The reading order of Jack Vance's Alastor series
Recently, while checking out the Jack Vance bibliography Wikipedia page, I noticed that the publication order is as follows:
- Trullion: Alastor 2262 (1973)
- Marune: Alastor 933 (1975)
- Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978)
The official Jack Vance website names Wyst book 2 of 3 and Marune book 3 of 3. Based on a reply by "Kilo Volt" to a Facebook post I made, a short review of each of the novels, this is the order the books were written, which is:
- Trullion: Alastor 2262
- Wyst: Alastor 1716
- Marune: Alastor 933
As the books are stand-alone it doesn't matter much, although I recommend to read Trullion first as this book explains hussade which is mentioned in Wyst several times.
There is also an Alastor book by the Dutch author Tais Teng, written in English: Phaedra: Alastor 824.
And according to the Alastor trilogy Wikipedia page:
Vance planned a fourth novel Pharism: Alastor 458, but it was never written.