AAR

[Mark]

I was recently thinking about reading order for books in series. I read F&SF for many years before I started reading romances. Most F&SF series have stories that build through multiple books, so it is best to read them in order. Occasionally an author writes books out of the order of the chronology of story events, and there can be valid arguments for either story chronology order or publication order. The Pern books by McCaffrey and the Liad books by Lee & Miller are examples of series that I would recommend to read in publication order rather than story universe chronological order.
There are also some series that are more episodic or standalone, without any overall story arc or development, where reading order isn't a big deal. The Tom Swift Jr. series that I read in my teens was like that--even though there were new inventions in every book, Tom was 18 years old through more than 30 books.
When I started reading romances, I found a different sort of series: the one-couple-per-book series. Some have overall arcs of development and many don't. In some of the series without an obvious overall arc of development, primary couples from one book will be important secondary characters in other books, but in other series primary couples get little page space outside their own books.
Many Paranormal Romance series that I've read are best read in order, including series by G. A. Aiken, Dana Marie Bell, Meljean Brooks, Kresley Cole, Bianca D'Arc, MaryJanice Davidson, Thea Harrison, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Angela Knight, Shelly Laurenston, Katie MacAlister, Erin McCarthy, Robin D. Owens, Cindy Spencer Pape, Kimberley Raye, Tielle St. Clare, Lynsay Sands, Nalini Singh, Kerrelyn Sparks, Vicki Lewis Thompson, and Christine Warren (though the way the "Others" books have been published & revised makes reading order a bit of a challenge).
I'm unsure about the Cynster books by Stephanie Laurens. I have read them in order of publication, but they are more loosely connected than most paranormal series. Her Bastion Club books are definitely a read-in-order series.
I like the fact that AAR reviews mention if a book is part of a series, but I'm wondering if it is worth trying to encourage the online romance community to add a few modifiers to the word "series". Some possibilities:
MRC Major Recurring Characters
MVCA Multi-volume Character Arc
MVSA Multi-volume Story Arc
MVSCC Multi-volume Same Central Characters
RIAO Read In Any Order
RICO Read In Chronological Order
RIPO Read In Publication Order
These labels can overlap, so there are probably better systems. MRC could mean books like Nina Bangs' books with the cosmic troublemakers as recurring secondary characters but no obvious MVSA, or Meljean Brook's Demon books with the h/h of Demon Angel present as important secondary characters in most following books with a MVSA, but the latter could also be described as MVCA. Laurens' Bastion Club books, with the buildup to Dalziel's story, could be described as MRC, MVCA or MVSA. MVSCC includes series like the Tom Swift Jr. books or the J. D. Robb "In Death" books.
Since I never took many English literature courses in school, it is entirely possible that I am re-inventing the wheel here and that there is already standard terminology, but if so I haven't run into it on the few online boards I regularly visit.

[veasleyd1]

Thanks for posting this. I've not previously come across any suggested terminology for describing series reading order.

[Wendy AAR]

I've never seen a system like this anywhere else, either, and I think its brilliant. I especially like the RICO AND RIPO tags, as well as the MRC.