It’s been a while since I originally wrote this post. In that time, I’ve added a new book to the series. So, where does Two Scorpions in a Bottle fit into the reading order for the Flirting with the Zodiac books? I’ve looked back and decided where this story “officially” slots in against the other six books in the series.
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If you’re not familiar, I have an m/m mpreg book series called Flirting with the Zodiac. It features a bunch of standalone alien romance novels. In each book, we meet a new alien species (and a new couple), against the backdrop of a pretty bleak dystopian future.
Humanity launched themselves into space and traveled to far-flung planets. Of course, that means they’ve been swept up into various interplanetary tensions.
A funny thing about the series has always been that the current release order has nothing to do with the chronology of the world.
Um, What?
Yeah, it’s a bit of a C.S. Lewis thing going on here. The Chronicles of Narnia was (somewhat infamously) written “out of order.” The order we typically read them in—The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, etc.—was only decided after the fact. Lewis debated the “correct” ordering of the series with fans, and he eventually decided on this order.
That said, he didn’t think that meant that order was necessarily the be-all, end-all. You could certainly read the books in a different order, if you wanted to. Many people did, because of when each book was originally released.
So, some people definitely read them in the “original” order of publication, which isn’t necessarily chronological. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was read first, followed by Prince Caspian (which is now typically the fourth book). The Magician’s Nephew, which we now place first in reading order, was actually published second-to-last. The only book that maintained its reading order is the aptly named The Last Battle, which was published last and remains last in the series.
I Published the Zodiac Books in the “Wrong” Order
So: I’ve pulled a bit of a C.S. Lewis here. The Zodiac books are not “in order” chronologically. That is, Hook, Line & Sinker isn’t the first book in the series chronologically, although it was published first. Riding the Dragon was the second published title, but in terms of when it takes place within the world, it’s actually a much later entry.
Keep in mind that this series is still incomplete at the moment. There will be a total of 13 books in the Flirting with the Zodiac series, but only seven titles have been released to date. This reading order will change as new books are released, and I’ll keep this post updated.
So, what order should the Flirting with the Zodiac books be read in, if you want to follow the story chronologically?
Main Squeeze
Main Squeeze is actually first book I completed in the Zodiac series, and chronologically, it’s first in the series. This book follows Marty Yoon, a human space explorer who gets stranded on an unknown planet.
Marty’s story kicks off everything else that goes on in this world. He’s the first human to make contact with an alien species. That humans set up diplomatic relations with the naga after is important, because it sets the stage for intergalactic imperialism and intergalactic relations with other alien species—not just the naga.
Another hint that this book should be first in the series? Marty travels to Barnard’s Star, which is relatively close to Earth—about five light years away. That’s still way beyond our current travel capabilities, but it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to travel to nearer stars before we travel to ones that are further away. So, this indicates humanity’s interplanetary/intergalactic travel tech is still relatively new.
So, if the book is first chronologically and it was finished first, why wasn’t it the first one published?
Quite simply, Hook, Line & Sinker was an easier write and lined up with when I wanted to launch the series. Main Squeeze would need to be published in November or December, arguably delaying the launch of the series.
The Bull by His Horns
Books 3 and 4 do actually follow one another. That’s partially because Bull was the second manuscript I wrote in the series. It also features the naga, but it introduces us to the Taureans, bull-shifting aliens.
Bull is the only story set on Earth thus far, and it shows us developing tensions between Earth, the naga, and maybe other aliens as well. Humans have traveled to Aldebaran, the home of the Taureans, which is another relatively close star. We also see some of the fallout of Earth’s “diplomatic” relations with the naga: we have refugees and apparent genocides. Colonialism seems alive and well here.
Bull thus begins to widen our horizons, showing us Earth mucking around in the affairs of another species, establishing humanity as colonizers—which sets the stage for the next books in the series.
It was also after Bull that my idea for the series began to expand. In turn, subsequent manuscripts took a different turn.
The Raven Before the Dove
Though this book is labeled sixth in the series, it would actually fit in after The Bull by His Horns and definitely before Scorpions. We’re missing a few links between Bull and Raven, but there are still five books left to be published. At one point, I thought this book happened before Lions Will Tame Leopards. After some reflection, I now think the two are almost concurrent with each other. That means you could read Raven before Lions, or Lions before Raven without too much impact on your understanding.
Why does Raven nestle in between Bull and Lions so nicely? Events that are alluded to in Lions. In Lions, the protagonists mention that the Corvids are unreliable allies, seemingly swept up in their own revolution and have thus dropped out of the war.
We see those events on-page here, as Prince Cirrus leads the fight against the warped Empress Altostratus, his own mother. Cirrus is able to remove Corvus from the war.
In the world of the Zodiac, the Corvids have sided against humanity, becoming part of the Alliance. Here, we see how societies we cast as “villains” are often full of disagreement. Cirrus and his faction disagree with Altostratus, who sent the planet to war on what seems to be the losing side.
Lions Will Tame Leopards
Lions Will Tame Leopards is probably the lynchpin of the Flirting with the Zodiac series currently. It was, at the time of its publication, the longest book in the series—and for good reason. It explains a lot of shit.
Lions follows Nix, a leopard shifter on the planet of Rasalas, and his adopted lion pride as they try to establish a new, democratic government in the aftermath of the war. Internal tensions mean there are plenty of different players who want a piece of Rasalas.
Lions is a meditation on (neo)colonialism, how the imperial powers force “democracies” around the world to bend the new and give them what they want. The government, which should respond to the electorate (the people) becomes increasingly misaligned with the will of the people.
Lions spends a fair bit of time meditating on politics. In doing so, it acts as a connection between other stories. The most direct and obvious connection is Riding the Dragon, where Nix and Bern appears once more. It also points to the events of The Raven Before the Dove, and it sets us up for events in Scorpions and beyond.
Two Scorpions in a Bottle
I started writing Scorpions way, way back in the day, perhaps 2020 or maybe even earlier. I had an almost finished draft, but I couldn’t quite put the ending on it. So I let it sit. And then I moved on to other stories. And during the course of that, I realized that the draft I had for Scorpions was all wrong.
It took me a long time to wrap back around to Scorpions for that reason. It was a story I didn’t feel ready to approach until much more recently.
I actually intended for another book to come out before Scorpions, because I think reading it first will provide the better experience. Delays with editing, though, meant Scorpions was ready sooner.
In this book, former spy Joss is recruited by the Scorpion Emperor to help him get his hands on state secrets. Those same secrets could be the catalyst for bargaining for a better peace treaty. Add in the fact that Joss and Nikare are exes, and we have a fairly dangerous situation brewing.
Riding the Dragon
Riding the Dragon was the fourth book I finished in the series, right after Hook, Line & Sinker. That was why it became the second book in publication order. Chronologically, though, this book happens very late in the series. In fact, you can almost think of it as an end cap.
The war is over, and ex-soldier Cad has gone to the planet of Librae, where Earth is setting up a new colony. Unbeknownst to him, though, his plot of land—parcelled out by Earth—is located in a dragon’s nest. When that dragon shifter returns, Cad embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.
Dragon does a lot of things. One of them is obviously continuing the series’ commentary on colonialism. Cad has been done dirty by the military and by Earth forces himself. Drake and the dragon shifters are arguably in a worse position. They “joined” the losing side of the war. As such, their territory is being carved up and resettled by the victors. Cad and Drake first blame each other, but they quickly realize they have a common enemy: the imperialist powers that think they have the rights to dole out seemingly “unoccupied” land.
Dragon also connects with other stories in the series, notably Lions. The protagonists of Lions show up here as antagonists, suggesting that “good” and “evil” isn’t always as simple as nationalist propaganda machines make it out to be. Cad has to wrestle with that fact, because he’s been told the Alliance forces are evil—yet the question lingers: are people like Nix truly evil? If the reader has read Lions, they might know the answer is much more complicated: Nix is both protagonist of his own story and antagonist in someone else’s.
Hook, Line & Sinker
That leaves Hook, Line & Sinker, which is, ironically, the first book in publication order. It was the third manuscript completed, and the first one to move to the “Zodiac theme” and fully embrace it.
It’s also probably the lightest on political fare, although the backdrop is no more disheartening. Piscean shapeshifter Ty lives on New Martia, an Earth colony on Mars. Ty and his father appear to be the only Pisceans on the planet. They are refugees from the Piscean genocide that happened during the war. That happened before Ty’s memory, though, so we don’t hear much about it in the story itself. (The details of this event are chronicled in Scorpions.)
Ty is best friends and roommates with Lawrence Trafford, whose grandmother is billionaire Myrtle Trafford, who built the engines that allowed Earth and their allies to make intergalactic travel faster and easier. Myrtle is heavily involved in the war effort and particularly in technological advancements. The Trafford fortune, then, is built off war, colonialism, and genocide—genocide that directly impacted Ty and his family.
Hook, Line & Sinker takes place after the war, clearly, and it seems somewhat more removed from it than Nix or even Cad. At the current moment, it’s the last book in chronological order, but other books may slot in around it.
Even then, it might be read as a forward look at a world—or perhaps a galaxy—that still feels the echoes of trauma, even as it tries to heal and move towards the love that Cad and Drake determine is essential for restoring the balance of the universe.
