The books have all been written in such a way that you should be able to pick up any one and get a full and complete story. However, characters do reoccur, off center stage as it were, and their stories do follow a sequence. The best place to start is the collection Dreams Underfoot. From there they go pretty much in this order:
The Dreaming Place
A Whisper To A Scream (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
I'll Be Watching You (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
Memory And Dream
The Ivory And The Horn
Trader
Someplace To Be Flying
Moonlight And Vines
Forests Of The Heart
The Onion Girl
Seven Wild Sisters (also available in Tapping the Dream Tree)
Tapping the Dream Tree
Spirits in the Wires
Medicine Road
The Blue Girl
Widdershins
Make a Joyful Noise (chapbook)
The Hour Before Dawn (collection)
Old Man Crow (chapbook)
Little (Grrl) Lost (novel)
Promises to Keep (short novel)
Dingo (short novel, forthcoming)
The Dreaming Place and The Blue Girl are YA novels. A Whisper To A Scream and I'll Be Watching You are, respectively, a horror novel and a thriller; they're darker fare than the other Newford books and aren't really that integral to the underlying, ongoing backstory that takes place off center stage in so many of the books and stories.
I swear I looked at his website...I really did. And it was inevitable that I would have started halfway through the series. Now I am off to the library website to see which ones I can and can't get hold of.
The other issue is that of course the library doesn't have the whole collections. It is missing book numbers 3 and 4, 6 to 8, 12 and 13, 15, 17 to 20 and 22. Ah well. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it!
That list is useful, but I still wish there was a chart of this sort explaining which characters feature prominently in which books and all that.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely! It would make life much easier wouldn't it! But I guess that this is all we have!
ReplyDeleteThe other thing about this answer is that lots of authors like to believe that all their books in a series standalone but I have read plenty which really, really don't stand alone well at all.
Thanks for posting this. I'm one of those people that needs to read in order wherever possible and not knowing where to start can put me off starting at all.
ReplyDeleteI have only read one Newford book: Memory and Dream, which I just read about a month ago. It is one of my very favorite books!! Charles de Lint is fast moving up as one of my favorite writers.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's an interesting list. I read The Blue Girl thinking it was totally unrelated, but looks like it is part of the series after all. That is really good to know.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I have read a few of those and never knew they were in any order and some I can't even get hold of!
ReplyDeleteAmiable dispatch and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you on your information.
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