MovieChat Forums > Sword Art Online (2012) Discussion > Question about the books

Question about the books

posted 8 years ago by Kawada_Kira
3 replies | jump to latest

I recently became aware that this anime is based on a light novel series, so I thought "great!" and went to Amazon to see if I could get the books. And I ended up pretty confused. Apparently there's the main light novel series, the "progressive" series, manga versions of both (and it's sometimes hard to distinguish which ones are the novels and which are the manga), and possibly other things. More confusing is that they all seem to overlap and I can't figure out the correct chronological order to get the books in. Apparently some of the books are "side stories".

So i'm just wondering, is there any kind of actual order in which one should get these books, and if so, how much of an order is it and do the "progressive" novels and "side stories" stand alone or what? Should one read the main light novel series first, and then read the "progressive" series and the "side stories" after that, or should they be read in between different volumes of the main light novel series, or what?



[–] omega2064 8 years ago

Here are myt own notes as yes its pretty confusing.

Firstly keep in mind that the first novel skips massively. Then the later novels fill in the gaps.

Here is my timeline notes comparing the anime and the novels. Allmost all the bouncing around is within Aincrad. This was as far as I got so there may be gaps. Note that this timeline does not factor in any of the manga. Only the novels.

Hope it is of some help!
---------------------------
Aincrad
ep01 = v1: ch 2-3
ep02 = Progressive v1
ep03 = v2: Reindeer
ep04 = v2: Swordsman
ep05-6= v8: Murder
ep07 = v2: Heart
ep08-10= v1: ch 4-16
ep11-12= v2: Girl
ep13-14= v1: 17-25
---------------------------
Alfheim
ep15-25= v3-4: ch 1-9
---------------------------
Phantom Bullet
ep01-14= v5-6: ch 1-16
---------------------------
Caliber
ep15-17= v8: Caliber
---------------------------
Mother Rosario
ep18-24= v7: all
===========================

[–] Kawada_Kira 8 years ago

Thanks for that! That's very helpful.  I wonder why it's so non-linear.

[–] omega2064 7 years ago

Because the original story was written for a contest in 2001 or so. It jumps forward 2 years and theres very little of the other characters in it other than Kirito and Asuna.

The other books go back and fill in some of the blanks, introduce new people and so on.

After that the books move along more or less in a standard linear order.