Thieves' World
core collection 1979 Thieves' World
Record
| First published | 1979 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | collection |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.85 (8,149 ratings, collected 2026-09-15) |
| Page count | 308 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441805778 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Thieves' World is the founding anthology of a shared-world fantasy series, in which a group of prominent fantasy authors each contribute a story set in the same seedy trading city of Sanctuary, on the edge of a declining empire, a place that has become a haven for thieves, mercenaries, and magicians. The stories interlock across a shared cast and setting, introducing recurring figures such as the master thief Shadowspawn, called Hanse, and the corrupt, ambitious politics of a city ruled as much by its criminal underworld as by any official authority. Rather than following a single continuous plot, the anthology builds Sanctuary itself as its true protagonist, letting readers piece together the city's tangled web of rival guilds, petty gods, and desperate survivors from multiple points of view before the series' later volumes deepen the world further.
Where it sits
- Universe: Thieves' World
- Series: Thieves' World anthologies core; position 1 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robert Lynn Asprin
- Author: Lynn Abbey
Awards (verified)
- World Fantasy Award (Best Anthology/Collection), 1980: nominated
- Locus Award (Best Anthology), 1980: nominated
Notes
- From the series record (Thieves' World anthologies): Shared-world anthologies set in the fictional city of Sanctuary, created by Robert Lynn Asprin with Lynn Abbey as co-editor; contributors across the series included Poul Anderson, C.J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andrew J. Offutt and others. Ten further original-run volumes (1982-1989) and a later 2002-onward relaunch exist but are not individually catalogued.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Thieves' World anthologies: position 1 of 2: next Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn (1981)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Thieves' World
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves%27_World_(book)
- World Fantasy Convention -- official 1980 (6th convention) history page
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Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.