{"id":1633,"date":"2010-11-13T04:56:27","date_gmt":"2010-11-13T01:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2010-11-13T04:56:27","modified_gmt":"2010-11-13T01:56:27","slug":"baxters-xeelee-series-the-chronological-reading-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2010\/11\/13\/baxters-xeelee-series-the-chronological-reading-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Baxter’s Xeelee series – the chronological reading order"},"content":{"rendered":"

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)<\/a> 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Xeelee series, chronological reading order:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coalescent (book one of Destiny’s Children – only tangentially related to the rest of the timeline)
\nTranscendent (book three of Destiny’s Children)
\nThe Sun-People (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nReturn to Titan (uncollected – to be found in the misc. author anthology Godlike Machines, Sept 2010)
\nThe Logic Pool (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nTimelike Infinity
\nGossamer (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nTimelike Infinity
\nCilia-of-Gold (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nLieserl (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nRing (read up to the launch of Great Northern)
\nStarfall (uncollected – novella published by PS Publishing, April 2009. Hardcover, print only)
\nPilot (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Xeelee Flower (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nMore Than Time or Distance (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Switch (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nRemembrance (published in the misc. author anthology The New Space Opera)
\n* Timelike Infinity (again?)
\nCadre Siblings (in: Resplendent)
\nBlue Shift (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nConurbation 2473 (in: Resplendent)
\nReality Dust (in: Resplendent)
\nMayflower II (in: Resplendent)
\nAll in a Blaze (in: Resplendent)
\nSilver Ghost (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Quagma Datum (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nPlanck Zero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nSoliton Star (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Cold Sink (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Seer and the Silverman (only published as part of the misc. author anthology Galactic Empires)
\nOn the Orion Line (in: Resplendent)
\nGhost Wars (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Ghost Pit (in: Resplendent)
\nLakes of Light (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Godel Sunflowers (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nBreeding Ground (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Dreaming Mould (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Great Game (in: Resplendent)
\nThe Chop Line (in: Resplendent)
\nVacuum Diagrams (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nIn the Un-Black (in: Resplendent)
\nRiding the Rock (in: Resplendent)
\nExultant (book two of Destiny’s Children)
\n* Mayflower II (again? in: Resplendent)
\nBetween Worlds (in: Resplendent)
\nRaft
\nStowaway (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Tyranny of Heaven (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nHero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nFlux
\n* Transcendent
\nThe Siege of Earth (in: Resplendent)
\nSecret History (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nShell (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Eighth Room (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\nThe Baryonic Lords (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
\n* Ring (after Great Northern returns)<\/p>\n

PeriAndry’s Quest (as yet uncollected – Analog, June 2004)
\nClimbing the Blue (as yet uncollected – Analog, July\/August 2005)
\nThe Time Pit (as yet uncollected – Analog, October 2005)
\nThe Lowland Expedition (as yet uncollected – Analog, April 2006)
\nFormidable Caress (as yet uncollected – Analog, November 2009)<\/p>\n

* Timelike Infinity (again?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m still waiting for Joshi’s complete Lovecraft biography to find its way across the Atlantic, and in the meantime I’m …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unnamable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}