Do currently-active sf writers give Gregorian calendar dates for when their stories occur?

[Extollager]

Those of you who read brand-new sf -- I wondered if you find that writers give dates for when their stories are happening, according to the Gregorian calendar in use in most of the world? My almost worthless impression is that sf authors used to do that not rarely, but almost never do now. I can understand how, if someone is writing a far-future story, with interstellar empires and so on, one would use some concocted thing such as "240 earth-years after the foundation of the Arglebargle Imperium," etc. But what about stories set on Earth, perhaps in the near future? Let's restrict the inquiry to work published up to 15 years ago, no more.

 

[Dave]

Not that I've come across, but someone else might know better.

I think that they usually leave dates very vague, even if it is the near-future. If there has been some apocalypse then their calendar might begin sometime after that, but you would still need to know the starting date to calculate what that means. With FTL space travel, the Earth-date might be quite different to the ship-time they have experienced anyway. I'm not sure anyone writing historical novels gives dates either, as the story is usually more about certain events than dates.

"Brand-new-sf" - I've not read any new Hard SF in a while. The last book I read was Red Side Story which is post-apocalyptic and set in Munsell's year of 00496 (I think). Some of the characters tried to work out how that compared with the Gregorian calendar (used by people they call the Previous) and one of them is 400 years-old and can remember 5 visits of 1P/Halley, but even then they can only be approximate.

Books that do give dates will quickly get dated. Even putting men on Mars or Titan or having generational ships will date very soon. Interestingly though, film and TV shows don't seem to have the same qualms. Star Trek being a prime example with the Eugenic Wars of the 1990's and the Bell Riots of 2023 amongst others.

 

[KGeo777]

Star Trek being a prime example with the Eugenic Wars of the 1990's and the Bell Riots of 2023 amongst others.

The Bell Riots happened in 2024 but it is an honest mistake.

 

[Swank]

Timeline

Note: This page is protected from editing. The timeline has been retrieved from the official website of Alastair Reynolds, where it was published with a preface allowing it to be distributed but not amended. This preface and the timeline itself is repeated verbatim below. Note that article links...

revelationspace.fandom.com

 

[RDArmstrong]

I haven't noticed it or the books I'm reading don't use it.

 

[Dave]

There is also a "Timeline" given in Larry Niven's Tales of Known Space collection, cobbled together later to try to make all the stories make sense, but those dates used there don't appear within the narratives of the original short stories or novels. (That's also more than the 15-years limit that you gave.)

 

[Extollager]

Right -- and Heinlein had his timeline and so on, all according to the Gregorian calendar. But my sense is that current sf writers don't do that. For one thing -- maybe -- they might not be as interested as some of the earlier writers in actually working out scenarios of the near-to-far future.

 

[Swank]

Right -- and Heinlein had his timeline and so on, all according to the Gregorian calendar. But my sense is that current sf writers don't do that. For one thing -- maybe -- they might not be as interested as some of the earlier writers in actually working out scenarios of the near-to-far future.

Does Reynolds not count? He uses dates in his books, not just on the website.


But I do think that everyone has observed that the future never seems to arrive and are leary of predicting what it will be like in 30 years when the book is still in print but flying cars still aren't a thing. 2001, Blade Runner (2019), etc, etc.

Gibson was avoiding hard dates in the early '80s, and that seems smart.

 

[Parson]

As an avid reader of recent SF, I can say that in my reading of SF the Gregorian dating system is a bit more than rarely used, but it is not the most commonly used dating system by a long shot. I've been reading SF for 60+ year and my impression is that it was much more common back when. In fact I would say that rather than dating at all, I find the most common method is to say nothing about dates other than something like 'ten years after Emperor _____ came to power the _____ attacked .....'

Even in (and probably especially in) near future SF dates are often a negative feature very quickly in a books life. However, it seems to me that the little technological things (cell phones, self-driving cars, etc.) are what date the writing faster than anything.

 

[Extollager]

Does Reynolds not count? He uses dates in his books, not just on the website.

I "liked" your item about his work.

 

[Swank]

I "liked" your item about his work.

Yeah, I just didn't know if you didn't consider him current enough - considering your comment.