couple of reasons why there isn't One True Reading Order.

The first is that we're telling a really long, braided story as the plot-lines occur to us. I speak for Steve here as well as myself when I say we are not tidy writers. We get a lot of props for doing long-arc plotting, which are quite possibly not at all deserved. Of course, there's also the possibility that the back-brain knows exactly what it's doing and just hasn't bothered to tell the hired help.

The second reason is that we deliberately tried to make doors into the Universe at various points, so new readers didn't necessarily have to read umpty-leven books in order to find out if they liked what we were doing. "Doors" include Balance of Trade, Local Custom, Fledgling, Agent of Change, naturally. I'm aiming George to be another door -- aka a "side book" -- but we won't know if I've hit the mark until it's done.

I hear from readers that the Crystal books (Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon) take "a lot of dedication" and are not a good place to start. Some it seems, would like to expel them from the canon entirely. Baji-naji -- I've also heard from readers whose first exposure to the Liaden Universe(R) were the Crystal books and not only weren't harmed in the least, but went on to read the rest of the books with gusto.

I've also lately heard that it's. . .difficult for old fans to recommend that new fans start with Agent of Change because AoC is "too embarrassing." It is, I'll note, more than 20 years old, and doubtless showing its years. However, it is the Very First Book Ever Written in the Universe and if you are a reader who prefers to follow a series along as it was written, you sorta have to start there.

...I think that's probably sufficient confusion for one post.

Question? Ask and I'll do my humble best.

Comments

[berneynator.livejournal.com]

Huh, I started with Agent of Change and adored it! Sadly, I didn't realize there were more, so it took me a few years to find the rest. But then I saw Balance of Trade at the bookstore, and recognized the authors even though I never remember author names. Agent was definitely a good door for me. My friend, on the other hand, started with Conflict of Honors because it seemed to me she should read it before Carpe Diem, and it seems cruel to make someone stop and backtrack at the ending of Agent. It hooked her, so Conflict is apparently a pretty good entry point, too.