What's the Order?

People have been asking "In what order should I read the Scattered Worlds books?" and "In what order do the books go by internal chronology (i.e. when things happened in the Scattered Worlds universe)?" Both are good questions.

Reading Order

Unlike many series out there, the Scattered Worlds stories are meant to stand on their own. You can pick up any title without having read the others. That's why I call it a mosaic rather than a traditional series. There is no required order for reading the constituent parts. However, after a while you will come to realize that they are all part of a larger pattern, a continuing narrative. In the end (and I promise you, there is an end), the Scattered Worlds books will tell a complete story that transcends the individual parts.

That being said, The Leaves of October is a good place to start. It covers the full sweep of Scattered Worlds history from the beginning up to the Maturity of Humanity, and provides a framework that the other stories can hang from.

After Leaves you have a choice. If you want to read more kewl aliens and find out more about the alien cultures of the Scattered Worlds, you might want to move on to A Voice in Every Wind and A Rose From Old Terra, then pick up Weaving the Web of Days and All Roads Lead to Terra (just released), and fit Dance for the Ivory Madonna in whenever you're in the mood for something near-future.

If you'd rather read more about the Human cultures, then jump right into Weaving the Web of Days, follow up with A Voice in Every Wind, All Roads Lead to Terra, and A Rose From Old Terra. Dance for the Ivory Madonna, finally, will give you a feeling for how all this stuff originated.


Chronological Order

I don't suggest reading the books in chronological order your first time through, but here it is:

1. Dance for the Ivory Madonna
2. Weaving the Web of Days
3. A Voice in Every Wind
4. All Roads Lead to Terra
5. A Rose From Old Terra
6. The Leaves of October

(Actually, it's more complicated than that. The sections of The Leaves of October, A Voice in Every Wind, and All Roads Lead to Terra actually take place in several different time periods. But this'll do for now.)

Be aware, though, that there are more books coming -- and they will definitely appear out of chronological order. I'll periodically revisit this list as more books come out in the future.

-Don Sakers

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copyright (c) 2010, Don Sakers
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