The Fall Reading Order

[JD]

How important to the overall story is the reading order of The Fall?
I've been trying to pretty much stick to one series at a time, so I was planning on reading the miniseries in a slightly different order than they were released.
Revelation & Dust
A Ceremony of Loeses
The Crimson Shadow
The Poisoned Chalice
Peaceable Kingdoms
Would this order have any kind of negative impact on the flow of the story arc?

 

[DimesDan]

I should be surprised this needs to be asked, but I'm not.

Yes you should read them in the order they were published, there is a causality through the series, A affects B and B affects C and the like and if you read them out of order, you won't get that and I suspect you'll be lost and confused about what is going on.

 

[JD]

Ok, I had thought outside of the big event in R&D, and the reveal in PK the rest were pretty much stand alone.

 

[DimesDan]

That's ok, you thought wrong, it happens.

 

[Christopher]

Here's the sequence as I have it (some of these dates may be approximate):

Revelation and Dust (Ch. 1): 8/22/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 1-2): 8/24-8/25/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 3, 5, 7, 9): 8/25-8/26/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 3-4): 8/25-8/27/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 11, 13, 15, 17, 19): 8/27-8/28/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 5-6): 8/28-8/29/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 21): 8/30/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 7): 8/30/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 1): 8/31/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 23): 8/31/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 8): 8/31/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 2): 9/1/85
Revelation and Dust (Epilogue): 9/1/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 9-10): 9/1-9/2/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 3): 9/2/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 11-12): 9/3-9/4/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 4-30): 9/4-9/19/85
The Poisoned Chalice (Ch. 1- 10 sc. 2): 9/20-10/1/85
The Crimson Shadow (Epilogue): 10/4/85
The Poisoned Chalice (Ch. 10 sc. 3-end): 10/5-10/12/85
Peacable Kingdoms (body): 10/13-10/27/85
Peacable Kingdoms (Epilogue): 11/1/85

Plus three flashback chapters:
The Crimson Shadow (Epilogue 1): 2376
Revelation and Dust (final scene): 2377
A Ceremony of Losses (Prologue): April 2385

So the first two books are largely happening simultaneously, but TCS ends later, and the remaining three books pretty much take place in chronological sequence with a bit of overlap. So, yeah, I agree that they're best read in release order.

 

[JD]

I'll just go ahead and just stick to the release order.

 

[Jinn]

Here's the sequence as I have it (some of these dates may be approximate):

Revelation and Dust (Ch. 1): 8/22/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 1-2): 8/24-8/25/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 3, 5, 7, 9): 8/25-8/26/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 3-4): 8/25-8/27/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 11, 13, 15, 17, 19): 8/27-8/28/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 5-6): 8/28-8/29/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 21): 8/30/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 7): 8/30/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 1): 8/31/85
Revelation and Dust (Ch. 23): 8/31/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 8): 8/31/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 2): 9/1/85
Revelation and Dust (Epilogue): 9/1/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 9-10): 9/1-9/2/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 3): 9/2/85
The Crimson Shadow (Ch. 11-12): 9/3-9/4/85
A Ceremony of Losses (Ch. 4-30): 9/4-9/19/85
The Poisoned Chalice (Ch. 1- 10 sc. 2): 9/20-10/1/85
The Crimson Shadow (Epilogue): 10/4/85
The Poisoned Chalice (Ch. 10 sc. 3-end): 10/5-10/12/85
Peacable Kingdoms (body): 10/13-10/27/85
Peacable Kingdoms (Epilogue): 11/1/85

Plus three flashback chapters:
The Crimson Shadow (Epilogue 1): 2376
Revelation and Dust (final scene): 2377
A Ceremony of Losses (Prologue): April 2385

So the first two books are largely happening simultaneously, but TCS ends later, and the remaining three books pretty much take place in chronological sequence with a bit of overlap. So, yeah, I agree that they're best read in release order.

Oh my god, thank you so much Christopher. I have been trying to figure this out for months, by reading them simultaneously but that didn't really work, so you saved me a lot of time figuring this out. My main problem was that (apart from the fact that the fundamental way of reading them simultaneously was flawed and The Crimson Shadow being more interesting than Revelation and Dust) I wan't sure how to convert Bajoran days to Cardassian and Human days.

 

[ryan123450]

Yes. Very useful info. Thanks @Christopher.

 

[Skywalker]

It'd be kinda neat to see them all compiled into one large book in the order Christopher noted.

 

[Jinn]

It'd be kinda neat to see them all compiled into one large book in the order Christopher noted.

And add Sacraments of Fire, which begins shortly after the first TF novel ends.

 

[ryan123450]

So given this info Christopher laid out, anybody have the Sacraments of Fire chapters broken down to mix into this chronological order?

 

[Jinn]

So given this info Christopher laid out, anybody have the Sacraments of Fire chapters broken down to mix into this chronological order?

I wished I had.. I will know that in probably a year or so when I'm back in 2385 from the past sections of Exodus.

 

[Christopher]

So given this info Christopher laid out, anybody have the Sacraments of Fire chapters broken down to mix into this chronological order?

I left those out for clarity. Limiting it to the parts that overlap The Fall, I estimate that Ch. 1-2 and 4-5 of SoF take place on September 1-2 (starting immediately after the end of Revelation and Dust), while Ch. 7-8, 10-11, and 13-14 cover Sept. 3-4. So they parallel The Crimson Shadow Ch. 9-12.

Although there's a bit of an inconsistency, since the rest of the 2385 portion of Sacraments is supposed to start 6 weeks after Ch. 14 and spans about a week, which would be mid-October, but it leads right into Part 2 of Ascendance, which is supposed to be December.

 

[ryan123450]

Those little timeline errors are always dissapointing, but fun to work through and rationalize. Wonder if @Idran has any thoughts on this inconsistancy.

 

[JD]

So does part of Sacraments of Fire take place during and/or before Ceremony of Loses, The Missing and Disavowed then?

 

[The Wormhole]

So does part of Sacraments of Fire take place during and/or before Ceremony of Loses, The Missing and Disavowed then?

Definitely not Ceremony of Losses, after the stuff set in the immediate aftermath of Revelation and Dust, there's a time jump to some point after The Fall. Not sure about The Missing or Disavowed.

 

[Idran]

I left those out for clarity. Limiting it to the parts that overlap The Fall, I estimate that Ch. 1-2 and 4-5 of SoF take place on September 1-2 (starting immediately after the end of Revelation and Dust), while Ch. 7-8, 10-11, and 13-14 cover Sept. 3-4. So they parallel The Crimson Shadow Ch. 9-12.

Although there's a bit of an inconsistency, since the rest of the 2385 portion of Sacraments is supposed to start 6 weeks after Ch. 14 and spans about a week, which would be mid-October, but it leads right into Part 2 of Ascendance, which is supposed to be December.

Those little timeline errors are always dissapointing, but fun to work through and rationalize. Wonder if @Idran has any thoughts on this inconsistancy.

I think there might've just been a misreading there; Altek mentions that he was staying in his quarters for about six weeks after being released from the stockade about halfway through Chapter 17, and that's the only reference to "six weeks" I can find in Sacraments. While he was still in the stoackade at the end of Part I, that doesn't mean that it's only been six weeks, that just means that six weeks after whenever he was released he started venturing out of his quarters and seeing more of DS9. My interpretation was that he spent the first half of the time skip in his quarters reading Bajoran history, and the last half integrating himself into present society as best he could.

Plus, almost at the start of Chapter 16, Sisko's inner monologue outright says that it's been three months since he was last at DS9, putting the 2385 parts of Parts II and III in December.

So does part of Sacraments of Fire take place during and/or before Ceremony of Loses, The Missing and Disavowed then?

Yeah, all the 2385 sections in part I are before The Missing and the latter part of A Ceremony of Losses (since Part I of Sacraments spans 9/1 to 9/4, but Ceremony spans 8/31 to 9/19), and Sacraments and Ascendance are both before Disavowed which is in January 2386.

 

[ryan123450]

You're the Treklit timeline master as always @Idran.

 

[JD]

I'll have to keep all of this in mind while I work through the DS9 books. Is there anymore timeline wonkiness like that with the TNG/TTN books?

 

[Jinn]

I'll have to keep all of this in mind while I work through the DS9 books. Is there anymore timeline wonkiness like that with the TNG/TTN books?

Apart from some flashback chapters you can basically them like this:
Death in Winter
Taking Wing
The Red King
Orion's Hounds
Resistance
Q & Q
Q are cordially uninvited
Sword of Damocles
Greater than the Sum
Destiny
Losing the Peace
Over A Torrent Sea
Synthesis
Fallen Gods
Indistinguishable from Magic
Cold Equations trilogy
The Stuff of Dreams
The Fall
Absent Enemies
The Light Fantastic
Takedown
Armageddon's Arrow
Sight unseen
Or you could go to Ryan123450 website here for the simple list and here for the broken down to chapters list.