In another thread Dianthus mentions the Pern series of books and suggests thta new readers should start with "First Fall". It's true that this is the earliest in terms of internal chronology but it's a very late entry in the series in terms of when it was written. This raises the question of whether book series are best read in internal chronology sequency or in the sequence they were written (or indeed published which isn't necessarilly the same thing).

Two other series spring to mind.

The Narnia series was written beginning with the ever popular "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" (1950) but the boxed set sitting on my bookshelf puts the much inferior "The Magicians Nephew" (1955) as number one because in story terms it is.

The other example is the Flashman Books which jump about all over the place in story sequence - so much so that I'm not going to attempt to put them in order.

It's obviously personal choice but I always try to read book series in the order they were written rather than the "logical" sequence.

Other opinions?

quote:

I always try to read book series in the order they were written

That's what I do, too. I sometimes get annoyed with authors who decide to write 'prequels' well after the initial success of a book.

I also like to read the series books in the order they were written. In fact, when authors write lots of books (Anne Tyler comes to mind...and I do wish she'd write another soon!), I like to read them in the order they were written, even though they weren't written in a series.