Confused by Vernor Vinge

I thought I had this figured out, but the way that LT lists the series is confusing me:
https://www.librarything.com/nseries/2805/Zones-of-Thought

If I understand correctly: A Fire Upon the Deep was written in 1992, but A Deepness in the Sky which followed in 1999 is a prequel to it, yes? So if I want to read them in publication order, it's "Fire" and then "Deep".

I'm not used to LT listing a series ordering chronologically rather than by publication date.

>1 Cecrow:

You can change the sort to publication date.

On the page to which you've linked, you should see on the right top of the list the option for "story|publication". Click on "publication", and it will show "Fire" first.

>2 lilithcat: Thanks, I didn't know that was possible! Definitely read A Fire Upon the Deep first. Great book.

>2 lilithcat:, >3 Karlstar:, me either, thanks, that's great to know! I always read in publication order, I want the experience that readers had as the books were coming out.

Cecrow (#1):

Tim is an internal-chronology partisan and chose that as the default series ordering when they changed the series functionality earlier this year.

This series is a case where internal chronology is particularly horrible. Much of the power of Deepness comes from having read Fire.

Boy, count me as a publication order partisan. Many books I have enjoyed don't even maintain a linear internal narrative chronology within a single volume. Why should it be necessary across a series?

For reading, I lean hard toward publication order. I do like the internal chronology for reference purposes, though, especially if I don't read the series one after the other.

>7 elenchus: I do like the internal chronology for reference purposes

Yes, that can be handy. I'm still impressed at the work done on the Conan's Journeys series page.

The Tinfoil Dossier series is an entertainingly confused one, where two of the three volumes include narratives that jump back and forward in time within a two-century stretch from about 1950 to 2150. The LT series page reasonably chooses to go with publication order ... but the book numbered 2 there (Black Helicopters) is the "first" according to the author, and its 2018 "definitive edition" was based on a 2014 original, thus pre-dating the 2017 Agents of Dreamland that the series page lists as number 1.

>9 paradoxosalpha: I have had that trilogy on my radar for a while now. Do you recommend starting with Black Helicopters? Or with Agents of Dreamland?

I started with Agents of Dreamland, and it was fine, but I think Black Helicopters might be a little better. Actually, I think any of the three could be read first without impairing the experience.

>11 paradoxosalpha: Thank you. My library has all three on offer via Overdrive. I think I will check out Black Helicopters first & see how it goes. A couple of months ago, I read and really liked Kiernan's The Drowning Girl so I'm hopeful about having found a new (to me) author's catalog to explore.

The sad news is that Kiernan might not be writing any more fiction for the foreseeable future, having returned to their paleontological career interests. But who knows?

I've only read Tinfoil Dossier and some short stories among Kiernan's work.