MtG Novels?

[War Golem]

After reading all the excellent recommendations for good SF in this thread (which will now keep me busy for quite a while), it reminded me that I've also been curious about the Magic the Gathering novels, which, I presume, will constitute somewhat "lighter" fare (and nothing wrong with that).

I'm not into card collecting, nor playing the game itself. But I have always been intrigued by a lot of the art and ideas I've seen for MtG, and that got me interested in possibly reading some of the novelizations of the setting.

So, I have 2 questions - What the heck is the order the novels should be read in, and are there any particular single novels or mini-series that are either "must-read" or "to be avoided at all costs"?

Thank, folks.

Cheers,

-War Golem

 

[War Golem]

...bump...

 

[Eternalknight]

Ok, here is my recommendation:

Start with the novel, The Thran. This is set before all the other books.

Next read The Brother's War, Planeswalker, Time Streams and Bloodlines.

The anthology, Rath and Storm, should be read next.

Then we have Mercadian Masques, Nemesis and Prohecy, then Invasion, Planeshift and Apocolypse.

That covers that story arc.

Some other subsets include The Gathering Dark, followed by The Eternal Ice and The Shattered Alliance. There is also the "Legends" cycle that begins with Johan, but I don't know the last two books.

We also have some anthologies: The Colors of Magic, The Myths of Magic, and the Dragons of Magic, in that order.

 

[War Golem]

Thanks Eternalknight!

(I was starting to wonder if anyone read these books at all.)

Did you list the novels in order of the story timeline, or is this the chronological order the books were published? And, did any of the novels stand out from the rest (either good or bad)? Same question about authors?

I'm just curious because there seem to be so damn many MtG novels on the shelf every time I stop by bookstore. Hard to know where to start. But, based on your recommendation, I'll pick up The Thran next time I get a chance.

Thanks again.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

My favorites were:

Books: The Brother's War, Planeswalker
Author: Jeff Grub

All in all they are good pulp fantasy, but no great works of art other than possibly The Brothers War (but that might be because I read it first)

The following take place durring Planeswalker but are unrelated to it at all except being on the same planet:

The Gathering Dark, The Eternal Ice and The Shattered Alliance

The order that Eternalknight gave was Timeline order

Publishng order was roughly:
The Colors of Magic
Brother's War
Planeswalker
Time Streams
Bloodlines
Rath and Storm
The Gathering Dark
Mercadian Masques
The Myths of Magic
The Eternal Ice
Prohecy
Shattered Alliance
The Thran
Invasion
Johan
Planeshift
Apocolypse
Dragons of Magic

I may be slightly off but this is about correct. The brothers war series came first as this was WotC meta-arc. They then put out Rath and Storm quickly to catch up with the cards. At this point they started to release novels in unison with the new cards, while at the same time catching up with old card sets. So the Ice Age series was released at the same time as the Mercadian Masques series and the Legends series released at the same time as the Invasion series. The Thran was released between Mercadian Masques and Invasion to give backstory to the series Meta-Arc that was finishing with the invasion set. I don't think I would read the Thran first as it spoils some of the supprises in The brothers war series. The Anthologies other than Rath and Storm have no fixed timeline order.