Fictional Timeline Obsession

It all started with the movie and novelization of the new Star Wars episode in 1999, Star Wars, Episode I - The Phantom Menace. I decided that in order to truly prepare for a series of movies and tie-in media relating the story of the Old Republic and the Clone Wars, I should really gather together all of my comics and novels which took place prior to the new movies. Doing this required using the internet to search for a comprehensive Star Wars timeline.

Well, of course. How else is a Star Wars fanatic supposed to read the series in order? Star Wars books and comics don't come numbered like Hardy Boys books (Say, how many Hardy Boys books are there? What is the actual continuity of the Hardy Boys Adventures? This is coming from the kid who at one time in sixth grade worried about the chronological order of He-Man and Scooby-Doo cartoons.) Negotiate years of conflicting Star Wars continuity, or lack of continuity altogether? Fit 12 episode story arcs in the comics into timelines apparently non-existant according to the novels and video game tie-ins.

Of course there were Star Wars timelines on the internet by 1999, but none with the universality I had been hoping for. The most authoritative timelines over the years have been exclusive- a timeline just for novels, a timeline just for Dark Horse comics, or general timelines which didn't include specific books or comics.

Naturally I started my own. There is something wrong with me.

I have never posted it online or even shared it until recently. I have compiled it and used it strictly for the purpose of gathering new published materials up over time and then sitting down to a good series of stories- in correct chronological order.

A few years later I happened to be reading the Foundation series, and really became fascinated with the idea of stories set over a massive span of time in the future. I imagined Star Wars at the start of a massive fictional timeline with Foundation and Dune at the other. Every other piece of fiction fell in the middle. Wow.

Now I had stepped into the territory of crossover fiction. If you don't know about this slice of the fanboy universe (a great (an mostly unknown)example is the Wold Newton family, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wold_Newton_family) it is simply the idea of famous fictional characters meeting each other. Or put differently: all fictional characters live in the same fictional world.

This obviously is a stupid concept from the get-go. Many stories are alternate universes, where the nazis won WWII, for example. The earth was destroyed in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what does that do the everyone else?

What about time travel? Do I read Doctor Who stories in the order they happened to him, or do I read Doctor Who The Highlanders in a 1746 timeline? Tough decisions!
Obviously I became obsessed. And clearly I've proved my driving force in the geekdom of the QoG blog.

So since, I don't know, around 2003 I have been working on the master timeline. This has grown into multiple files, spreadsheets, web links, and a general mental illness. I started with Star Wars, have worked my way up through pre-history, every era of mankind, and am now in the early sixties. I won't share my timelines in this blog. Among other reasons it is sloppy, the selected materials are totally subjective with regards to what I want to read and have available, and I've made spotty attempts to actually track information about the authors, dates and eras of some of the books.

I will share my book reviews, though! My closer friends know that I have used several Facebook apps to track the books I read and write thumbnail reviews. I will use this blog to slowly go through and expand on what I've read and written about. I will also detail the timeline aspect (if any) and how it does or doesn't tie in with other literature (or pulp crap) I'm reading. I will also include other stuff I've been reading, including non-fiction and modern writing (tho most of it will still be wedged in timeline wise). I read a lot, and as I've weaned myself off televion recently due to personal circumstances, I read even more.

Now that I've explained myself, we will be starting later this week with the first book I published a review on. It takes place in 1868, and the nationality of the story's mysterious antihero is never revealed....