vampire the masquerade fiction

I've been looking into the clan novel series, and while i plan on picking up several other WoD trilogies soon, i was wondering if anyone could give some input:

the clan novels are compiled in the clan saga books, and time stamped. are the clan novels themselves also time stamped? and if not, is it more or less easy to follow how it fits, or are the 4 volumes of compilation substantially better?

i know its the same stuff, but the novels are a smidge cheaper collectively.

thanks in advance.

My understanding, because I have never actually seen the three compilation novels, is that the compilation novels put everything together in time order. Which would make many of the surprises in later novels less of a surprise, but I think it'd still be interesting and readable.

After having read the clan novels individually, in order, I'd suggest someone read the clan novels, in order, as-intended. But that's just me.

Also, three large books would take up less space than 13 small books, if that was a concern.

Yes the original clan novels have the same time stamping and following the normal order. However having read the original novelsand the clan saga books I would recommend reading them in the clan saga series.

I didn't like when reading the clan novels having passed a scene and gone beyond it only to go back and revisit it from another character's viewpoint in a later novel. The clan saga books fix this by keeping everything in order while it does tend to jump around between charactersd because of this.

Also, some of the clan novels are very well written and some, not so well. So it might be nice to only have to read a chapter at a time every now and then of the really crappy written ones.
I did the 13, in order, but have not read the re-organized timeline version.

ok, i'd heard that some of the clan novels were kind of weak compared to the rest of the series. and the room is a very small factor, as 4 big books are proffered to 14 smaller books, since my wife and i both already have alot of series books with umpteen parts to them. but the cost is equally, if not moreso a factor.
i can get the 14 novels for $50-$60, whereas the saga books are closer to $100 shipped. the fall of atlanta is around $35 shipped, and end games is around $50 shipped, with the middles volumes being closer to $12 shipped. the novels are almost all less than a dollar on amazon, except brujah and giovanni, and the primary cost in those is shipping 14 books at $3.99 each.

so i'm leaning toward the novels, only due to price. by saving on that series, i can buy the other wod stuff.

does anyone have any reccomendations?

i'm looking at the year of the scarab tio, along with the brujah, lasombra, and blood curse trilogies. i trust input from the vtes community more than random reviews, since we hard a tad more invested mentally/emotionally than even the WoD fans, since we're more hands on with representations of the characters.

The 4 book series also tidied up some editing and also introduced some new components. This was separetly released as an anthology I believe. So its 13 books plus the anthology equates to the 4 books.