If you want to write a story set in, say, summer of 1634, it is good to know which stories already in canon are also “running” in the summer of 1634.
We have two resources: Story Time Frames and the Event Timeline. The Time Frames have been updated as of the summer of 2022. The Timeline has not been updated since approximately 2015. The Time Frames show when stories take place while the Timeline shows (mostly) key events, when they happened, and some basic canonization information. The two are complementary.
The Timeline is below the Time Frames, so just keep scrolling to find it.
Story Time Frames
If you want to write a story set in, say, summer of 1634, it is good to know which stories already in canon are also “running” in the summer of 1634.
The Story Time Frames spreadsheets has been maintained by several people including Iver Cooper and attempts to track how the stories making up 1632 Universe canon fit together chronologically. It shows the start and stop dates for each story (at least when that information is provided by the story either explicitly or by internal clues, or when it has been provided by the author post-publication).
The spreadsheet is color coded to provide a graphical representation of the story time frames, with a precision (where possible) of one month. When the series first became more than a single novel, Eric encouraged writers to be vague about time. As it has reached into millions of words with hundreds of authors, that is no longer practical. However, both early stories and long-term authors can have very fuzzy start-dates for stories, making it sometimes difficult to pin down dates for stories.
The start month is usually shown by bright green shading and the end month by red shading, with yellow shading in-between. If the start is less precise than a particular month, it is shown in a pale green; if the stop is less precise, in rose. If the start and stop periods overlap (e.g., the story starts and stops in summer 34), the overlap months are shown in grey.
The spreadsheet also includes, for each story, the author, title, place of publication and, for most gazette stories, the word count. The last may be helpful for would-be authors wondering what story lengths are most likely to be accepted for publication. The present version covers the Grantville Gazette through GG100, Baen Books (through 1637: The Coast of Chaos) and RoFP (through its 41st 1632 series release — Kerryn Offord, I Want to Be Your Hero).
- explicit date slugs in the story
- inferred dates (e.g., if the story is said to begin a month after the death of Quentin Underwood, and we know the date of the latter from a second story, then we can infer when this story began)
- questioning the author (if all else fails, Iver sends an email asking the author to identify the start and stop dates).
Flashbacks are usually ignored.
Because there are so many stories, by so many authors, authors can’t be as vague about story starts and stops as in the good old days. We need you to at least specify a season and definitely need the year. Month and date are perfect, and if you want to specify the exact date, month, and year, that’s good too.
If time frames conflicts with the listed story, the listed story prevails; tell Bethanne, Chuck, or Bjorn and someone will fix the time frames. Cite the basis for the correction. If time frames is merely more specific as to the time of the start or stop than the story is, then time frames is “protocanonical.” The original author can request a change in the listing up until the time some author relies on the info in time frames.
On the “Notes” page of an older version of the workbook, Iver has notes explaining how the dates were arrived at for certain stories.
Credits: The time frames were based initially on the text version created by Virginia DeMarce (draft 7), converted to Excel graphical rep by Iver Cooper with assistance in data conversion from Kerryn Offord and Allen Bryan. Gazette 9 and later by Iver Cooper. Iver also wishes to thank Bjorn Hasseler, Bethanne Kim, Kerryn Offord, John Bogan, David Carrico, Natalie Silk, Jack Carroll, Gorg Huff and Thorsten Engler for assistance in bringing it up-to-date from GG29 to GG100.
Timeframes thru Grantville Gazette Volume 100
Time Frames Version History
There have been multiple versions over the years. Not all are currently available on this site. If you have a copy to upload or need a copy, let us know and we’ll take care of it.
Dec 2017: Untangling the Web: This release mainly covers the overlapping and interconnected events of the Rhine, Main, and Fulda regions from late 1632 to mid-1635. Also included is the completion of incorporating 1634: The Galileo Affair along with selected events from 1635: A Parcel of Rogues, 1635: Music and Murder, 1636: The Devil’s Opera, 1636: The Cardinal Virtues, 1636: Mission to the Mughals, and the newly-released 1636: The Vatican Sanction.
Other notes:
- The Vatican Sanction entry merely notes the existence and time of the colloquy, with no spoilers.
- The provisional ID for ROF Press Bartley’s Man has been changed from “MAN” to “BARTL”.
- Source list extended to Grantville Gazette #74.
July 2017: Note taking for v7 is in progress. Version nickname is “untangling the web”, as it will cover the books involved in the overlapping 1634/35 Franconia/Fulda/Rhine storylines, plus finishing up 1634: The Galileo Affair, which also connects to those stories via 1635: The Dreeson Incident. (The first 8 chapters of Galileo Affair, which take place in 1633, were incorporated earlier so that the scenes of Harry Lefferts and Giulio Mazarini in Paris could be included prior to the release of 1636: The Cardinal Virtues.)
Currently planned to be incorporated in v7:
- 1634: The Galileo Affair
- 1635: The Tangled Web
- 1635: The Wars for the Rhine
- 1635: The Dreeson Incident
May 2017: As the first mainline novel released since the current Event Timeline project began, 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught moved right to the top of the “to do” list, and has been incorporated. Related stories were also incorporated: those involving airships and the 1st Marine Recon company. Partially incorporated: “The Things We Do for Love” (GG46- Roesch-02) and additional airship-related events from Kremlin Games and Seas of Fortune. 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught; “Four Days on the Danube” (RF03-Flint-20); “Upward Mobility” (RF03-Gannon-19); “Sailing Upwind” (GG6P-Evans-06); “The Bloody Baroness of Bornholm” (GG18-Offord-5); “The Vice President’s Plane is Down” (GG26-Offord-04); “Modern Medicine” (GG36-Offord-01); “Wings of Chance” (GG41-Offord-02); No Ship for Tranquebar (ROF Press)
Nov 2016: In anticipation of the publishing of 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught, stories involving or related to Austria are incorporated. Source List revamped to cover whole series to date. 1636: The Viennese Waltz; “The Austro-Hungarian Connection” (RF02-Flint-15); “Sunday Driver” (GG6P-Runkle-22); “Turn Turn Turn” (GG6P-DeMarce-23)
Jun 2016: Finished incorporating all non-superseded fiction from Ring of Fire I (anthology) and Grantville Gazettes 1, 2, and 3 (Print editions). [Superseded stories that have been republished in later forms (e.g., incorporated into a novel like 1636: The Barbie Consortium ) are handled as part of those later works.] Also included are a handful of technical infrastructure stories (founding of Kudzu Werke and some of their spin-offs). All RF1, GG1P, GG2P, and GG3P stories not included previously, plus “One Man’s Junk” (GG4P-Bergstralh-03); “An Electrifying Experience” (GG7P-Carroll-09); “Of Masters and Men” (GG05-Bergstralh-06); “Rolling On” (GG08-Bergstralh-11) v5a
December 2015: Incorporated 1634: Bavarian Crisis, “The Rudolstadt Coloquy,” “The Wallenstein Gambit,” and several related and other stories. Partially incorporated: 1634: The Galileo Affair (chapters 1-8, i.e., those set in 1633).
June 2015: Moved 1629 and 1630 events to “Before the ROF” page to keep the ROF event on (or as close to as possible) the opening page. Fixed typos in the name of the Crown Loyalist party, and various other small edits. Partially incorporated: “The Monster” (GG12-Huff-03). Fully incorporated: 1636: The Barbie Consortium; The Danish Scheme (ROF Press); The Essen Steel Chronicles (ROF Press); “A Trip to Amsterdam” (RF02-Huff-06); “A Cardinal Relief” (GG7P-Flint-25); “The Class of ’34” (GG04-Offord-06); “Land of Ice and Sun” (GG11-Mackey-04); “Plugging Along” (GG13-Offord-13); “The Spark of Inspiration” (GG13-Huff-14).
December 2014: Incorporated Ram Rebellion; changed the citation style to be more in synch with the established format used in the Timeframes list; added cover, guide, and version history pages; added jump links on cover page to (hopefully) improve navigation and reduce excessive scrolling. [Fully incorporated: 1634: The Ram Rebellion]
September 2014: The initial release incorporates events from the “main line” novels plus selected major events from other novels and anthologies in the overall series, and currently only a few events from the Grantville Gazette. [fully incorporated: 1632, 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, 1635: The Eastern Front, 1636: The Saxon Uprising]
1632 Series Event Timeline
Note: This is obviously a large project, and just one of many within the 1632 Universe. The timeline has not been maintained and updated since approximately 2015. If anyone wants to take it on, let us know. Other people will probably pitch in and help as they did when Iver updated the Time Frames document. Even if it isn’t updated further, it’s still a good resource for the years it covers.
“Vague is good” most times,
though it still needs a certain choreography
The 1632 Series Event Timeline is maintained by John Bogan. Its goal is to list the times and places of events occurring across the 1632 universe in all the novels, anthologies and e-magazine stories. In much the same way that The Grid tracks people, the Timeline tracks some of the individual events, particularly critical ones. (Early on it was more thorough, then the 1632verse started getting big.) The goal is not to obsessively place a date on every event (though there is a bit of that here and there, especially early on), but rather to give writers a better “ballpark” view of what has and has not occurred in the time and place of their potential stories.
It is “finer-grained” than Iver’s Story Time Frames as a single story may be broken into multiple events. But since all the compiled events are sorted in chronological order, the events making up a single story that covers a long period may be widely separated. It is also less thorough than the Time Frames in that not all stories have enough impact on the 1632verse to be included in the Timeline. Hence, the two time lines complement each other.
The Timeline is an ongoing project, and will be updated periodically:
December 2015: Incorporated 1634: Bavarian Crisis, “The Rudolstadt Coloquy,” “The Wallenstein Gambit,” and several related and other stories. Partially incorporated: 1634: The Galileo Affair (chapters 1-8, i.e., those set in 1633).
June 2015: Moved 1629 and 1630 events to “Before the ROF” page to keep the ROF event on (or as close to as possible) the opening page. Fixed typos in the name of the Crown Loyalist party, and various other small edits. Partially incorporated: “The Monster” (GG12-Huff-03). Fully incorporated: 1636: The Barbie Consortium; The Danish Scheme (ROF Press); The Essen Steel Chronicles (ROF Press); “A Trip to Amsterdam” (RF02-Huff-06); “A Cardinal Relief” (GG7P-Flint-25); “The Class of ’34” (GG04-Offord-06); “Land of Ice and Sun” (GG11-Mackey-04); “Plugging Along” (GG13-Offord-13); “The Spark of Inspiration” (GG13-Huff-14).
December 2014: Incorporated Ram Rebellion; changed the citation style to be more in synch with the established format used in the Timeframes list; added cover, guide, and version history pages; added jump links on cover page to (hopefully) improve navigation and reduce excessive scrolling. [Fully incorporated: 1634: The Ram Rebellion]
September 2014: The initial release incorporates events from the “main line” novels plus selected major events from other novels and anthologies in the overall series, and currently only a few events from the Grantville Gazette. [fully incorporated: 1632, 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, 1635: The Eastern Front, 1636: The Saxon Uprising]
Credits: compiled by John Bogan