# What's the longest and shortest time period covered by a (fictional) book you've read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 22, 2009, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295 "2009-08-22T07:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/21 "2009-08-22T14:45:18Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > The short story _Incident at owl Creek Bridge_ takes place in the time it takes a body to drop from the bridge to the end of the rope. He’s not bungee jumping, either. Exactly the story I thought of when I saw the title. Of course it is a short story not a book, but I think it might qualify. Hedging it a bit, I remember an Asimov short story (that he wrote as an exercise in writing a story in second person) that begins with the main character being confronted by his-time-traveler-self beginning to talk to him and then after many actions and activities, the story ends at the same moment. I can’t remember the title though. For longest (that I have read) I would put forth _Hawaii_, and _Centennial_ by Michener. It starts with the actual forming of the land and takes us up to modern day. On a more biblical level Michener’s _Source_ takes one from the earliest book in the bible and brings us to modern day. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/22 "2009-08-22T14:51:27Z")
Not that I’d tarnish my eyeballs with the book, but doesn’t Battlefield Earth span 3,000 years or so? The movie only covers half the book, and the movie itself feels like it takes at least 1500 years to watch. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/23 "2009-08-22T15:20:27Z")
Not a novel, but a short story: Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question” begins in ~2150 AD and covers several hundred trillion years until the universe’s eventual heat death. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/24 "2009-08-22T15:35:11Z")
Aw, man, Apidistra got it first! Teaches me to skim threads, it will. I still think that the entire lifetime of the universe is about as long a time frame as you’re going to get. The entire beginning of the universe until now is just a tiny, swift second compared to the vast swaths of time ahead of us. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/25 "2009-08-22T15:45:44Z")
Already beaten, but worth honorable mention: **Ulysses** , by James Joyce, famously describes one day in the life of protagonist Steven Dedalus, including his stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Irving Wallace wrote a book titled **The Seven Minutes**. It is about the trial for obscenity/pornography of the author of a fictional book, also entitled **The Seven Minutes** , which purports to be the thoughts of a woman during seven minutes of sexual intercourse. ---
**Author:** ![YWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/6f9a4e/32.png) [@YWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWalker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/26 "2009-08-22T15:54:04Z")
Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love includes the main character recounting memories from his life that begin in early 20th century America to several centuries later. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/27 "2009-08-22T15:54:21Z")
Obvious joke: They wrote a similar story about me, but it was called Seven Seconds. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/28 "2009-08-22T16:04:18Z")
> [@YWalker](#): > > Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love includes the main character recounting memories from his life that begin in early 20th century America to several centuries later. Not centuries, millenia. Or milleniums. Or whatever, spell check just won’t let me pluralize that word. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Lazarus Long was over 4000 years old by the time he went back to WWI in that book. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/29 "2009-08-22T16:12:32Z")
I was going to nominate “The Last Question”, too. And while it’s not itself a complete book, it has been published in many anthologies, so any of those anthologies could be considered to be spanning the entire time frame. If one wanted to really nail it home, one could try to find an anthology that includes both “The Last Question” and some far-prehistoric book. There’s an Asimov anthology titled “The Far Ends of Time and Space”, but I’m having a hard time finding what’s in it. I don’t think we can count short stories for the “shortest” one, though, unless there exists an anthology where all of the stories take place in the same very short span. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/30 "2009-08-22T16:14:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Anyway, I’m pretty sure Lazarus Long was over 4000 years old by the time he went back to WWI in that book. Roughly 2000, IIRC. He was roughly 1000 at the time of the Tale of the Adopted Daughter, and then roughly 2000 at the time of the framing story where he’s recounting all of the other stories. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/31 "2009-08-22T16:34:16Z")
_The Years of Rice and Salt_ follows reincarnated souls for about least a millenium, probably more - I forget, exactly. It’s in vignettes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/32 "2009-08-22T16:48:48Z")
I believe Frederick Pohl’s ‘World at the End of Time’ spans a rough soon future to a time when only two or three barely energetic stars are still in existence. That may not quite be heat death but it’s close. And it is a full book, not a short story. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/33 "2009-08-22T16:58:54Z")
For Love of Evil by Piers Anthony (from the Incarnations of Immortality series) starts in around 1200 and runs through present day. Bearing an Hourglass from the same series has the main character, the embodiment of time, travel to the furthest possible past and the furthest possible future, but I don’t think that really counts. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/34 "2009-08-22T17:16:28Z")
If we’'re adding short stories, I’d think _An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge_ has to be a candidate for shortest time span. ---
**Author:** ![regginbrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@regginbrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regginbrow)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/35 "2009-08-22T18:15:53Z")
> [@Ichbin\_Dubist](#): > > Joyce’s _Ulysses_ is 650 pages or so, and the action takes place in slightly under 24 hours. About 18 hours, actually. _Seek My Face_ by John Updike takes place over about half a day or so, IIRC. There is a lot of flashbacking, however. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/36 "2009-08-22T18:52:42Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If we’'re adding short stories, I’d think _An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge_ has to be a candidate for shortest time span. **Sam** , You don’t often make this error. It’s been mentioned twice already. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/37 "2009-08-22T19:05:39Z")
Hey, in literature class in high school we read a story about a guy who was being hung from a bridge, and he escaped and swam to safety and got lucky with a chick or something, but it turned out it was all a fleeting fantasy in his head taking place during the half-second it took for him to teach the end of the rope. I nominate that one. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/38 "2009-08-22T19:38:09Z")
Wait, doesn’t owl creek bridge feature a flashback to how he got captured, that wasn’t part of the rope-break fantasy? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/39 "2009-08-22T22:13:44Z")
Semi-cheating: The Tom Clancy novel \*The Sum of All Fears \* wrote an entire chapter about the microseconds of an atomic bomb going off at the Super Bowl. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295/40 "2009-08-23T01:36:09Z")
\*Ulysses \*has been mentioned as a book that, despite its length, covers only one day. That’s the first one I thought of. As to the longest period of time, Edward Rutherfurd’s books generally run for a couple of thousand years. He writes historical novels centered around a location, rather than a particular event or character. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-and-shortest-time-period-covered-by-a-fictional-book-youve-read/507295.md?page=3)