[James]

I am amazed that people a care for time details, not meant to be taken badly, but personally i find it much easier to ignore time and just think that "a reasonable amount of time" has passed, but what ever road is easiest traveled.

[Epiph]

Werthead, on Oct 2 2008, 06:00 PM, said:

That is correct. I haven't changed the master list though due to the overwhelming level of headaches it induces. Ignoring the Harllo Paradox, I would say that TTH takes place 6 months or so after RG, but with the Paradox now in play, it's impossible to say for sure.

Fair enough. Props for putting the whole list together in the first place.

[Werthead]

Urizen, on Oct 3 2008, 08:48 AM, said:

but what of Hood's chat with Toc the Younger at the end of RG about how Toc the Elder still being alive?

That really isn't possible at all.

NURSE!

Tim, on Oct 3 2008, 09:45 AM, said:

I am amazed that people a care for time details, not meant to be taken badly, but personally i find it much easier to ignore time and just think that "a reasonable amount of time" has passed, but what ever road is easiest traveled.

This is true and works for other series. For example there are some timeline discrepencies in both ASoIaF and WoT as well, but they're all fudgeable to a certain degree with no major actual contradictions, whilst the MBF is starting to become littered with them. At some point so many errors and mistakes exist that it makes believing the actual story difficult. This is what Tolkien called the necessity of getting the details right in sub-creation, as anything that hinders your belief in the world and the story can have a severe impact, with the mileage varying for different readers. With TTH, we are reaching the point where, for me, the believability of the story is suffering because something very straightforward - the basic sequence of events - is not being paid much attention to.

I could even understand if the timeline problems were occuring between SE and ICE, but mostly they are not, they're occurring within Erikson's own work.

[Epiph]

Werthead, on Sep 29 2008, 05:41 PM, said:

At a rough estimate I'd put the end of RotCG perhaps a month or two before the start of RG. Having said that, we need to consider how long it took for Iron Bars to be dropped off on Jacuruku, fight his way across the continent and then inexplicably end up in the Rust Ocean (in completely the wrong location and opposite direction to where he's supposed to be going, either Stratem or Quon Tali), which potentially could push RotCG back further with no major problems or conflicts. However, I did get the impression that the annihilation of the Claw in Malaz City was fairly recent, however, given how often it is referenced, and - most tellingly - the Wickan pogrom is only just starting in RotCG. If it was a year or more after TBH, I'd expect it to be far more advanced.

I got the sense that the Wickan pogram had been ongoing, and

Spoiler

Rillish only intervened

at the start of RotCG because

Spoiler

he thought what was happening was wrong and saw an opportunity to do something right by taking the Wickans as "Imperial property."

Further,

Spoiler

Coltaine's age

suggests that 3-4 years have passed since the end of DhG. The problem for me is that

Spoiler

the Wickans who were dropped off by Nok are JUST getting there

. It all suggests that ICE intended for RotCG to occur at a greater space from RG than you're suggesting. And, frankly, you have to account for Hood telling Toc the Younger that Toc the Elder was still alive. Otherwise, everything really does fall apart.

[Werthead]

Epiph, on Oct 9 2008, 06:51 PM, said:

And, frankly, you have to account for Hood telling Toc the Younger that Toc the Elder was still alive. Otherwise, everything really does fall apart.

RG takes place over 1 year after TBH, RotCG takes place a few months after due to textual data. Maybe you could stretch it to a year but it would be tough going.

And I am dubious about really making the effort since I'm convinced the next book will really screw things up altogether.

[Ellestra]

Quote

CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN
1164-65 BS?: The Bonehunter
1164-66 BS?: Return of the Crimson Guard (may overlap with both TBH & RG)
1165-66 BS?: Reaper's Gale
1165-66 BS?: Toll the Hounds
post-1166 BS: Dust of Dreams
post-1166 BS: The Crippled God

I agree with the everything but these dates.
It's much later then 1166.

The Bonehunter start at the end of 1164 but then they spend months traveling - long enough fro Scillara to have a baby and for Tavore's army to march trough continent and then sail round half of it. In my opinion TBh takes about a year, so by the end of it it's 1165/66.
Then it takes 14th a year to come to Letheras - so it's something like 1166/67. Then stuff happens so I think we can assume it's 1167 or later at the end of Reaper's Gale.
I haven't read Return of the Crimson Guard so don't know when it happens but Toll the Hounds is much later then 1166. After all Harllo is said to be 5 and even if he was born in 1164 it would make TtH 1169.
And there are some other clues - like Cutter mentioning their ridiculously long journey from Seven Cities (I thik this comes from the timeline check by beta readers ). But it would've been even more ridiculously long if TBh ended in '65. Maybe TBh took even more time - there are no more dates in the books so we can go crazy with them. If one assumes it took like a year and half then the travel time to Darujistan 1169 decreases.

There are still problems with Baraghast Timeships and such but if Eres'al can do it so can sacred ancestor ships

[D'rek]

Well I just finished by tBH visual timelining project (for the wiki and you'll see it when it's all done), so I can confidently say that tBH prologue is around 265-300 days into 1164 and the conclusion in Malaz City occurs almost exactly one year after that, so the beginning of Autumn in 1165...

[waydoug]

One of these days I'll need to sit and try to figure out the timeline on paper, so I can see it for myself. That means opening every book and writing and studying and figuring and blah blah blah.

[D'rek]

waydoug, on Mar 1 2009, 01:54 PM, said:

One of these days I'll need to sit and try to figure out the timeline on paper, so I can see it for myself. That means opening every book and writing and studying and figuring and blah blah blah.

Waaaay ahead of ya on that, mate!

[Aptorian]

Indeed. Click D'reks signature.

It's almost as good as I could have done it

[D'rek]

Aptorian, on Mar 1 2009, 02:30 PM, said:

Indeed. Click D'reks signature.

It's almost as good as I could have done it

MoI update coming soon!

[Deragoth]

How many years ago did Mother Dark turn her back on the Andii? Does it say anywhere? Was it before or after the KCCM / Jaghut?

[Aptorian]

We don't know but it was obviously before the Tiste Exodus, which was before the Rutual of Tellan. So probably at least some 400.000 to 500.000 years ago.

[redJAKO]

Aptorian, on Jul 6 2009, 03:38 AM, said:

We don't know but it was obviously before the Tiste Exodus, which was before the Rutual of Tellan. So probably at least some 400.000 to 500.000 years ago.

Hrm, though the Andii are typically cited as 50,000 years old? Such as, TtH and Endest.

[Aptorian]

redJAKO, on Aug 2 2009, 08:34 AM, said:

Aptorian, on Jul 6 2009, 03:38 AM, said:

We don't know but it was obviously before the Tiste Exodus, which was before the Rutual of Tellan. So probably at least some 400.000 to 500.000 years ago.

Hrm, though the Andii are typically cited as 50,000 years old? Such as, TtH and Endest.

What? Where do you get that from? You must have misunderstood something.

[Harvester]

I hope the prologue II will be edited somewhen. It would be so easy to change the headline and "Tell the king" to "Tell the factor" or whatever. I guess, however, that at the moment Steve does not have any time at all. Oh how freaking hard it must be to write TCG.

This post has been edited by Harvester: 26 January 2010 - 06:25 PM

[Jorram]

D'Rek, your visual timeline is truly awesome, except you could cut off the ends of the line ;P
But does it lack MT because it is impossible to place it well or because you just didnt reach this far?

[D'rek]

Jorram, on 26 January 2010 - 10:50 PM, said:

D'Rek, your visual timeline is truly awesome, except you could cut off the ends of the line ;P
But does it lack MT because it is impossible to place it well or because you just didnt reach this far?

Because it's a work in progress. I have too many good books right now to re-read MT, picking out all the time/season/duration/etc references. Also it's really hard to make MT work with the rest of the books perfectly, and I'm really lazy when it comes to things that are hard.
Likewise I'm keeping TtH mostly out until I've read and figured DoD, cause TtH makes the timeline go

[Kurt Montandon]

There are only a couple of truly irreconcilable timeline mistakes (TTH spoilers):


* Harllo's age. Period. There's just no getting around the fact that there's no way in hell that six years have gone by between Capustan and TTH. Three, tops, and even that's pushing it. It really feels like a story Erikson wanted to write, and shoe-horned into the wrong book.

* Karsa's journey out of the Teblor lands taking place after the Enfilade at Pale (I'll ignore Karsa's age as Leoman states it in DG); and the subsequent age of his daughters. That should have required a good twenty-plus years before GotM, especially since the Teblor are supposed to have such long pregnancies and slow physical maturation.

* Callows occuring before Black Coral and the White Faces leaving Genabackis/arriving in Letheras. Couldn't have happened before Diskanar's death (remember that Feather Witch travelled with the raiding fleets, so they would have had to occur after MT).

There are a few other minor inconsistencies, like Fiddler's age, but nothing that can't be hand-waved.

"Some stuff happened, then some other stuff happened after" is a nice excuse, but doesn't cover up that Erikson got lazy and made some big mistakes with regards to the timeline, mistakes that could have been easily avoided.

[D'rek]

Spoiler

Kurt Montandon, on 27 January 2010 - 07:18 PM, said:

Harllo's age. Period. There's just no getting around the fact that there's no way in hell that six years have gone by between Capustan and TTH. Three, tops, and even that's pushing it. It really feels like a story Erikson wanted to write, and shoe-horned into the wrong book.

Harllo's a dragon and ages faster like Rud Elalle.

Kurt Montandon, on 27 January 2010 - 07:18 PM, said:

* Callows occuring before Black Coral and the White Faces leaving Genabackis/arriving in Letheras. Couldn't have happened before Diskanar's death (remember that Feather Witch travelled with the raiding fleets, so they would have had to occur after MT).

Other way around, I'd say. The timing of Callows matches up well with other references about how long the Edur fleets were at sea, but the Barghast couldn't possibly have made it to Lether during Diskanar's rule (nor could the Grey Swords). That prologue bit should be different to be during the Edur rule or some such.