I read Low Port by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller and liked it a lot. Now I want to read the novels. The English Wikipedia gives the correct order as Agent of Change
< Conflict of Honors
< Carpe Diem
< Plan B
< Local Custom
< Scout's Progress
< I dare
< Mouse and Dragon
. However, the publisher (АСТ, in Russia) published them in a different order: Conflict of Honors
< Agent of Change
< Carpe Diem
< Local Custom
< Scout's Progress
< Plan B
< I dare
< "Trade balance"
(I backtranslated the last title from Russian, it could be that they just retitled Mouse and Dragon
).
Wikipedia shows clearly that the internal order doesn't coincide with any of the two. However, I don't think the internal order so important. Especially if there is a character who has a smaller role in the book where he is introduced and then there is a whole book to explain his past, I find it more pleasant to read in the writing order than in the order of internal chronology.
So do you think that the АСТ order makes more sense somehow? Is there some deep logic behind it, or did they just fail their deadlines for some of the books, maybe just didn't care and published in some semi-random order? Which one would you recommend for reading, the original one or the Russian one, and why?
As a small side question, is this a book which loses much in translation? I haven't bought the Russian books yet, maybe I should get the English ones if they are of the sensitive kind?