Ile-Rien
#3324.03 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 1993–2005 Reading commitment Medium Martha Wells Last reviewed 2026-10-13
Overview
Ile-Rien is Martha Wells's secondary-world fantasy setting, an industrializing kingdom of magicians, gaslight and encroaching war, spread across two independently readable series written a decade apart. The Element of Fire (1993) and its sequel The Death of the Necromancer (1998) are set generations apart within the same kingdom, following court sorcerer Thomas Boniface and, later, master thief and amateur sorcerer Nicholas Valiarde. The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (The Wizard Hunters, 2003; The Ships of Air, 2004; The Gate of Gods, 2005) follows archaeologist Tremaine Valiarde into a parallel world as Ile-Rien is invaded by the Gardier, tying the two earlier standalones and the trilogy into one continuous dynastic history. Wells's Ile-Rien novels are noted for blending Regency-adjacent court intrigue and gaslamp-fantasy atmosphere with sustained, high-stakes war narrative in the later trilogy, unusual for a setting that began as two comparatively small-scale standalone adventures.
Epic fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
The Fall of Ile-Rien Martha Wells
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Wizard Hunters | 2003 | 3 | core | 3.97 (3,722 ratings) |
 | The Ships of Air | 2004 | 4 | core | 4.16 (2,686 ratings) |
 | The Gate of Gods | 2005 | 5 | core | 4.29 (2,506 ratings) |
Completed trilogy following Tremaine Valiarde as an invading army, the Gardier, besieges Ile-Rien; set chronologically after both standalone novels.
The Element of Fire (1993) core · 3.86 (4,057 ratings); Standalone novel; the earliest-set Ile-Rien story.
The Death of the Necromancer (1998) core · 4.03 (4,871 ratings); Standalone novel set later than The Element of Fire; a 1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel finalist. Its protagonist, Nicholas Valiarde, is an ancestor of Tremaine Valiarde in the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Ile-Rien? Ile-Rien's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for Ile-Rien? Publication order, starting with The Wizard Hunters. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Ile-Rien finished? Complete (1993–2005).
- How much reading does Ile-Rien take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books).
- How is Ile-Rien ranked? #332 in this site's official ranking, based on 17,842 reader ratings across 5 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #332?
Ranked #332 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 4.03 across 5 core books.
- A smaller readership (17,842 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Uneven reception: its books range from 3.86 to 4.29.
- Less than 0.01 behind #331, Sianim (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 5 books · Complete · 18k ratings · Ranks #332 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length epic fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- The Element of Fire (1993)
- The Death of the Necromancer (1998)
- The Wizard Hunters (2003)
- The Ships of Air (2004)
- The Gate of Gods (2005)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.03 across 17,842 ratings on 5 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Admit Ile-Rien (Martha Wells) accepted 2026-09-04
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Ile-Rien (English Wikipedia) Tier 2
- Martha Wells: the Ile-Rien Books (author's own site) Tier 1
- The Death of the Necromancer (English Wikipedia) Tier 2
Last reviewed: 2026-09-07
Rule: Core Canon = all five novels set in Ile-Rien and its wartime-refuge parallel world (The Element of Fire, The Death of the Necromancer, The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, The Gate of Gods); no Expanded material (short fiction, if any, has not been separately verified).