Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Polity Books

I just got an email from someone who was reading Hilldiggers and wanted to know which books precede it. I often get asked about which book fits where so here, so I can copy a link rather than type out the list each time, is the chronology and order of the books in each series:

Prador Moon


The Shadow of the Scorpion (young Cormac)


The Cormac Series:

1) Gridlinked

2) The Line of Polity

3) Brass Man

4) Polity Agent

5) Line War


The Spatterjay Series:

1) The Skinner

2) The Voyage of the Sable Keech

3) Orbus

Hilldiggers

The Gabble -- a collection of short stories set throughout the above chronology.

And here's where they all fit in the dateline:


2050 – 2250 Expansion into the solar system. Corporate wars and many generation ships, or early U-space drive ships sent on their way. Also the AI takeover of human affairs, in the ‘Quiet War’. Colony ship to Cull in this time.2130 – Hoop and crew arrive on Spatterjay (mutiny – stolen ship)
2150 – Establishing of Golem series and Cybercorp.
2151 – Algin Tenkian born on Mars.
2190 – Skaidon interfaces with AI and invents the technology leading to the runcible and more efficient U-space engines. Humanity expands into the galaxy.
2260 – First runcible goes online.
2260 – 2350 Massive human expansion into the galaxy.
2348 – Beginning of the Prador Third Kingdom
2339 – Ian Cormac born
2310 – Prador Moon
2310 – 2350 Prador/Human war (Prador Moon)
2350 – Polity police action on Spatterjay.
2356 – Keech is killed hunting Alphed Rimsc
2407 – Disappearance of Dragon from Aster Colora.
2432 – Destruction of the Samarkand runcible.
2434 – Arrival of Hubris at Samarkand (Gridlinked)
2437 – Destruction of Outlink station Miranda (The Line of Polity)
2441 – Pursuit of Skellor (Brass Man)
2443 – Tracing the cource of Jain nodes (Polity Agent)
2444 – Attack of melded entity Erebus (Line War)
2450 – Gosk Balem (Ambel) thrown into the sea – 100 years after war.
2500 – David McGrooger born
2550 – Keech finds Corbel Frane on Viridian – 500 years before
2803 – Polity arrives at Spatterjay to establish runcible base
2853 – Frisk hands herself in (apparently). – 200 years before
2878 – Bloc murdered by Aesop and Bones
3056 – Keech Janer and Erlin arrive on Spatterjay (The Skinner)
3078 – Taylor Bloc’s ship launches (The Voyage of the Sable Keech)
3079 – Orbus sets out (Orbus)
3230 – McCrooger arrives at Bromal and Sudoria (Hilldiggers)


Hope this helps!

13 comments:

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

my next tattoo (this and the grocery list) discovered in this thread.

Neal Asher said...

Uh, tattoo?

Bob Lock said...

Bah... tattoos are old hat, I'm going to carve that list into my chest...

Unknown said...

funny, I always tought, that The Skinner was placed before Cormack series in the timeline :-)
Quite surprise for me.... :-)

Unknown said...

So Cormac is nearly 1000 years old by the time of Hilldiggers.

Is he still on the go?

Model Technics said...

interesting! i thought the skinner/spatterjay books were before/concurrent with line war/cormac series.... although given what you told me in the pub, perhaps i shouldn't be so.

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

face tattoo aka the don't you dare forget this list.

mutual friend had to tattoo his name backwards on his face because of his cerebral hemmorage/forgetfulness.looks in the mirror and reboots bicameral mind.

Unknown said...

to Paul:
Since Cormac was almost superman in the Brassman (last book I read from Polity series), I would bet that he is still on the go... :-)

Unknown said...

Kocourek... wait till you read Line War ;-)

Unknown said...

Paul: well, I have to wait for the czech translation :-(.
I got used to it and now I don't want to start reading in English, in the middle of the storyline :-)

Unknown said...

Any plans to release more books on the Kindle? I've read both Gridlinked and the Skinner and now I am hooked - but I loathe the idea of having to turn an actually page!

Blue Tyson said...

Very good. Did you ever slot the various short stories in chronologically, too?

Thanks,

bt

Neal Asher said...

I haven't as yet, well not in the actual chronology here, but some are finding their places. For example, Alien Archaeology plays its part in The Technician, since Penny Royaol is one of the characters.