Chris Wooding Books in Order
Explore Chris Wooding books in order, with short summaries, series guides, and simple ideas on where to start across fantasy, horror, and sci-fi.
Last updated: July 10, 2026
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Chris Wooding books in publication order
37 books
Catchman
by Chris Wooding
1998
After running from home, Davey falls in with homeless teens in a city already rattled by a killer known as the Catchman. Gang trouble and sleepless dread turn the streets into a nightmare where no one feels safe after dark.
Broken Sky Part 1
by Chris Wooding
1999
Ryushi and Kia have spent their lives training on their father's remote wyvern stud. When King Macaan's forces attack, the twins are thrown into a war far bigger than they imagined.
Broken Sky Part 2
by Chris Wooding
1999
On the run in enemy territory, Ryushi and Kia struggle to protect the people left in their care. Their escape becomes the start of a much larger rebellion.
Broken Sky Part 3
by Chris Wooding
1999
Trapped in a strange world and cut loose from everything familiar, the twins start uncovering the truth about their family and their enemies. Getting home will take more than survival.
Broken Sky Part 4
by Chris Wooding
1999
The story widens as new factions, new dangers, and the long shadow of Macaan reshape the twins' fight. What began as escape turns into open resistance.
Broken Sky Part 5
by Chris Wooding
1999
With the pressure mounting on every side, Ryushi and Kia are forced into harder choices and riskier battles. The war around them is growing faster than they can control it.
Broken Sky Part 6
by Chris Wooding
2000
The second act closes with the twins under heavier pressure than ever. Enemies gather, secrets sharpen, and the wider war against Macaan becomes impossible to ignore.
Broken Sky Part 7
by Chris Wooding
2000
The last act begins with the stakes stretched across both worlds. Kia and Ryushi are pulled toward the center of a conflict that is no longer just about survival.
Broken Sky Part 8
by Chris Wooding
2000
As the endgame approaches, alliances fray and the cost of resistance keeps rising. The twins must keep moving even as both worlds seem ready to break apart.
Broken Sky Part 9
by Chris Wooding
2001
The long war reaches its breaking point as the fight against Macaan and Aurin closes in on a final stand. Every hard choice made by Kia and Ryushi comes due.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray
by Chris Wooding
2001
In an alternate Victorian London stalked by daemonic wych-kin, wych-hunter Thaniel finds Alaizabel Cray, a girl under a terrible influence. Saving her may mean facing a darkness far bigger than either of them expected.
Crashing
by Chris Wooding
2003
Jay throws a summer party hoping to hold his friends together and finally get closer to Jo. Instead, old grudges explode, local thugs arrive, and one night turns into a tense reckoning with the past.
Endgame
by Chris Wooding
2003
As environmental disaster and the threat of world war push the world toward nuclear panic, four friends in Sheffield face their own fears and unfinished business. It is a pressure-cooker story about what matters when time may be running out.
Kerosene
by Chris Wooding
2003
Cal is painfully shy, isolated, and drawn to fire whenever the world closes in. When cruelty, obsession, and bad choices pile up around him, that private fixation starts turning dangerously public.
Poison
by Chris Wooding
2003
When her baby sister is stolen, Poison enters a twisted fairytale world where humans rank near the bottom. To get her back, she must survive tricksters, power games, and a reality that keeps shifting under her feet.
The Weavers of Saramyr
by Chris Wooding
2003
On the continent of Saramyr, masked Weavers hold huge power while fear of the Aberrants spreads with a mysterious blight. A hidden royal secret threatens to tip the empire into civil war.
The Skein of Lament
by Chris Wooding
2004
The second Braided Path book deepens the political fractures and strange magic of Saramyr. As the fallout from the first novel spreads, loyalties shift and the threat to the empire grows sharper.
The Ascendancy Veil
by Chris Wooding
2005
Saramyr is sliding toward apocalypse, and the truth about the Weavers is finally coming out. As old secrets turn catastrophic, the trilogy races toward a brutal final showdown.
Storm Thief
by Chris Wooding
2006
In Orokos, probability storms can twist streets, bodies, and luck in an instant. A young thief and his friends get hold of a powerful artifact and find themselves hunted through a city that changes by the hour.
The Fade
by Chris Wooding
2007
Underground nations survive beneath murderous suns on the moon of Callespa, but disaster is building in the dark. Their best hope may be a prisoner trapped behind enemy lines.
Broken Sky Act 2: Communion
by Chris Wooding
2008
The war widens as Ryushi and Kia are pushed deeper into the struggle against Macaan and Aurin. New allies, stranger worlds, and mounting losses force them to grow up fast.
Broken Sky Act 3: The Citadel
by Chris Wooding
2008
The final act drives the twins toward all-out war across both worlds. Long-buried secrets surface, alliances break, and the battle against Macaan reaches its reckoning.
Malice
by Chris Wooding
2009
Seth and Kady brush off the legend of Malice, a comic that traps real children in Tall Jake's nightmare world, until their friend vanishes. Chasing the truth pulls them into a deadly maze of tricks, monsters, and shifting loyalties.
Retribution Falls
by Chris Wooding
2009
Small-time airship captain Darian Frey takes what should be an easy robbery and ends up framed as the most wanted man in Vardia. To survive, the crew of the Ketty Jay must outrun bounty hunters and uncover who set them up.
Havoc
by Chris Wooding
2010
Seth returns to the deadly comic world of Malice to rescue Kady and Justin. But Tall Jake's plans reach beyond the comic now, and the fight to stop him spills into the real world.
The Black Lung Captain
by Chris Wooding
2010
Down on his luck again, Darian Frey chases a treasure hidden behind a magically sealed door deep in the Kurg rainforest. Rival hunters, deadly creatures, and a ghost from his past make the prize far more dangerous than it looks.
The Iron Jackal
by Chris Wooding
2011
Captain Frey and the Ketty Jay crew head into the desert of Samarla for a job from Trinica Dracken. Ancient secrets, ruthless enemies, and Frey's own mortality turn the mission into a desperate race.
Pale
by Chris Wooding
2012
Jed despises the Pales, people dragged back from death by the Lazarus Serum. Then an accident makes him one of them, and he has to face the cruelty he once helped inflict.
Pandemonium
by Chris Wooding
2012
Seifer Tombchewer is a star skullball player in a remote village, but he wants more than local fame. A royal encounter drags him into a larger struggle full of winged clans, danger, and dark surprises.
Silver
by Chris Wooding
2013
A strange silver beetle bites a boy at boarding school, starting an infection that turns flesh to metal and students into killing machines. A trapped group of teenagers must survive the night as the school collapses into horror.
The Ace of Skulls
by Chris Wooding
2013
Civil war is breaking out, old scores are coming due, and the battered crew of the Ketty Jay can no longer stay neutral. Captain Frey must choose a side as hidden plots and sky battles crash together.
Velocity
by Chris Wooding
2015
In a harsh future, Cassica and Shiara enter the Widowmaker, a brutal off-road race across deadly terrain. Winning could lift them out of poverty, if the wasteland, rival drivers, and old secrets do not kill them first.
Broken Sky: The Twilight War
by Chris Wooding
2017
Twins Ryushi and Kia are torn from their sheltered home when King Macaan's forces attack. Their flight opens a fast-moving fantasy war of wyverns, spirit stones, and rebellion across two linked worlds.
The Ember Blade
by Chris Wooding
2018
When Aren's father is executed and he is sent to a prison mine with his friend Cade, everything he believed about his country falls apart. Escape leads them into rebellion and a near-impossible plan to steal the legendary Ember Blade.
Jack from Earth
by Chris Wooding
2019
Jack has always known his parents are hiding something, but a strange machine in the attic proves it. One accidental distress signal later, half the galaxy thinks he is an infamous master thief.
Out of This World
by Chris Wooding
2020
On his twelfth birthday, Jack accidentally sends an intergalactic distress signal and becomes the target of killers across the galaxy. A team of alien bounty hunters drags him into a wild chase tied to the missing superspy Gradius Clench.
The Shadow Casket
by Chris Wooding
2023
Three years after Aren seized the Ember Blade, the rebellion is faltering. In the north, Vika and the Dawnwardens hunt a legendary weapon that could destroy the dreadknights, or destroy hope itself.
Where to start with Chris Wooding
If you want big epic fantasy: The Ember Blade → The Shadow Casket
If you want ragtag airship adventure: Retribution Falls → The Black Lung Captain → The Iron Jackal → The Ace of Skulls
If you want dark YA fantasy: The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray → Poison → Storm Thief
If you want anime-flavored serial fantasy: Broken Sky Part 1 → Broken Sky Part 2 → Broken Sky Part 3
Chris Wooding sub-series and character series
Braided Path books in order
Explore this seriesBroken Sky books in order
Explore this series
Broken Sky Part 1
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 1
Broken Sky Part 2
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 2
Broken Sky Part 3
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 3
Broken Sky Part 4
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 4
Broken Sky Part 5
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 5
Broken Sky Part 6
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 6
Broken Sky Part 7
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 7
Broken Sky Part 8
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 8
Broken Sky Part 9
by Chris Wooding
2001Broken Sky, Book 9
Broken Sky Act 2: Communion
by Chris Wooding
2008Broken Sky, Book 10
Broken Sky Act 3: The Citadel
by Chris Wooding
2008Broken Sky, Book 11
Broken Sky: The Twilight War
by Chris Wooding
2017Broken Sky, Book 12
Broken Sky books in chronological order

Broken Sky Part 1
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 1
Broken Sky Part 2
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 2
Broken Sky Part 3
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 3
Broken Sky Part 4
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 4
Broken Sky Part 5
by Chris Wooding
1999Broken Sky, Book 5
Broken Sky Part 6
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 6
Broken Sky Part 7
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 7
Broken Sky Part 8
by Chris Wooding
2000Broken Sky, Book 8
Broken Sky Part 9
by Chris Wooding
2001Broken Sky, Book 9
Broken Sky Act 2: Communion
by Chris Wooding
2008Broken Sky, Book 10
Broken Sky Act 3: The Citadel
by Chris Wooding
2008Broken Sky, Book 11
Broken Sky: The Twilight War
by Chris Wooding
2017Broken Sky, Book 12
Jack From the Earth books in order
Explore this seriesMalice books in order
Explore this seriesOut of This World books in order
Explore this seriesTale of the Ketty Jay books in order
Explore this seriesThe Darkwater Legacy books in order
Explore this seriesChris Wooding collections, short stories, and related book types
Standalone Chris Wooding books
Author bio
Chris Wooding was born in Leicester on February 28, 1977, and grew up in Leicestershire, where, by his own telling, not much happened. So he started making things up. He finished his first novel at sixteen, found an agent at eighteen, and signed his first book deal at nineteen. After university, he moved straight into writing full time, which means he has spent pretty much all of his adult life building imaginary worlds and then making life very difficult for the people in them.
That early start matters.
Wooding's books move easily between age groups and shelves, but they tend to run on the same fuel: speed, imagination, and characters who are suddenly in far deeper water than they expected. His early YA novels, including Crashing, Kerosene, and Endgame, are tense, grounded stories about teenagers under pressure. Broken Sky took that energy and scaled it up into a huge, anime-inspired fantasy serial full of wyverns, martial arts, strange powers, and war.
Then came the books that brought even more readers in.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray gave him a grimy, alternate London full of monsters and occult danger. Poison turned fairy-tale logic into something darker and less comfortable. Malice played with the idea of a deadly comic book that traps real children inside it, using both prose and comic sections to tell the story. Readers who click with Wooding usually mention the same things: the pace, the atmosphere, the clean storytelling, and the feeling that his worlds keep opening out just when you think you know the shape of them.
He also has a real knack for found-family adventure.
That side of his writing is front and center in Retribution Falls and the rest of the Ketty Jay books, which follow Captain Darian Frey and his battered airship crew through scams, sky battles, bad plans, and consequences that keep getting larger. Later, The Ember Blade and The Shadow Casket showed what he could do on a bigger epic fantasy canvas, with rebellion, myth, occupation, and long-form storytelling that still keeps a strong grip on character.
Outside novels, Wooding has written for film and television, and he has also worked in games. He has travelled widely, backpacking around Europe and North America, Scandinavia, Japan, South East Asia, and South Africa, and he has said those experiences fed his imagination. For a time he lived in Madrid. In his twenties he also toured with bands, seeing Britain and Europe from the back of a van. He plays bass and guitar, which feels about right for a writer whose books usually have such a strong sense of rhythm.
He keeps busy.
His work has been translated into many languages and has picked up awards along the way, but the easiest way to describe his appeal is simpler than that. Whether he is writing gothic horror, offbeat science fiction, a fast YA thriller, or a sprawling fantasy quest, he is interested in momentum, mood, and what fear, loyalty, guilt, and hope do to people under stress. He lives in London and continues to write across fantasy, science fiction, and YA. If you are new to him, there is no single correct entry point, which is part of the fun.
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