Thinking about trying the original bf Benny run. Which of the books would you say are important/necessary?
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Doomsday Manuscript, Squire’s Crystal and Glass Prison (in that order). Thankfully, they’re available as unabridged audiobooks read by Lisa Bowerman. Having listened to Series 2 and 3 thus far (Series 1 is just novel adaptations), I’d say those three books and then Series 3 is the most essential (or even just those three novels and the audio “The Mirror Effect”) to get the series arc to that point.
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In my opinion, the only books that are 100% necessary or else you’re confused are The Squire’s Crystal which should be read after Secret of Cassandra, The Glass Prison which comes after Skymines of Karthos, and Life During Wartime which comes after The Poison Seas.
I am sure others will have different opinions, but I would say those are the three absolutely most necessary ones to read in the correct places because they contain a lot of absolutely essential plot stuff that never gets explained in the audios and leaves you confused.
Other important ones are probably The Infernal Nexus, The Doomsday Manuscript, and some of the other short story collections but if you want the bare bones essentials, I’m sticking with Squire and Prison (both read by Lisa Bowerman as audiobooks!) and Wartime which is probably a little harder to find, alas
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Doomsday Manuscript introduces the Fifth Axis. I never finished Gods of the Underworld.
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I’ve listened to almost all of the audiobooks now (
) and yeah, Underworld was a right slog to get through. But it’s kind of important for Jason. And I forgot that Manuscript introduces the Fifth Axis - I liked that book a lot, but I’d argue that it’s not strictly necessary if you want to read as few books as possible because it’s not too hard to realise what the Fifth Axis’ MO is
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@sircarolyn, We’re getting things mixed up. Underworld isn’t Jason! That would be Infernal Nexus which is in between Extinction Event and Skymines.
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So Doomsday Manuscript, Squire’s Crystal, Infernal Nexus, Glass Prison and then Series 3. I found the audio dramas of Series 2 to be rather lackluster.
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serves me right for trying to remember things out of my brain haha
The point is, Squire’s Crystal and Glass Prison are both really good! And well worth a read 
Was Underworld one of the more utterly pointless and boring ones then? I do remember finding it dull
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If I remember right, it was something about gangsters and sleepers on a planet where Benny crash landed. I was listening to multiple things and it wasn’t holding my interest.
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Agree with the others here that the essential books are Crystal, Prison and Wartime, with perhaps Doomsday if you want a formal introduction to the Collection and the Fifth Axis.
Adding to that, though, that if you want a deeper understanding of what Brax’s whole deal is, A Life Worth Living and Something Changed are the places to go. They’re also just really good anthologies that expand on the regular cast of the Benny adventures. (A Life Worth Living takes place after The Grel Escape and Something Changed after The Lost Museum.)
The Benny series are interesting because when they began the audios and the books were very much interlinked, with the main arc being carried in the book series and the audios being more standalone. As time went on the audios became more important and the books less necessary to the overarching plot.
The books are still really, really good though, I’d recommend getting any of them you can, especially the later ones—but they’re just so awfully hard to find!
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Speaking of books, I just finished re-reading Life During Wartime last night, which makes me want to find time to go on the spreadsheet and get that looking all good to upload so I can mark it off on my profile 
But I very much enjoyed it again - there are some real hard hitting short stories in there and I’m glad I forced myself to read it before moving on to Death and the Daleks again, I think reading it in its proper place heightens the impact of the audios a lot more than just skimming Tardis Wiki. Which I guess is the point
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