New Frontier, Captain's Table and Gateways

[F. King Daniel]

I'm reading through New Frontier. According to "Voyages of Imagination", the correct sequence after #6 "Fire on High" is the Captain's Table book "Once Burned", the Double Helix novel "Double or Nothing" and the Gateways books "Cold Wars" and "What Lay Beyond". Then comes NF #7 "The Quiet Place" and so on.

Do I have to read the preceeding Captain's Table, Double Helix (which I'm currently doing anyway) and Gateways (the first one was awful, IMO) to make sense of the New Frontier entries? Can I skip the Captain's Table entry altogether without missing anything important?

Thanks. And no spoilers, please!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Do I have to read the preceeding Captain's Table, Double Helix (which I'm currently doing anyway) and Gateways (the first one was awful, IMO) to make sense of the New Frontier entries? Can I skip the Captain's Table entry altogether without missing anything important?

Thanks. And no spoilers, please!

You can read the New Frontier chapters of Captain's Table, Double Helix and Gateways independent of the rest of the books in the mini-series.

 

[ICW]

Do I have to read the preceeding Captain's Table, Double Helix (which I'm currently doing anyway) and Gateways (the first one was awful, IMO) to make sense of the New Frontier entries? Can I skip the Captain's Table entry altogether without missing anything important?

Thanks. And no spoilers, please!

You can read the New Frontier chapters of Captain's Table, Double Helix and Gateways independent of the rest of the books in the mini-series.

That's exactly what I did.

 

[Christopher]

All those miniseries were written as very loose crossovers in which any of the books could be read independently of each other. As a rule, the installments are much more closely connected with their own respective series than with the other books in the crossover. In particular, the Captain's Table tales are all standalone adventures linked only by the frame conceit of the Captain's Table tavern and the format of first-person narration by the captain of each series.

Captain's Table: Once Burned is very, very important and integral to the New Frontier continuity. I'm pretty sure the other two mentioned here are rather integral too.

 

[F. King Daniel]

That's great. I'll read all the New Frontier entries but skip the other Captain's Table and Gateways books for now. Thanks, everyone!

 

[captcalhoun]

yes you can read them independently of the others and no, don't skip any of them because they all contain important stuff, the CT book brings in several characters who are important later and DH sets up some important plot stuff, whilst the Gateways one introduces 3 important new characters.

Gateways comes between the eXcalibur trilogy and Being Human, btw.

it's 1-6, CT, DH, 7-11, Gateways, 12-18.

You could skip What Lay Beyond, as I did for several years, but it does deal with what happens after the end of Gateways...

 

[RoJoHen]

Hell, I never read any of the Double Helix books, the NF one included. And then something important happened later that made me wish I had.

Once Burned is the only Captain's Table book I read. You definitely don't need the other ones to make sense of it. As for Gateways, I'm pretty sure I read all of those, but I don't know if I read them all at once or not. That was a long time ago.

I have really been debating going back and re-reading NF. It's my favorite book series, but I am behind on it. I haven't read the last two books that came out (though I do own them), and it's been such a long time since the first book was released that I barely remember any of it.

 

[Keturah]

I'm reading through NF, too! I've read most of them already, but out of order.

I'm on the 3rd Excalibur book right now. I agree that CT is important to read along with the NF. I also thought the Double Helix book was fine without the others (I had read the DH series on its own, too, and found them only somewhat connected.)

I'm glad to hear that Gateways works without the other Gateways books. It is one of the only NF books I haven't read and I don't even own the other Gateways. I'm glad it won't spoil that series for me if I ever get back to it!