Kevin's Watch

I was wondering . . . Okay, SRD said in an interview or some such that he began writing LFB in the early 70s and had the entire First Chronicles done within four years. I think it was 76 or something when he published them all. So, I'm wondering: did SRD set TC's "real world" in the early 70s--when he wrote it--or is it meant to be seen as the late 70s, when it was all published? I mean, we've got TC's age at the First Chronicles: 30. If only we knew the year SRD had Covenant's world set in . . . Ah, and I'm pretty sure it's our world that he's in. I mean, it has a moron trucker in it, heh . . .

It seems that SRD purposefully made it "timeless" - so it could happen in any time. There's no real technology mentioned, no brand names (of vehicles, etc). Even the medical terminology could be anything from about the 1950s on.

It had never occured before, but the outside-of-The-Land chapters are completely timeless, as near as I can tell. I think I'd just assumed that it all happened in the late 80's, ten years after publication of course. Impressive writing.

I would agree that SRD made it timeless on purpose -- and did a very good job of it.

Well I thought they did have different medical stuff or something in the hospital--like, 70s or 80s technology. Oh well, heh . . . I mean, we go a century or a few centuries into the future, and readers will be able to tell it's in a different time--in the past. Who knows, eh?

Well, all of the mdeical stuff has changed...if you check the CDC website, they now think leprosy speads via the air (ie breathing) and they have very effective medicine for it now...

Just a thought, but were we told where abouts the town was?
I can't remember and my copies are in boxes at another house. One of the disadvantages of having no fixed abode.
I thought it had the feeling of a dead-end town in one of the middle states, but I couldn't say where with any degree of accuracy.

No, he never does...though we have talked about it at great length...

Navarino said:

I thought it had the feeling of a dead-end town in one of the middle states

Yes, after endless speculation that's about the same conclusion we all came 2! Tho I kept maintaining the it was a little closer to Texas because armadillos r kno to carry the virus and the last few cases in the US were traced to that area..also it's proximity to Lousiana and the leprosarium...

duchess:

I would agree that SRD made it timeless on purpose -- and did a very good job of it.

I seem to recall that Covenant actually wrote his books on a typewriter,
and he burned his manuscripts after he was diagnosed with leprosy ...
I would be surprised that someone who had such a successful first novel
wouldn't have had a word processor or even a PC, so I see the first
Chronicles as having taken place in the late 1970s....

Maybe we should all be thankful that SRD didn't decide that Covenant
would sport a white gold chain necklace!

As for the Second Chronicles, I'd think that Linden would have had a
cell phone or a beeper if SRD wrote it today...

I think they are pretty much timeless (as much as possible) As Kaos Arcana, just pointed out, the lack of some things will always indicate it was before such and such a time because, yes Linden should have had some sorta Beeper or Cell Phone or something. Regarding writing on typewriter, I don't think that's an indication, because I remember hearing of a famous author (JMS or Stephen King, someone big) even today, who refuses to write scripts or books or what have you on a computer and still uses a rickety typewriter.

Ignoring things like that though, I read them in the early to mid 90s, without realizing how long ago they had been published and I was perfectly comfortable seeing it as being set in the world of that time.