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Apr 19, 2012 -- 1:30PM, Terti wrote:

First I'd do the artefact cycle, Brother's War, Planeswalker, Time Streams, Bloodlines.
Then I'd do the Ice Age cycle, Gathering Dark, Eternal Ice, Shattering Alliance
Then Rath and Storm, followed by the Mercadian Masques, Nemesis cycle (don't read prophesy it's bieberbad aka thrice the disaster Masques was).
Then you read The Thran, before jumping on the Invasion/Planeshift/Apocalypse cycle.
Then oddyssey block and onslaught block, though I can't tell you if those are worth yet. Oddyssey1 doesn't seem to be but I've heard good things about Oddyssey2.

Basically, The Thran takes place before the artefact cycle, but contains such major spoilers that you'd better put it off to just before the arc finishes to preserve your reader's joy. Ice Age cycle is optional to the weatherlight arc story but are just awesome books in general.
hope this helps (:

That's awesome - thank you a lot for the great and thorough post. It's going to be fun trying to hide the 50 dorky (but amazing) books I'll be reading in The Suck, lest I be judged by my whole squad, haha.
Thanks!

PS- would reading the bad books be good just for the content of the story itself? Are the pre-artifact cycle books just stand alones? (i.e. Arena)

Apr 20, 2012 -- 8:54PM, Skibo_the_first wrote:

Apr 20, 2012 -- 8:44PM, TACP193rd wrote:

PS- would reading the bad books be good just for the content of the story itself?

It depends on what you want to get out of the story. If you just want to understand the larger story then you can ask us for the major plot points.

About the only thing reading the books will do for you is give you an understanding of the blocks. If you have a particular block that interests you, it may be worth it to read the books even if they aren't that good.

You guys are all very helpful! Thanks a lot. Basically, I want to understand the story from start to finish so even if it sucks, I'll read it like a history book. I now have literally every single MTG book out there (at least that I've found listed). Thanks to Amazon and $400.

Apr 20, 2012 -- 9:50PM, TACP193rd wrote:

When do the Legends Cycle I/II come in? Can the books be read in publication order starting at the Ravnica Block? When do the other "Anthologies" come into play? Gerrard's Quest?

After Onsalught, Magic began plane-hopping. They stopped doing multi-block storylines. As such the books for Mirrodin, Kamigawa, Ravnica, and Lorwyn can be read by themselves. Time spiral has alot of references to older characters and locations so it might be a good idea to read it last.

I havn't read them, but the Alara, Zendikar, and Scars books seem to be fairly stand alone.

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Anyway, I will encourage you to pick up the Ravnica trilogy and the Kamigawa trilogy as they are some of the finest modern novels. If you played during either of those blocks, you'll get alot out of the books. And both can be read a stand-alone science fiction stories.