Reading Order

The novels may be read in world order from The First Drowning, or entered through The Seven of the Gyre and explored outward. Both routes are intended.

Eleven novels across four collections, written so that each collection can be entered from its front. There is no wrong door. There are, however, two routes that were designed for, and it is worth knowing which one you are on.

Eleven cloth-bound volumes on a shelf, spines lettered in gilt: The First Drowning, The Last Shore and The First Gyre of The Drowning Years; The Returned Sky and The Naming of the First of The Second Drowning; The Seven of the Gyre, The Black Wave and The Silent Horizon of The Drowned Age Trilogy; The Drownborn, The Sky Beneath and The Last Green of The Later Stories — The first movement: eleven novels, four collections.

The discovery route

Recommended for most readers. Begin at the sequence’s centre of gravity, where the world is settled and sure of itself, then read outward in whichever direction the ending sends you.

Start with The Seven of the Gyre, finish the Drowned Age Trilogy, then go back to the founding centuries or forward to what the next generation inherited. This is how the story was uncovered rather than how it was lived, and the saga was built to survive it.

Read the opening

The world order

Chronological, from the collapse forward. The numbers below are for navigation only — they are not part of any book’s title, and no novel is published as “book six of eleven”. The gaps between collections are enormous and deliberate: over a century between the first and second, four more centuries before the trilogy.

1The First DrowningThe Drowning Years
2The Last ShoreThe Drowning Years
3The First GyreThe Drowning Years
4The Returned SkyThe Second Drowning
5The Naming of the FirstThe Second Drowning
6The Seven of the GyreThe Drowned Age Trilogy
7The Black WaveThe Drowned Age Trilogy
8The Silent HorizonThe Drowned Age Trilogy
9The DrownbornThe Later Stories
10The Sky BeneathThe Later Stories
11The Last GreenThe Later Stories

Where the companions fit

Four reference volumes, each written for a different point in the reading.

A Short Guide to the Drowned AgeRead before any novel
The Drowned Age: An Illustrated GuideRead after at least one novel
A Reader’s Guide to the WorldRead before or alongside The Seven of the Gyre
The Drowned Age CompanionRead after all eleven

More about the companion volumes — and the Short Guide is free.