[LMB] OT: Liaden e-books available from Baen

[Phil Boswell]

On 21/01/07, Tracy MacShane <trix at queerscience.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-01-19 at 22:18 -0500, Marty L. Adkins wrote:
> > Such details as there are, are available from Steve Miller's journal, here:
> > http://kinzel.livejournal.com/126450.html
> > Jerrie, off to pet her books on the shelf.
> This is great, because I haven't been able to find them here in Oz, and
> everyone seems to *rave* about them. Which one do I start with? (If it's
> not a vexed question)

Actually it is, rather, but as with so many things to do with the
Liaden Universe, the actual answer doesn't matter that much, it's the
joy of discussion and discovery which counts.

Since you'll almost certainly devour them as quickly as you can get
your sticky mitts on them, the exact order almost doesn't matter...

This will help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaden_universe

To condense it somewhat: "Local Custom" and "Scout's Progress"
(previously collected together as "Pilots Choice") form a sort-of
prequel, telling the story of the parents of two of the major
protagonists of the "Agent of Change" sequence. You can read these
before or after the next three without making much difference, but
reading them before "Plan B" is good if you want to know what the heck
certain scenes are all about.

The main AoC sequence kicks off with "Conflict of Honors", "Agent of
Change" and "Carpe Diem": the first is about one of those major
protagonists; the latter two about the the other, and those two need
to be read in that order.

"Plan B" and "I Dare" complete the "Agent of Change" sequence and
should be read after all these I just mentioned and in that order.

"Balance of Trade" is an independent entity and can be read just about
anywhere, but here will do just as well. Chronologically it's set
between the "Agent of Change" and "Migration" sequences.

"Crystal Soldier" and "Crystal Dragon" form the "Great Migration
Duology" and are set in the extremely-distant past. For your first
pass, you might well want to read them last. Myself, now I've read the
lot, I much prefer re-reading all ten in order of "internal
chronology".

What I cannot make out from the blurb I have seen thus far, and having
no experience of purchasing eBooks from Baen, is whether their
packages can be separated into the component books, or whether you
just get one big file with all the books in and have to read them as
presented. Given that they seem to have monkeyed around with the
ordering quite a lot, I am hoping for the former.

HTH HAND
-- 
Phil