World of Warcraft Books

[zedxrgal]

Hey guys. I am an avid reader and really really want to start the warcraft books. But where do I begin? I want to ready as chronologically as possible. However, there seems to be a whole lot of forums posts (even on the WoW forums) that are out of date.
All had one common piece of advise.
Start Day of the Dragon FIRST then War of the Ancients.

Anyone read the books in total?

Any willing to provide a chronological order of the books?

If this is in the wrong spot please move.

I'm really excited to be starting this series.

[Vephriel]

Someone compiled a very useful list on the forums: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20742474414

1. Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden
2. The Last Guardian by Jeff Grubb
3. Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenburg
4. Beyond the Dark Portal by Christie Golden & Aaron Rosenburg
5. Day of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak
!! The War of the Ancients Trilogy takes place before Rise of the Horde but it is highly recommended that you read it after having read Day of the Dragon which is why I have the trilogy listed as 6,7,8 instead of 1,2,3.
6. War of the Ancients: The Well of Eternity by Richard A. Knaak
7. War of the Ancients: The Demon Soul by Richard A. Knaak
8. War of the Ancients: The Sundering by Richard A. Knaak
9. Lord of the Clans by Christie Golden
10. Of Blood and Honor by Chris Metzen
11. Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden
12. Illidan by William King
13. Cycle of Hatred by Keith DeCandido
14. Night of The Dragon by Richard A. Knaak
15. Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak
16. The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm by Christie Golden
17. Wolfheart by Richard A Knaak
18. Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects by Christie Golden
19. Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War by Christie Golden
20. Dawn of the Aspects by Richard A. Knaak
21. Vol'Jin: Shadows of the Horde by Michael A. Stackpole
22. War Crimes by Christie Golden

Important if you plan to purchase:
There are three books that will include 3-4 stories in one book I am adding them to this to help you save money so you can buy one of these rather than purchase each book individually. The name of these are:
1. World of Warcraft: Chronicles of War - Includes Rise of the Horde, The Last Guardian,Tides of Darkness, and lastly, Beyond the Dark portal
2. World of Warcraft: Archive - Day of the Dragon, Lord of the Clans, The Last Guardian, and lastly, Of Blood and Honor
3. WarCraft War of The Ancients Archive - Includes WotA(War of the Ancients): The Well of Eternity, WotA: The Demon Soul, WotA: The Sundering

[Gimlion]

This is fantastic information, and all of a sudden, I'm very interested in getting some of these for Christmas coming up! My question, how in-line are each book with eachother, since there are so many authors? And how canon are these considered?

[Aweena]

I think you can read them singularly or as veph listed them, i only ever got day of the dragon but have borrowed others and they can all be read individually as far as i can tell and i believe they are pretty canon at least the one about jaina is what happened in game too sort of.

my only gripe is one author makes the women seem helpless little maidens..

Christie Golden does a great job how ever raising them in her books.

[Xella]

As far as I know, the books are all considered canon—and in fact, there's been a lot of grumbling about that, because there have been a lot of instances in the last couple books where characters in-game do things that only make sense from a motivational standpoint if you've read the tie-in book. The RPG books are the only ones not considered strictly canon, if I recall correctly. The Warcraft movie tie-in book may also not be considered canon to the game actually; I'm not really sure how they're playing that one.

I haven't read any after the Cataclysm tie-in (The Shattering) because I'm not made of money and my local library isn't very local (I live rural and don't drive) so that's not much of an option either. The ones in the series I have read (1-16 on the list Veph posted) varied greatly in quality and content; Christie Golden was the author of one of my favourite tie-in novels of all time (Seven of Nine was not the most creative title for a book about, well, Seven of Nine, but it's one of three ST books that I kept when I had to downsize my library to move cross-country) but I can't say I've enjoyed any of her Warcraft universe books nearly so well. It's hard to say how much of that is "her fault" and how much of that is the universe/story guidelines she's been handed—Arthas in particular was incredibly unenjoyable to me, but a LOT of what I didn't enjoy about it was already-established canon that she had to write through/around so who knows?

My mother "stole" the Warcraft movie-tangental books after she saw it in theaters to try and get hip to the lore, so I haven't got most of them here to reference, but I do remember enjoying The Last Guardian a fair amount when I first read it. Most of the rest were fairly forgettable, and practically none of them felt like they had solid or strong female characters who existed just to exist and not to just be a love interest/rival/woobie-causer for the main male character *COUGHrhoninCOUGHthrallCOUGH*... but again, that's a failing in the entire bloody universe and isn't contained to just the tie-in novels.

[Castile]

I've read a fair chunk of them and have enjoyed them all so I hope you do too!

As Xella said I found a lot of things ingame tie in directly to the books (like the dwarven king in crystal and how the Tauren became paladins) that isn't fully explained in game. Not sure if that's a massive failing or just maybe encouraging people who wouldn't normally read to pick up a novel...as a librarian (and a former teacher) I'm all for this but I can see why it would be annoying to some.