Liavek
#4493.99 adjusted 3.98 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 1985–1990 Reading commitment Medium Emma Bull & Will Shetterly (creators/editors) Last reviewed 2026-08-21
Overview
Liavek is a shared-world setting, a fantasy trade city-state built around magic tied to personal "birth luck" (determined by the length of one's mother's labor), created and edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly for a five-volume anthology series published by Ace Books between 1985 and 1990. Practitioners must annually invest their magical power into an external object to channel spells, and failing to do so drains the power away, sometimes fatally. Contributors across the five books included Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, Steven Brust, John M. Ford, Patricia C. Wrede, Nancy Kress, Charles de Lint and Alan Moore, several of whom are credited elsewhere in this canon under their own separate universes. Orson Scott Card praised the first volume as an example of what a shared-world anthology can achieve "when almost everything goes right." In 2017 Bull and Shetterly opened the setting to independent creators through a licensing arrangement.
Sword & sorcery · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
Liavek Emma Bull, Will Shetterly
| Work | Year | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Liavek | 1985 | core | 3.93 (315 ratings) |
 | Liavek: The Players of Luck | 1986 | core | 3.94 (201 ratings) |
 | Liavek: Wizard's Row | 1987 | core | 4.04 (171 ratings) |
 | Liavek: Spells of Binding | 1988 | core | 4.14 (102 ratings) |
 | Liavek: Festival Week | 1990 | core | 4.00 (111 ratings) |
A five-volume shared-world anthology series created and edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, with contributions from Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, Steven Brust, Megan Lindholm, Pamela Dean, Charles de Lint and others, several already credited elsewhere in this canon under their own separate universes.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Liavek? Liavek's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for Liavek? Publication order, starting with Liavek. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Liavek finished? Complete (1985–1990).
- How much reading does Liavek take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books).
- How is Liavek ranked? #449 in this site's official ranking, based on 900 reader ratings across 5 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #449?
Ranked #449 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.99 across 5 core books.
- A smaller readership (900 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #448, His Fair Assassin (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 · 900 ratings · Ranks #449 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length sword-and-sorcery universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- Liavek (1985)
- Liavek: The Players of Luck (1986)
- Liavek: Wizard's Row (1987)
- Liavek: Spells of Binding (1988)
- Liavek: Festival Week (1990)
Awards (verified)
- No confirmed genre-juried award recognition found for this series.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.99 across 900 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: Liavek admitted accepted 2026-08-21
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Wikipedia: Liavek Tier 2
Last reviewed: 2026-08-27
Rule: Core Canon is the complete five-volume shared-world anthology series (1985-1990), credited to its creators/editors Emma Bull and Will Shetterly. A handful of later individual tie-in works exist but a clean, unanimous bibliography for those could not be confirmed within this pass's research budget, so only the five core anthologies are registered.