Reading order
Chronicles of the Raven reading order
- 3 volumes
- Volumes
- 1999–2001
- Published
- about 25 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
Quick answer
Publication order
3 volumes1999–2001Completed
- James Barclay’s debut trilogy about The Raven, a band of mercenaries with a strict code of honour, hired to protect a mage who is hunting for Dawnthief, a spell that could destroy the world.
- Fast, violent and full of battle magic, and the band can lose members for good.
- Dawnthief (1999), Noonshade and Nightchild form the first arc; the story goes on in the Legends of the Raven sequence.
- Read in order.
A plan for the whole series
3 volumes, 1,459 pages, about 25 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 5 weeks.
Stages
2 stages, with 1 short book from outside the series between them. You finish around December 8, 2026, 4 days later than in one go.
- Stage 110 h13 daysby November 11, 2026
- Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 217 habout 3 weeksby December 8, 2026
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
No volume in this series has enough ratings to enter a ranking yet, so the list carries no scores — the order and the volumes are still complete.
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 28, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Which Chronicles of the Raven book is the longest?
“Dawnthief” is the longest at 527 pages; the shortest is “Nightchild” with 448 pages.