Steven Erikson: the date of Trull's imprisonment. Finally, here, I can clear one up and so end the musing on a number of threads. The year noted in the book is wrong! Both years noted, in the prologue and then later, should be 1159. Apologies most heartfelt. Trull does not spend an inordinate amount of time on the wall.(Q and A with malazanempire No 2 (2003))
Verge of the Nascent, the 943rd Day of the Search
1139 Burn’s Sleep
(HoC, UK Trade, p.i?, Prologue)
Rough Order of the Published Books
1) end of MT (1162-3)
2) Karsa's journey begins (1163, unless the tie-in with the fall of Pale is a mistake, in which case it could be earlier))
3) GotM (about a month in late 1163)
4) MoI (begins a couple of months after the end of GotM, 1164)
5) DG is roughly concurrent with MoI (1163-prologue, 1164 for the bulk of the book)
6) HoC follows directly from the end of DG (within a month to 6 weeks for sure - 1164)
7) BH follows directly from the end of HoC (2 months, give or take a few days and it's still 1164, though it must be late in the year, likely we're into 1165 by the end of the book)
8) RG may overlap some with BH but also continues on into 1165
so:
1058 BS (approx.) - birth of the Malazan Empire (marked by the conquest of Malaz Island? the invasion of Quon Tali?
1152 BS - Kellanved and Dancer leave on a mysterious journey
1154 BS - 96th year of the Malazan Empire, last year of Kellanved's reign
1156 BS - Malazan-Moranth Alliance, 2nd year of Laseen's reign
1160 BS - beginning of the Siege of Pale
1161 BS - Itko Kan massacre, 7th year of Laseen's reign
1162 BS - most of the events of Midnight Tides
1163 BS - end of the Siege of Pale, the events of GotM, 105th year of the Malazan Empire
1164 BS - Tellann Year of the Second Gathering, most of the events of Deadhouse Gates , Memories of Ice and House of Chains
1165 BS - most of the events of The Bonehunters and Reaper's Gale
Timeline Markers
Maeth’ki Im (Pogrom of the Rotted Flower), the 33rd Jaghut War
298,665 years before Burn’s Sleep
(MoI, UK Trade, p.3)
Continents of Korelri and Jacuruku, in the Time of Dying
119,736 years before Burn’s Sleep (three years after the Fall of the
Crippled God)
(MoI, UK Trade, p.11)
1154th Year of Burn’s Sleep
96th Year of the Malazan Empire
The Last Year of Emperor Kellanved's Reign
(GotM Prologue, UK Trade, p.2)
the true Warren of Shadow has been closed, inaccessible
for millennia, until the 1154th year of Burn’s Sleep
(GotM, UK Trade, p.97)
Urugal the Woven’s Year
1159 Burn’s Sleep
(HoC, UK Trade, p.10)
1159th Year of Burn’s Sleep
Year of the White Veins in the Ebony
Three years before the Letherii Seventh Closure
(MT, UK Trade, p.7)
The Itko Kan Masacre
1161st Year of Burn’s Sleep
103rd Year of the Malazan Empire
7th Year of Empress Laseen’s Rule
(GotM, UK Trade, p.10)
907th Year in the Third Millennium
The Season of Fanderay in the Year of the Five Tusks
By Malazan reckoning, 1163rd Year of Burn’s Sleep
T’lan Imass reckoning, The Year of Gathering, Tellann Arise
(GotM, UK Trade, p.328)
In the Year of Burn’s Sleep 1163, the
Siege of Pale ended with a now legendary
sorcerous conflagration . . .
(GotM, UK Trade, p.9)
1163rd Year of Burn’s Sleep (two years later)
105th Year of the Malazan Empire
9th Year of Empress Laseen’s Rule
(GotM, UK Trade, p.39)
1163rd Year of Burn's Sleep
Ninth Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen
Year of the Cull
(DG Prologue, UK Trade, p.3)
1164th Year of Burn’s Sleep (two months after the Darujhistan Fete)
4th Year of the Pannion Domin
Tellann Year of the Second Gathering
(MoI, UK Trade, p.21)
1164th Year of Burn’s Sleep
Tenth Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen
The Sixth in the Seven Years of Dryjhna, the Apocalyptic
(DG, UK Trade, p.17)
1164 Burn’s Sleep
Istral’fennidahn, the season of D’rek, Worm of Autumn
22nd Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen
Twenty four days since the Execution of Sha’ik in Raraku
(BH, Prologue)
So...
The 1159th Year of Burn's Sleep is also:
The Second in the Seven Years of Dryjhna, the Apocalyptic
Fifth Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen
101st Year of the Malazan Empire
903rd Year in the Third Millenium (of Darujhistan?)
When Gethol offers Brukhalian the opportunity to escape Capustan through Hood's warren , Fener has not yet fallen but has been drawn to the edge of his realm, is in great peril, etc. and so the timing of that meeting is likely close to the time of Fener's Fall (MoI, UK Trade, p.248), and then Paran has a vision of the Fall itself on page 510 (UK Trade)... will sort out actual dates later...
When Karsa is captured (the second time) in the town on Silver Lake, Silgar notes that the Malazan principal army is currently 'bogged down outside the walls of Pale', placing that event between 1160 and 1163 BS.(HoC, UK MMPB, p.160)...shortly thereafter, 'the latest news from the south' is that Pale is fallen (HoC, UK MMPB, p.170), therefore the year must be 1163 BS, as only 3 days pass between Karsa's capture and the departure from Silver Lake (HoC, UK MMPB, p.165) and 6 days between then and the arrival at Culvern Crossing, where the news of Pale's fall is heard (HoC, UK MMPB, p.166). It seems unlikely that the news would take very long to travel, perhaps a week or two at the outside, considering the sorcerous means of communication available to the Malazans and the obvious advantages of spreading the news among both the Genabackan natives and the Malazan soldiers. So...1163 BS, Karsa begins his second journey, making the date of his departure from his tribe late 1162 or 1163 BS (not 1159), as the journey to Silver Lake takes a few weeks at maximum (HoC, UK MMPB, p.32) and Karsa isn't imprisoned for more than a few days after his initial capture.
Comments (2)
Rood said
at 9:35 pm on Oct 17, 2009
This timeline seems too compressed when it comes to the most recent books. In RG (UK Trade p. 382), when Blistig is remembering Tavore's speech (which occurred after the end of BH), we get: "Even now, over a year later, Blistig wondered if she had said what was needed." So if the above timeline is correct, RG is taking place in 1166 at the earliest, not overlapping with BH.
But TtH makes even that seem like too early a date. Young Harllo, who was conceived during the siege of Capustan in 1164, is at least 5 (more often referred to as 6) years old in TtH, meaning that the year is ca. 1170. Now, TtH obviously does not overlap with RG, but it doesn't seem to be that far removed from it either: Karsa and Samar Dev are both recently arrived on Genabackis, and in Cutter's description of his journey from the end of BH to Darujhistan (TtH, UK Trade p. 228) he mentions being stuck in a port for two seasons, but nothing to suggest that it took several years.
In other words, TtH has to be set in 1170 or so, and that implies that BH ends in maybe 1167, with RG in 1169(?). All of which means that there needs to more elapsed time somewhere in the middle books. I don't have HoC in front of me—why does it have to come within 6 weeks of the end of DG?
D'rek said
at 12:57 am on Oct 18, 2009
Generally, Harllo is just too old. Everything else in TtH could (and usually seems) to happen before Harllo could possibly be 5 years old. If you take Harllo's age as an inconsistancy (or that he's a fast-growing dragon kid like Rud Elalle) then the rest of it can make some sense.
As for RG and BH, the first part of RG could very well overlap with BH and much of the events in early RG could easily be quite spaced out (just like how BH takes a whole year but it the unnoticed jumps in time make it seem that the 14th walks across Seven Cities in a few days). By the time the 14th shows up, though, it is roughly a year since the end of BH (the 14th going to Theft and then sailing all the way to Lether takes roughly a year).
All that being said, the timeline has some glitches and some parts of it just have to go with a grain of salt...
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