Multi Series Support

[FlameDragons]

What's Your Idea?

Add support for 1 book to be assigned to more than 1 series. This is one of the more QoL features that I really want. There are many books that are part of a larger universe or some which share characters between the series etc where it would be helpful for 1 book to show up under different series without duplicating the books.

Ideally there should be 1 main/base series which would be for folder organising and the other series can be added on without affecting actual organisation of the book files.

Why Would This Be Helpful?

There are a few different situations where this would be especially helpful but mainly it is to give us more options to organise the library. For simplicity's sake, I'll take mistborn or cosmere as an example to illustrate my point.

1. More than 1 series in an overarching universe. Like Mistborn and the Stormlight Archives are both part of the Cosmere. We should be able to set 1 main series for actual folder or file organisation. And allow us multiple sub series for display purposes.

2. Standalone book part of the universe with other standalone and/series. Like Warbreaker or Elantris, are both standalone books but also in the shared universe Cosmere along with the other series.

3. Multiple reading orders for a set of books which can be either publication order or a chronological order for the actual story or even a fandom recommended reading orders.

4. Book which is part of a series but not part of another sub or mainline series. Like Secret Project books, most of them are part of Cosmere but there's 1 book that is not in Cosmere. So in this case we need some granularity in how we assign the books to different sub series or universe.

5. For certain shared universes like D&D or Warhammer where multiple authors are writing different books in the same shared world. We definitely would need the ability to assign multiple series for organising these kinds of novels.

Anything Else? (Optional)

Audiobookshelf have already implemented support for this where we can assign more than 1 series to each book so we can look at them for inspiration.

Want to Help Out?

I'm happy to help test and give feedback

Have You Considered Any Alternatives? (Optional)

I have thought about using tags for this but that doesn't really work well for this as we need the ability to put a sequence for the books like how we do in the series section. Also I think it would be best for the sub series to also be visible in the series view so if see Mistborn we click it we see all Mistborn books and on the same page we can also see Cosmere and if we click on it we see all the Cosmere books including Mistborn and other series.

Before Submitting

• I've searched existing issues and confirmed this feature hasn't been requested yet

[zachyale]

This is a great suggestion, and definitely on the roadmap. Would propose something along the lines of from a technical perspective:

• If a book has one or more series memberships (consisting of a book, position #, series, and 'primary_series' bool), only one membership can be the book's given primary series at a time
• Existing series relations are migrated to be the current books' primary series

[sicahjes]

This is a great suggestion, and definitely on the roadmap. Would propose something along the lines of from a technical perspective:

• If a book has one or more series memberships (consisting of a book, position #, series, and 'primary_series' bool), only one membership can be the book's given primary series at a time
• Existing series relations are migrated to be the current books' primary series

I don't think this would be a minor fix, but a major feature update, but a way to achieve this might be through 'Universe' and 'Universe Number' fields. This way, a book can be part of both a series and a universe of series.

The Universes could have a browse page like the Series, with tabular information similar to a book details page.

• Tab 1: displays all series in the universe.
• Tab 2: displays the reading order based on the Universe Number field.

Ideally, the description for a Series and Universe would be customisable, this way information could be provided similar to what is listed for series on Goodreads (i.e. a description of the series/universe overall etc.).

Here are some mockups:

Main Universe Details Page

Suggested Reading Order Tab

As I said, I understand this may not be a simple fix but it would be outstanding ☺️

[ComSubVie]

What the universe idea is missing are anthology books with short stories from different series (although I really like the universe mockups).

[zachyale]

@ComSubVie @sicahjes @FlameDragons

Do universes have a single prescribed reading order? Part of my thoughts re: the value of adding multi-series memberships for a given book is that you could have a series for the canon publication order, multiple series for various fan reading orders etc- would it not be better then to just have a "universe" be one or more collections of series? So you could have a series tab, and a books tab, but no "reading order" tab.

That sounds like the more transferable abstraction, curious on your thoughts.

Note: I'd also like to preface that this thought experiment does not guarantee this feature will be on the roadmap, but it is good to explore the concept further to get a sense of what would be involved for this. Following performance optimizations, the next large spike I'm looking to investigate is surrounding the transition from the book model, to a set of work -> edition -> issue models

[sicahjes]

@ComSubVie

What the universe idea is missing are anthology books with short stories from different series (although I really like the universe mockups).

I haven't encountered that before, so I didn't think to include it. I do see novellas, short stories and bonus chapters but they are usually standalone or published per series and would have a fractional number (0.5 etc.) for the order. Not sure how to address your example (will need to think on it), but hopefully the universe idea addresses most requirements / use cases.

[sicahjes]

@zachyale

Do universes have a single prescribed reading order?

Yes, they often can. I see this a lot in fantasy fiction. An author will write seperate series set in the same world, guided by a recommended reading order that moves back and forth between series and related standalone books. The series will have common characters and events, and often an overlapping timeline. If the books are read outside of this order (i.e. one series at a time) it can result in spoilers and/or confusion. Examples include:

• Sabreverse by Clare Sager (16 books, 5 series 1 standalone). Reading pattern: S1, S2, S3, S2, S4, standalone, S4, S5.
• Blood and Ash Wold by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Reading pattern: S1, S2, S1, S2, S1, S2, S1, S2, S1.

I actually just got burned by making a mistake with the Sabreverse reading order a couple of days ago.

Note: I'd also like to preface that this thought experiment does not guarantee this feature will be on the roadmap, but it is good to explore the concept further to get a sense of what would be involved for this.

I completely understand. Thank you for taking the time to discuss it.

If you opted to implement the Universe idea, maybe a staged feature release could work (if that makes things easier). In order of importance, I'd say the ability to group series is the priority, followed by communicating relationships between series and books within the Universe:

1. Universe Pages: grouping series similar to how Series pages group books (e.g. controlled by a Universe field).
2. Universe Overview: a description field specific to each Universe in lieu of the book 1 description, this can be where information relevant to the universe is listed (including reading order info where both author and fan orders exist etc.).
3. Reading Order Tab: an ordered list of all books in the universe puling from a universe order field. Maybe the book list tab at the very top could be set to order the books by universe order (I didn't pay attention to this in my first post). I think this is useful, even with step 2, as it allows users to easily navigate through the books as they read them.

I'd also love it if the description fields for series were unique rather than pulling from the first book, but that's a seperate feature.

[zachyale]

@sicahjes These are very interesting examples- thanks for sharing them! I haven't personally read a series like this, but this makes a ton of sense to me now, and I think I can better understand the applicability of this. For ex., one could have a 'Universe' for The Boys, or the Ultimate Marvel universe, with various series (Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc.) and their canonical series order, while also having a general series reading order for the canon, that better contextualizes crossovers etc., right? Seeing your examples definitely helped me to better visualize the value something like a series-grouping/universe grouping could provide certain users.

While that's a possibility in the long term, in the medium-to-short term, I can say with certainty that multi-series support is on the radar, and is a priority once the project begins to transition into v3.0+. As well, series descriptions makes complete sense and would be easier to implement than either multi-series or universes. If you make a follow-up issue for custom series descriptions we can look to introduce that sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your involvement and passion in the project, it's invaluable to hear from different perspectives and different users' experiences consuming content, as everyone reads and uses the platform differently!

[zachyale]

@sicahjes Out of curiosity, do you know of any other platforms that have support for something like this (the universe mapping)? Comic-based or otherwise, would be interesting to see existing implementations

[pepitaaa]

Related but maybe not a one-to-one implementation but Kavita has a relationship feature so you can label series that are related as offshoots, prequels, sequels to a main series. https://wiki.kavitareader.com/guides/features/relationships/

[ComSubVie]

Do universes have a single prescribed reading order?

Not always, but quite often. You could also compare that with the Star Wars or Marvel movies (or comics) and TV series. They consist of movies (single books) and series (multiple books) within an overlapping timeline.

I haven't encountered that before, so I didn't think to include it.

For example you could look up "The Hollows" series on goodreads and look at books 5.5 or 7.5.

For example Book 7.5 Unbound has the following series information (under Book Details & editions):

• The Hollows (7.5 - Ley Line Drifter)
• Signs of the Zodiac (4.5 - Dark Matters)
• Dark Days (0.6)
• Night Huntress (0.5 - Reckoning)
• Night Huntress Universe (0.5)

[FlameDragons]

@sicahjes Out of curiosity, do you know of any other platforms that have support for something like this (the universe mapping)? Comic-based or otherwise, would be interesting to see existing implementations

Mostly, the comic focused platforms like Kavita, Komga and Stump, sort of get around to supporting it using collections and reading lists. I think this is probably not metadata based, not sure really.

[sicahjes]

@sicahjes Out of curiosity, do you know of any other platforms that have support for something like this (the universe mapping)? Comic-based or otherwise, would be interesting to see existing implementations

No, unfortunately I don't.

It might sound weird, but the logic in my mind was informed by how databases and excel pull data (a conditional lookup field with the universe and a sort governed by the universe reading order).

I think I can better understand the applicability of this. For ex., one could have a 'Universe' for The Boys, or the Ultimate Marvel universe, with various series (Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc.) and their canonical series order, while also having a general series reading order for the canon, that better contextualizes crossovers etc., right?

Exactly!

Thanks, I'll make the series description recommendation now :)

[zachyale]

Thanks for making that discussion- between these two improvements I think there are some exciting opportunities to refactor how we approach series to allow for more easily implementing improvements like this 😃

[jdeitsch]

Another place where I would see the benefit of this is things like Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, where there are sub-series within it following individual ongoing storylines.

i.e. Wee Free Men, The [Discworld 30, Discworld: Tiffany Aching 1]

[Matt-Int]

I wonder if there's any appetite in having more than 1 universe series and a sub-series? e.g., with Mistborn, The Final Empire, that is part of the original trilogy Mistborn, the Mistborn Saga (which includes the Wax and Wayne series), and is also part of the Cosmere.

This particular use-case is largely solved in Audiobookshelf, where a single book can be a member of multiple series, though this does not capture the "series within series" that the Universe approach has, and which I really love the mock-up for.

Would this be suitable as a phased roll-out with multi-series memberships being part of an initial release and the Universe series features building on top of that?

[sicahjes]

I think the Cosmere is a perfect example use case for a Universe approach. Sanderson’s recommended reading order distinguishes between the two Mistborn Eras, plots standalone/books from other series between the Eras, and splits Stormlight Archive. So with a Universe approach, the Cosmere would consist of the below series and standalone books:

1. Mistborn Era I: Original Trilogy
2. Mistborn Era II: Wax and Wayne
3. Stormlight Archive
4. Hoid's Travails (standalone series)
5. Arcanum Unbounded Collection
6. White Sands Series
7. Standalone Books (Warbreaker, Elantris, Sunlit Man etc.)

Based on how the records are currently managed, even if a book could be assigned to multiple series I’m not sure how straight forward it would be to assign corresponding book orders for each series (same logic for multiple Universes). The logic for the Universe is that there’s one series order and potentially a Universe order.

You can review some of the logistics discussion in [593], but functionally I think a Universe order would be the smoothest approach.

[jdeitsch]

Thinking on it further, this could be an inroad to building a thorough support for manga chapters/volumes

Example case: Two Piece [definitely not One] - Volume 453 - Chapter 9001

Series: Two Piece, Two Piece: Vol 453

If a specific naming method is implemented, one could even potentially group child series for display, grouping chapters like the way they are shown in the Audiobook interface, then in the "Two Piece" Series entry, the collapsed sub-series would show as a single entry for a cleaner UX

Two Piece

• Ch. 8999
• Ch. 9000
• Vol. 453
  • Ch. 9001
  • Ch. 9002
• Ch. 9003

I think Kavita does something similar, but I can't remember from the time I used it a couple years back.

[zazaly]

I was just about to request this... and this is how I was framing the post:

A new section below "Series" called "Universe". This way, we can have an absolute global category to encompass multiple series within the same universe.

Items within "Universe" should / could be viewed in two modes:

1. Per Series.
2. Per Publication Year.

This allows us to dive into a literary universe either by the universe's own chronology or following the publication order (as it was available to the public).

Here is a practical example for No. 1

"The Butlerian Jihad"
Legends of Dune: Hunting Harkonnens (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
Legends of Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by B.H. & K.J.A
Legends of Dune: Whipping Mek (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
Legends of Dune: The Machine Crusade by B.H. & K.J.A
Legends of Dune: The Faces of a Martyr (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
Legends of Dune: The Battle of Corrin by B.H. & K.J.A
Great Schools of Dune: Sisterhood of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
Great Schools of Dune: Mentats of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
Great Schools of Dune: Red Plague (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
Great Schools of Dune: Navigators of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A

"The Corrino-led Imperium:"
Prelude to Dune: House Atreides by B.H. & K.J.A
Prelude to Dune: House Harkonnen by B.H. & K.J.A
Prelude to Dune: House Corrino by B.H. & K.J.A
Heroes of Dune: Paul of Dune (parts II, IV, VI) by B.H. & K.J.A
Wedding Silk (Short-Story, in "Tales of Dune") by B.H. & K.J.A
Heroes of Dune: The Winds of Dune (Part II) by B.H. & K.J.A

"The rise of the Atreides"
Original series: Dune by F.H.
A Whisper of Caladan Seas (Short-Story, in the companion book "The Road to Dune") by B.H. & K.J.A
Heroes of Dune: Paul of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
Heroes of Dune: The Winds of Dune (part IV) by B.H. & K.J.A
The Road to Dune (Short-Story, in "Eye") by F.H.
Original series: Dune Messiah by F.H.
Heroes of Dune: The Winds of Dune (parts I, III, V) by B.H. & K.J.A
Original series: Children of Dune by F.H.

"The reign the God Emperor"
Original series: God Emperor of Dune by F.H.

"The return from the Scattering"
Original series: Heretics of Dune by F.H.
Sea Child (Short-Story, in "Tales of Dune") by B.H. & K.J.A
Original series: Chapterhouse: Dune by F.H.
Dune Chronicles - Hunters of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
Treasure in the Sand (Short-Story, in "Tales of Dune") by B.H. & K.J.A
Dune Chronicles - Sandworms of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A

... and here is a practical example for No. 2:

1965 Dune by F.H.
1969 Dune Messiah by F.H.
1976 Children of Dune by F.H.
1981 God Emperor of Dune by F.H.
1984 Heretics of Dune by F.H.
1985 Chapterhouse: Dune by F.H.
1985 Eye by F.H.
1999 House Atreides by B.H. & K.J.A
2000 House Harkonnen by B.H. & K.J.A
2001 House Corrino by B.H. & K.J.A
2002 Hunting Harkonnens (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
2002 The Butlerian Jihad by B.H. & K.J.A
2003 Whipping Mek (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
2003 The Machine Crusade by B.H. & K.J.A
2004 The Faces of a Martyr (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
2004 The Battle of Corrin by B.H. & K.J.A
2006 Hunters of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2007 Sandworms of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2008 Paul of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2009 The Winds of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2011 Tales of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2012 Sisterhood of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2014 Mentats of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A
2016 Red Plague (Short-Story) by B.H. & K.J.A
2016 Navigators of Dune by B.H. & K.J.A

Example of the "Dune Universe" organized and displayed as "Series". Each series hosts multiple books that are all catalogued and organized in such a manner that would allow me to follow the 'in-universe' chronology.

I think sicahjes is exactly right on his suggestion.

I'm looking forward to this.

[zachyale]

@sicahjes

FWIW I hadn't seen the comic specific fields until now (Locations, Teams, Characters, etc). I think the inclusion of that current functionality (and the ability to search/filter by character, teams, etc) makes it clear to me that "universes" would be in-scope for this project, as they effectively currently are, but just poorly implemented. It makes sense to me to allow any/all publications to optionally define things like "characters", "teams", "locations" (for ex., OpenLibrary supports People, Places and Times for any given book). Following that justification, I believe overarching universes + universe reading orders would make sense as well.

No promises timeline-wise, as there are some blockers architecturally re: an API redesign before we can begin to scope out new large features like this, but it seems like a highly reasonable feature that could be implemented well. When we get closer to being able to scope the specific changes necessary for something like this, I can ping these discussions with the relevant issues, in case anybody wants to pick them up when the time comes.

Now, if only there was an equivalent to CBLs for standard ebooks/audiobooks...

[albertmichaelj]

I just wanted to voice my support for this, and to recommend that at least for epub3 files, that you already key in on the belongs-to-collection property which can be set multiple times. As far as interface, I really think that the Audiobookshelf model is a good one (just list multiple series and each series is a separate organizing "folder" with arbitrary orderings). It is simple, not too specific to any one use case, and I think it wouldn't require a dramatic interface revamp.

Thanks for your work on this project (not just this feature, but Grimmory as a whole)!

[zachyale]

Thanks for chipping in- agree with you that we should be using the belongs-to-collection more effectively here. Just holding off on this work until we've had a chance to address some large foundational refactors that will unlock significant performance improvements.

Hopefully we can get to this in the next month or so!

[FlameDragons]

Hi there! Just checking if there are any updates regarding the implementation of this feature? I don't mean to be pushy but a roadmap of future features and those being worked on etc would be helpful.

[zachyale]

We don't have a roadmap right now, but I'm actively working on the tech debt necessary in order to unblock this functionality and more. That work is reflected on #1958 - once this is done, I can begin on multi-series support. I'll post here w/ the relevant issues once I've made them

[Shalar]

I want to add that there is metadata support at least from the goodreads site for multiple series. The image is from The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

I advocate that universes are just another series tag. I also would like to see the ability to tag a book as belonging to multiple spots in the series order. This is mainly for dealing with omnibus books.

Additionally this would allow comic arcs from comic vine to be supported as 1 book belonging to multiple arcs.

[zachyale]

What do you mean "just another series tag"- that all books have a series option, and then a universe option? so in order for a given series' books to be in a universe, all of it's child books would need to be in that universe per each book's metadata?

[Shalar]

To my thinking, there shouldn't be a separate universe tag, or a separate way to handle universes. A universe is just another series entry. I don't know how data is structured in Grimmory, but if there is a table of series each with its own primary key, you can create another table where a book can be linked with multiple series, and even have duplicate series entries so it can hold multiple positions in the same series. Basically, this gives users the freedom to define how books exist.

[ckaotik]

Multiple series would also be great for a magazine library. I currently use this file pattern: <{series}/><{year}/><[{seriesIndex}] >{title}. However, this is unreliable as the published date (from which the year is derived) is usually not in sync. For example, a magazine for "01/2026" may have been published mid December 2025. Currently, I manually override the published date, but this is not nice as it creates incorrect metadata.

Looking forward to this 😃