The Thieves Guild is an epic length serial that gets longer with every episode release. How epic? Well, the currently released episodes will fill almost three full novels and listening to it from the beginning will take more than 20 hours. Of course, that’s part of the appeal! Having a collection of characters you love working their way through challenges can be a wonderful visit every week. However, for new listeners I get that it can be a bit overwhelming. So, can you jump in at any episode and get caught up quickly? Or are there places where you can start that are later in the series? Let me give you some guidance.
Can I start with any episode and not get lost?
You can. The Thieves Guild is a lot like old soap operas from network TV. Soap opera story lines are complicated and twist and turn and go on for years, but if you start on a random episode you can pretty quickly get up to speed. The Thieves Guild is similar to that. If you start on a random episode, the nature of the character interactions and the clear goals they have should make it not too difficult to get caught up. You may be lost for a few episodes, but you’ll eventually get comfortable with the story.
If this is what you want to do, I would recommend finding a number of episodes that you are comfortable with as a time commitment and then starting that far back to get a sense of things. For example, if you want to start and feel like an hour commitment isn’t too much, you can go back five or six episodes, which would be about an hour to an hour and a half and start there.
One of the things that is helpful is that I tend to rotate the character focus on a fairly regular basis. That isn’t always the case, of course, but, generally speaking, if you go back five or six episodes, you’ll get an introduction to all the characters.
Are there specific points where I can start listening that start new story lines and are easier to follow?
There are! This is probably the best way to start listening to The Thieves Guild without getting lost. The good news is that I’ve written the series with various story lines that all have endings, even as the larger story continues. There are currently two points where multiple story lines converge and a new start is easier to follow.
Starting Point One: Episode 63
Without spoilers, I can say that episode 63 starts with the city-state of Ness in a state of stability. The machinations that worked through the first 62 episodes are resolved, and Ralan is set and accepted as the Guildmaster Thief. Things immediately go sideways with a new story line, and while some of the back story is in previous episodes you’ll easily be able to follow what’s happening as all the characters are trying to figure it out.
Starting Point Two: Episode 95
In this episode, the major story from episodes 63 to 94 has been resolved, and the focus changes to picking up the pieces after the violence and chaos. As you may expect, the aftermath of chaos is itself full of drama and chaos, and we’re off to the races with a new story line.
Okay, I’ve heard amazing things about the story and want to start on episode 1. Will I ever be able to catch up?
I have good news and bad news: The good news is that each episode is betwen 10 and 15 minutes, so binging The Thieves Guild is particularly easy. If you have a long drive or commute, you can quickly get through three or more episodes each listening session. The further good news is that I am currently releasing one episode a week, so getting caught up may take a while, but it is certainly achievable in a relatively short period of time.
The bad news is that there are more than 100 episodes, so even if you binge you have a lot of story ahead of you. But is that really a bad thing? 🙂
