Draginon Posted February 4, 2018 Report Share Posted February 4, 2018 Not sure if in right thread or not. So with us getting closer to halfway through the Cosmere books I've been wondering if anyone's tried doing a full reading timeline where one can read the entirety of the Cosmere in historical order. Obviously I've seen rough book orders but it would be interesting to see one where the Roshar flashbacks are in their 'correct' place instead of strewn all over the place in the narrative and if anything is technically concurrent a rough figuring of which goes first. This whole timeline read order is going to get very interesting once we get to Taln and Ash's flashbacks since those could be anywhere in the timeline, possibly predating the other books outside of Dragonsteel and maybe White Sand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RShara Posted February 4, 2018 Report Share Posted February 4, 2018 I believe @Jofwu is working on something like this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jofwu Posted February 4, 2018 Report Share Posted February 4, 2018 Nah, I'm just focused on the Stormlight timeline for now. Honestly though, @Draginon, I think you'll find the overarching cosmere timeline is less interesting than you might think. There's not really much interesting overlap in the stories. There's not any overlap at all, really, with a few simple exceptions. Any general timeline that places the books in order will do. Oversleep has a good one here: The only exception, technically, would be the Stormlight Prelude. As far as I know, we don't have enough details to say where it fits relative to other books. I suppose you could argue Dalinar's visions are set in the past, though technically they aren't real and thus they aren't. Not sure if we know enough to say where they fit in the overall cosmere timeline... But even if we do, I'm skeptical there will be any interesting observations at this point. The best cosmere timeline I know of is this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJtJhHwpKdow01n2-bsT3scVvqJd6lZh4uvpNwcslv8/edit#gid=0. But be aware that it makes a lot of assumptions and guesses. Might be a little out of date. It also doesn't reveal much of interest because (again) there's just not a whole lot of relevance in how the timelines fit together at this point. So far as I'ma ware. Probably the most interesting timeline overlap will happen with Stormlight and Mistborn Era 2. We know that Era 2 is set after Stormlight book 5. It's possible that Stormlight book 5 events play into what's happening on Era 2 Scadrial... And in turn, that might tell us something interesting about the later Stormlight books. Maybe. But we just don't know still. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draginon Posted February 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2018 @Jofwu I know there isn't much overlap right now, the only ones currently being Secret History with WOA and HOA, but who knows with the future releases, especially if the 20's version of the Mistborn world gets written so who knows if that'll be overlapping the later Stormlight books. Anyway for a while I thought it'd be very interesting to read the entire Cosmere in order by a chapter by chapter basis so it'd probably involve a bit of book swapping at some point, especially in the Stormlight books for obvious reasons. As for Dalinar's visions I'd just place them when he experiences them since we experience it through his eyes, not the eyes of the person at that point in time, same with any anecdotes of history we learn. Of course this brings to question the epigraphs if we read them when they technically take place or with the chapter, like we read the WOA epigraphs followed by the Final Empire epigraphs then start reading the Kelsier short story of him learning to harness his Mistborn abilities followed by the first book. Seeing as I haven't gotten to the AU yet does something there establish when Silence takes place relative to the other books for that timeline you posted to suggest it's between Warbreaker/Nightblood and Roshar? It's also interesting how so many of these world's existed for ,roughly, the same amount of time and yet Scadrial is more 'advanced' than Roshar is while Sixth is in the space age but is relatively primitive in comparison from what I know of that story. I've mostly been interested since if you take each book as a single chapter of a history book it's going to be fascinating to see how the Cosmere stuff evolved from start to end since we'd have the entire history book instead of having to go 'William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth, Roman Empire, WWII, WWI, Great Depression, Cavemen, Space race' we'd have it in its 'proper' place, as proper as it can considering there's about a dozen known or suspected worlds worth of history. Granted this is still a few decades away from being finished but never to early to get interested in figuring it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jofwu Posted February 5, 2018 Report Share Posted February 5, 2018 Yeah, I'm not saying there's no meaning to the chronology at all. Just that at this time I don't imagine it will be very interesting. Brandon's FAQ says Shadows for Silence is between Warbreaker and TWoK, apparently, and that's probably trustworthy. Nothing in the book to place it relative to others, so far as I can remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draginon Posted February 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2018 12 hours ago, Jofwu said: Yeah, I'm not saying there's no meaning to the chronology at all. Just that at this time I don't imagine it will be very interesting. Brandon's FAQ says Shadows for Silence is between Warbreaker and TWoK, apparently, and that's probably trustworthy. Nothing in the book to place it relative to others, so far as I can remember. Yeah, I'm just looking into the future when it will mean something. Interesting. I've got to check his FAQ out now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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