Order, order!

Meriel Patrick, deputizing for Lynne

When I seek out an author's website, the thing I'm most commonly looking for is a list of their past books in reading order. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this: when I start typing a name into Google, it's amazing how often one of the suggested searches is something like "[author name] books in order".

Most author websites are pretty good at providing this information. Some, however, are not, and I always find this rather baffling. Only the other day, I was looking at a site which featured elegant little thumbnail images of the cover art for the author's backlist, arranged in what seemed to be a random order. But I only knew this because I've read several of the books in question.

This set me wondering: did the author not think it mattered which order the books were read in? Like a lot of people, I'll often start reading a series in the middle, because I happen across something that piques my interest in a bookshop, or because someone lends me a novel they think I'll like. But if I enjoy it enough to seek out more of the same, I tend to go back to the start and work my way through methodically.

This is mainly because most of the series I love have a strong background story arc: relationships between key characters develop, or things happen in their personal lives that are as significant as the main mystery plot of each novel. Later books in the series constitute major spoilers for earlier ones. Crime writers are very adept at referencing earlier works without giving away whodunit, but it's a bit harder when it comes to the background story. Detective and sidekick can reminisce about the grisly case they investigated three books ago without naming the murderer, but if book 4 ends with a cliffhanger about whether the two of them are going to get together or part forever, and book 7 starts with them married and expecting a baby, it's fairly clear what the general trajectory of books 5 and 6 must have been.

The rise of the background story strikes me as a relatively recent phenomenon. As a teenager, I devoured Agatha Christies in whatever order I happened to come across them. A little I later did the same with Ngaio Marsh and Ellis Peters, and it didn't feel like a problem. There were elements of background story, but they were much less prominent: my impression is that Golden Age novels and those from the middle of the 20th century tend to be more focused on the puzzle, with the lives of the protagonists as not much more than peripheral detail.

To some extent, there's also been a practical shift: twenty years ago, if you wanted to read an author's backlist, your best bet was to look out for them in second-hand bookshops and libraries, and nab whatever you happened to see when you saw it. These days, you can find pretty much anything online, so it's easier to start at the beginning. Though it still takes a bit of effort: I've often heard it lamented that shops selling new books tend not to stock anything except the most recent volumes.

All the above said, I have to admit that my favourite background story arc of all time is from a Golden Age author, and that I read the books out of sequence. In fact, if I remember rightly, I first read Dorothy L Sayers' Harriet Vane/Lord Peter Wimsey books almost in reverse order, and it didn't seem to dent my enjoyment of them.

So I'm left torn. Is it important to read a series in order? Does it depend on the series? What do you think?

Comments

[Annay Dawson]

Well put! I sometimes feel that when I read a series out of order that I miss some of the little crumbs a writer puts in for those that have read the series in order. I have to admit that I even put crumbs in my series for those readers as well but I try not to make it important to the plot. With this being said I try to write my series so that if a reader wants to read it out of order they don't feel like they have to go back and reread the titles in order so that I can look for those crumbs.
I have often found though that it isn't until the third or fourth book in the series that the writing develops and I think this may be because the writer has gotten to know their characters better. And for that reason I sometimes start later in the series.
With all that I have said though I will now go back and look at my website with a different perspective, making sure that the order of the series is clear. Thanks!