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My advice to someone wanting to read the Dragaera books is to read them in order of publication within each series. That is, start the Vlad books with Jhereg and start the romances with The Phoenix Guards. This, I think, will work out best for gradually discovering things about Vlad and the other characters in the order Brust meant you to. There's not much of this to be concerned about between the two series, which (so far) are set in different time periods: the Vlad novels all within Vlad's lifetime, and the romances in a period from roughly 1,000 years to 200+ years before Vlad's birth.
Brokedown Palace is set in Vlad's ancestral homeland, Fenario, sometime before the Vlad novels, and can be considered a one-part "series" of its own, independent of reading order in the others, even though its events, too, are (loosely, so far) linked with those in the two main series.
"A" before the date means the book was published by Ace; "T" means Tor. The month/year dates are from the back title page. Where I give two dates, the first is for "First edition" (presumably hard cover or trade [large-format] paperback, in italics) and the second for "First mass market edition" (small paperback). ISBN is the International Standard Book Number;
A number of people have helped with this page, including Casey Rousseau, Thomas Yan, and Dennis Castle.
Each ISBN is linked to an Amazon.com page through which you can buy the book in that edition, and each title is linked to the Amazon page for the most recent edition. Many of the earlier Vlad books are out of print, but Amazon often offers used copies, and the texts of those novels are included in the omnibus volumes. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra; it's just the same as going to Amazon's website on your own, except that (1) you'll go directly to the book you're looking for, and (2) I will earn a small commission, which will help defray the cost of maintaining this page.
Page numbers on Cracks and Shards refer to the editions whose dates and ISBNs are not italicized in the table below (unless there is only one edition listed). These are always single-title volumes (i.e., not omnibuses [*]), and usually but not always mass market editions. In the Tables of Contents for the Vlad books I have added page numbers for the omnibus volumes, with the kind assistance of other fans.
The American titles of omnibus volumes (The Book of Jhereg, The Book of Taltos, The Book of Athyra) are in italics, spanning the abbreviation and title columns, followed by the abbreviations of the works they comprise. Thanks to Casey Rousseau for publication information on these.
The Viscount of Adrilankha, to the left, is a single long work that is being published in three volumes; what was at one time called a three-decker. I have put its title in boldface as a "sub-subhead" in the table.
Do not confuse Paths of the Dead with Taltos, however much a publisher may try to muddle you. In May, 2003, Brust answered a comment on the Dragaera mailing list:
The book was called Taltos when I wrote it. It was still called Taltos when Ace published it. Pan [the UK publisher -- MAM] bought rights for a British edition and, for reasons best known to themselves, re-titled it Taltos and the Paths of the Dead and put a Hitler Youth on the cover. If they'd asked me, I'd have suggested that this was a poor idea.
In the same thread, Casey Rousseau noted:
Also note that the Pan omnibus edition of Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla was called Taltos the Assassin. Not to be confused with The Book of Taltos, Ace's omnibus edition of Taltos and Phoenix.
The short story "A Dream of Passion" was published in a chapbook and is available on the web. Issola contradicts it in at least one very important point, and it's probably best considered just a dream of Vlad's, as the title suggests. In our world, it was written early in the Vlad series, and I suspect that Brust titled it as he did for just this reason, so he wouldn't feel bound to keep subsequent developments consistent with it.
| ADOP | A Dream of Passion |
| Ath | Athyra |
| BP | Brokedown Palace |
| Drg | Dragon |
| Dzr | Dzur |
| FHYA | Five Hundred Years After |
| Iss | Issola |
| Jrg | Jhereg |
| LOCB | Lord of Castle Black |
| Orc | Orca |
| Phx | Phoenix |
| POTD | Paths of the Dead |
| SL | Sethra Lavode |
| Tek | Teckla |
| Tlt | Taltos |
| TPG | The Phoenix Guards |
| Yen | Yendi |
[omnibuses] "Omnibus" is from Latin, but unlike "alumnus", "cactus", and most other English nouns ending in "-us"* it doesn't form its plural by changing "-us" to "-i". In fact, in Latin it's not even a noun; it's the dative plural of "omnis" and means 'for all', 'for everyone'. What we now call simply a bus is a vehicle that carries anyone who will pay the fare, unlike a private coach. And an omnibus volume may contain all of an author's works, or all of a series, or, as here, just more than one.
* Not including "census" and "virus", whose plurals are "censuses" and "viruses". The explanation would take us even farther afield from Brust. Go ask Dr. Whom.
[three-decker] Not unlike The Lord of the Rings, which is often mistakenly called a trilogy. A trilogy consists of three related works, any of which can be read independently of the others. I found The Paths of the Dead satisfying in itself, though clearly incomplete; but I wouldn't recommend reading The Lord of Castle Black without finishing POTD first. The author says (LOCB 15):
As for the entire question of splitting the book into several volumes, the author will not pretend to more knowledge than he has; if it is the custom of those who publish such works to make such mutilations, for whatever reason, then so be it. Nevertheless, it is a single work, and the suggestion that there may be some who possess only a part of it strikes the author as creating an intolerable situation for the reader.
[2006-04-08] And elsewhere, the author says:
This is a good place to explain that The Viscount of Adrilankha is not a trilogy, it is a three volume novel. That is, it should be thought of as a single book. The Khaavren Romances are, in fact, a trilogy, of which Viscount is the third novel. Therefore, these five books are clearly seen to be a trilogy consisting of two one-part novels and one three-part novel. Each part consists of two "books." Therefore, chapter four of book two of part three of the third book is easily seen to be chapter fifty two of the third novel, or chapter one hundred and twenty of....
Okay, to hell with it. Call it a trilogy. I don't care.
[to the left] While I did warn you at the beginning that this site is not intended as an introduction to Dragaera, I realize that a newcomer might well visit this page for the most basic facts (such as titles, publishing order, and ISBN number) before reading any of the books. And I don't want to confuse you any more than I already have. So I should explain that "to the left" has nothing to do with the layout of the title list or anything else, but is an idiom that Paarfi's characters often use where we might say "on the other hand".
[Psst psst pssst...] Oh, Paarfi? He's the fictional "author" of the books listed under "Paarfi's Romances", which are written in a very different style from any of the Vlad books or Brokedown Palace. See "Brusts, plural". It's on the Cracks page, but that section doesn't contain any spoilers.
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last modified 2007-12-23
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