The novels in the internal-chronological list below appear in italics; the novellas (officially defined as a story between 17,500 words and 40,000 words, though mine usually run 20k - 30k words) in quote marks.

Falling Free

Shards of Honor

Barrayar

The Warrior’s Apprentice

“The Mountains of Mourning”

“Weatherman”

The Vor Game

Cetaganda

Ethan of Athos

Borders of Infinity

“Labyrinth”

“The Borders of Infinity”

Brothers in Arms

Mirror Dance

Memory

Komarr

A Civil Campaign

“Winterfair Gifts”

Diplomatic Immunity

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance

CryoBurn

Caveats:

The novella “Weatherman” is an out-take from the beginning of the novel The Vor Game.  If you already have The Vor Game, you likely don’t need this.

The original ‘novel’ Borders of Infinity was a fix-up collection containing the three novellas “The Mountains of Mourning”, “Labyrinth”, and “The Borders of Infinity”, together with a frame story to tie the pieces together.  Again, beware duplication.  The frame story does not stand alone, and mainly is of interest to completists.

The Fantasy Novels

My fantasy novels are a bit easier to order.  Easiest of all is The Spirit Ring, which is a stand-alone, or aquel, as some wag once dubbed books that for some obscure reason failed to spawn a subsequent series.  Next easiest are the four volumes of The Sharing Knife—in order, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and Horizon—which I broke down and actually numbered, as this was one continuous tale divided into non-wrist-breaking chunks.

What have come to be called the Chalion books, after the setting of its first two volumes, were also written, like the Vorkosigan books, to be stand-alones as part of a larger whole, and can in theory be read in any order.  (The third book actually takes place a few hundred years prior to the more closely connected first two.)  Some readers think the world-building is easier to assimilate when the books are read in publication order, and the second volume certainly contains spoilers for the first (but not the third.)  In any case, the publication order is:

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls

The Hallowed Hunt

The short story collection Proto Zoa was an e-book experiment; it contains five very early tales—three (1980s) contemporary fantasy, two science fiction—all previously published but not in this handy format.  The novelette “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” may be of interest to Vorkosigan completists, as it is the first story in which that proto-universe began, mentioning Beta Colony but before Barrayar was even thought of.

Happy reading!

— Lois McMaster Bujold.

About the Author

Lois McMaster Bujold

Photo by Carol Collins