Sunday, March 18, 2018

Revelation Space Timeline (Updated 1/2022)

I just finished my journey through all the published Revelation Space stories in (in-universe) chronological order (review of the series in my next post).  I am big on that ordering; my Narnia set starts with The Magician's Nephew and, when Winds of Winter gets announced, I plan to do a reread using the interleaved chapters from A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons.

However, I found that the resources to help someone read Revelation Space in order are in somewhat short supply and I found the ones present to be lacking in various areas.  Some of what I used you can find at the bottom.

Official Alastair Reynolds timeline - Doesn't have events from every story on it, however I consider all dates on it gospel for the purpose of making my own timeline
Neal Ulen's blog - Almost perfect but I dispute a few of his years and the ordering
Wikipedia's timeline - Missing several stories and some of the years definitely don't make sense given the events in the story.  Primarily used to encourage me to make this.

One last thing, if you are not a completionist and want to know if any of these will help your understanding of the Inhibitor Trilogy (the main three books), I would say the top 5 things to read, in order of importance:
  1. "Great Wall of Mars"
  2. "Galactic North"
  3. Chasm City
  4. "Glacial"
  5. "Turquoise Days"
To be clear, I don't believe these to necessarily be the best or most interesting of the stories below, just the ones that add the most depth to the main trilogy. Obviously, the main trilogy can be read without any support but I highly recommend at least reading "Great Wall of Mars" at some point before Redemption Ark because it helps add some development and backstory to the main characters of that book.  (Also, don't read "Galactic North" before the main series, it spoils a lot of what happens).


Some notes on the timeline:
  • If multiple stories cover the same stretch of time, I sort them by their end date
  • I kept all the books together with the exception of Chasm City because I think it is better to read the prologue before the stories that take place concurrently with it (at the same time, I think reading the short stories wholly after Chasm City robs them of a little emotional impact)
  • If my reason for choosing a year contains spoilers for other stories, I'll put it at the bottom so that you can use this as a resource without seeing spoilers.
  • If a story has an epilogue that takes place long after the story, I won't consider that as part of when the story takes place unless it spoils other events
  • The Prefect has been republished in some places as Aurora Rising.
  • "Quoted text" denotes short stories and novellas, italics denotes full novels, blue denotes stories with characters from Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies (a subseries), and green denotes stories with characters from the Inhibitor Trilogy (the main series)


Story Year Book that contains story Explanation for year
"Great Wall of Mars" 2205 Galactic North or
Beyond the Aquila Rift
From AR timeline
"Glacial" 2217 Galactic North From AR timeline
"Night Passage" 2338 Infinite Stars or Belladonna Nights From AR timeline
"A Spy in Europa" 2339 Galactic North Clearly shortly before event in AR Timeline
"Weather" 2358 Galactic North or
Beyond the Aquila Rift
See note [0] at bottom
The Prefect/Aurora Rising 2427 The Prefect Explicitly says year in story
"Open and Shut" 2428 Gollancz or Belladonna Nights Clearly shortly after The Prefect
Elysium Fire 2429 Elysium Fire Stated it takes place two years after events in The Prefect
Chasm City Prologue 2510 Chasm City From AR timeline (technically takes place in 2517 but almost exclusively describes events in 2510)
"Monkey Suit" 2511 Deep Navigation Clearly shortly after event in AR Timeline
"Plague Music" 2512 Belladonna Nights Clearly shortly after event in AR Timeline
"Dilation Sleep" 2513 Galactic North Clearly shortly after event in AR Timeline
Chasm City 2502-2524 Chasm City Explicitly says year in story
"Diamond Dogs" 2500-2527 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days or Beyond the Aquila Rift See note [1] at bottom
"Grafenwalder's Bestiary" 2530 Galactic North Said to be "two centuries" after the events in "A Spy in Europa" and shortly after the events of "Diamond Dogs"
"Turquoise Days" 2539-2541 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days From AR timeline
"Nightingale" 2545 Galactic North See note [2] at bottom
Revelation Space 2524-2567 Revelation Space From AR timeline
"The Last Log of the Lachrimosa" 2530 Subterranean Press or
Beyond the Aquila Rift
See note [3] at bottom
Redemption Ark 2605-51 Redemption Ark From AR timeline
Absolution Gap 2615-2727 [4] Absolution Gap Explicitly says year in story
Inhibitor Phase  2791-2858 Inhibitor PhaseExplicitly says year in story
"Galactic North" 2303-40000 Galactic North Explicitly says year in story




(Minor) Spoilers:
[0]: Not many hints on when this takes place but after 2350 based on the AR timeline.  The other websites use 2358 so I will go with that
[1]: The story explicitly starts "a century and a half" after The Eighty but the melding plague hasn't hit yet which doesn't work with the AR timeline.  2500 seems to be about as late as I can put it while still leaving the ending early enough.  The ending year is again, about as late as I can put it.  I would argue that textual evidence implies that it is after the end of Chasm City and hints in "Turquoise Days" imply that that story takes place decades later.
[2]: Clearly after the parts of Chasm City that take place on Sky's Edge. The story says there has been 250 years of war starting immediately after their arrival on Sky's Edge which the official timeline says happened in the 23rd century.  Given people's memories and skills, I think this has to be at most 10 years after the end of the war. Since Khouri arrives on Yellowstone in 2524, and the war was still going when she left, this means the range of possible years of the story is 2510 to 2559 (260 + 2299)
[3]: I know that this one is out of place but I think that it is better read after Revelation Space when you know what the Inhibitors are and their history.  The year is almost entirely conjecture, some point after 2510 and before 2600 but closer to 2510
[4] The prologue and epilogue of Absolution Gap take place in ~2950 and contain at least one character who is also present in Inhibitor Phase, spoiling their survival. However, Reynolds clearly made a choice to bookend Absolution Gap with this flashforward so I am hesitant to advise you to skip both until you finish Inhibitor Phase. Inhibitor Phase should definitely be read after the main body of Absolution Gap.

In addition, I came up with a dependency tree for how all the stories interact.  I'll post it down here since it has minor spoilers.






5 comments:

  1. Fan of the series, and all Reynolds, great work!

    Chasm City on the table should read
    2529 and says 2502.

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    1. Esteban, where did you get 2529? I don't think that is referenced anywhere in the story

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  2. I'm working my way through the books now.

    The timeline seems to have inconsistencies even just in Revelation Space. Consider chapter four which says Dan was 12 in 2373. ("Deeper this time; back to when he was twelve. ... It was 2373; only a few decades after Bernsdottir’s discovery of the first Shroud.") This would place his birth in 2361. Yet an official timeline (http://www.alastairreynolds.com/rs-universe/revelation-space-universe-timeline/) places his birth in 2351.

    Either way, neither jives with the first chapter which says Dan is 308 years old ("Sylveste was eight years into his third century...").

    That would imply that the events starting out on Resurgam take place in 2669 or 2659 (depending on birth year); certainly not 2551 as the book clearly states.

    None of this discounts anything above. I'm just noting what seems to be an immediate inconsistency, unless I'm missing something terribly obvious. Maybe this stuff gets reconciled later.

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    1. 208, that line means, not 308.

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    2. Good point! I entirely read that wrong. I still feel like the chronology is off.

      In the book, we learned the Eighty were "scanned 150 years ago." That line was said in 2524, meaning the Eighty scanning took place in 2374.

      Yet, at one scene, Dan is said to be 21 when he visited Philip Lascaille and this was implied to be shortly before the Eighty occurs. ("Calvin could go hang, or burn his neurons to ash in the madness he was about to inflict on himself and his seventy-nine disciples.")

      But we know from another scene that Dan was 12 in 2373 (it's directly stated), and thus he certainly wasn't 21 in 2374.

      Going from being 12 in 2373, Dan would be 21 in the year 2382. But that would be after the Eighty, and thus the above statement wouldn't make sense.

      If Dan was 12 in 2373 (and that is the one thing that is directly stated), then he was born in 2361. So that official timeline still seems wrong. That means that in 2551 when the story opens, and Dan is said to be 208, his actual age would be 190. If we count years directly anyway.

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