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Baxter’s Xeelee series – the chronological reading order

13 Saturday Nov 2010

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I’m still waiting for Joshi’s complete Lovecraft biography to find its way across the Atlantic, and in the meantime I’m getting ready to tackle Stephen Baxter’s immense Xeelee series of SF books and stories. For those, like me, who like the idea of reading these works in chronological order, Baxter has a chronology of all the Xeelee stories / novels (to 2009) on his official website, although it’s not easy to find via a Google search. It does seem to contain plot spoilers. So, below is my version of his chronological list of novels/stories without the plot spoilers, and all short stories and novelettes have their parent book noted in brackets. They’re spread across 12 print books, three of which are anthologies that contain other authors.

Note that Ring, Timelike Infinity, Transcendent, and Mayflower II appear several times in Baxter’s list — this seems to indicate that they straddle a long time-period? Presumably an intelligent reader will realise when to make the switch. I have starred * these overlapping texts when they make a second appearance in the list below.

Xeelee series, chronological reading order:

Coalescent (book one of Destiny’s Children – only tangentially related to the rest of the timeline)
Transcendent (book three of Destiny’s Children)
The Sun-People (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Return to Titan (uncollected – to be found in the misc. author anthology Godlike Machines, Sept 2010)
The Logic Pool (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Timelike Infinity
Gossamer (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Timelike Infinity
Cilia-of-Gold (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Lieserl (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Ring (read up to the launch of Great Northern)
Starfall (uncollected – novella published by PS Publishing, April 2009. Hardcover, print only)
Pilot (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Xeelee Flower (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
More Than Time or Distance (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Switch (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Remembrance (published in the misc. author anthology The New Space Opera)
* Timelike Infinity (again?)
Cadre Siblings (in: Resplendent)
Blue Shift (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Conurbation 2473 (in: Resplendent)
Reality Dust (in: Resplendent)
Mayflower II (in: Resplendent)
All in a Blaze (in: Resplendent)
Silver Ghost (in: Resplendent)
The Quagma Datum (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Planck Zero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Soliton Star (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Cold Sink (in: Resplendent)
The Seer and the Silverman (only published as part of the misc. author anthology Galactic Empires)
On the Orion Line (in: Resplendent)
Ghost Wars (in: Resplendent)
The Ghost Pit (in: Resplendent)
Lakes of Light (in: Resplendent)
The Godel Sunflowers (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Breeding Ground (in: Resplendent)
The Dreaming Mould (in: Resplendent)
The Great Game (in: Resplendent)
The Chop Line (in: Resplendent)
Vacuum Diagrams (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
In the Un-Black (in: Resplendent)
Riding the Rock (in: Resplendent)
Exultant (book two of Destiny’s Children)
* Mayflower II (again? in: Resplendent)
Between Worlds (in: Resplendent)
Raft
Stowaway (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Tyranny of Heaven (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Hero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Flux
* Transcendent
The Siege of Earth (in: Resplendent)
Secret History (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Shell (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Eighth Room (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Baryonic Lords (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
* Ring (after Great Northern returns)

PeriAndry’s Quest (as yet uncollected – Analog, June 2004)
Climbing the Blue (as yet uncollected – Analog, July/August 2005)
The Time Pit (as yet uncollected – Analog, October 2005)
The Lowland Expedition (as yet uncollected – Analog, April 2006)
Formidable Caress (as yet uncollected – Analog, November 2009)

* Timelike Infinity (again?)