History Analysis / ReflectionsOfEterna

!!A case study in ExponentialPlotDelay
''Red on Red'' covered just over a year of the main characters' lives in a single 500-something page volume. ''From War Till War'' covered half a year on the same page count. ''Face of Victory'' covered just over six months[[note]]note that Kertiana's year consists of [[ArcNumber sixteen months, each 24 days long]][[/note]] but was about 25% thicker than both previous books. ''Winter Break'' (a.k.a. ''From the Depths'') was where this trope really picked up steam: despite being longer than ''[=RoR=]'' and ''FWTW'' (but still shorter than ''[=FoV=]''), it barely covered one and a half months, chronologically.[[note]]Coincidentally, ''WB''/''[=FtD=]'' was the first book Kamsha wrote after publishing ''Literature/CrataegusSanguinea'', which she [[http://forum.kamsha.ru/index.php?topic=20.msg38946#msg38946 considers]] a standalone finale to (the original AbortedArc of) ''Literature/ArciaChronicles'', allowing her to [[OrphanedSeries move on from her first series]] and to work on ''Eterna'' full-time.[[/note]] ''Poison of the Past'' was almost twice the size of ''[=RoR=]'' (in fact, it was the first to get DividedForPublication), but chronologically shorter than ''WB'' by a couple of days. ''Lies of Mirrors, Truth of Steel'' bucked the trend a little by covering almost three months in the same page count as ''[=RoR=]'', followed by ''Orb of Fates'', which was the shortest book to date, but also barely covered a single month. ''Sunset'' was about the size of ''[=FoV=]'', but covered just shy of 2.5 months, while ''Midnight'' was equivalent to ''WB'' in terms of size and coverage. Finally, there is ''Sunrise'', a book so gargantuan, not even five ''FWTW''-sized volumes could contain it, despite covering (so far) only just over six in-universe months[[note]]or even ''five'', if you consider that it opens with a month-long sequence from Carlo Capras' POV, which should have been in ''Midnight'', chronologically, but was cut out due to size constraints[[/note]]. Of particular note is the fifth sub-sub-volume of ''Sunrise'', which covers ''seven days'' in the volume of ''Red on Red''.

If you consider only the originally planned books in terms of ''Red on Red''[='=]s size and chronological scope, we have:

# ''Red on Red'' (reference: 100% size, 100% coverage, relative size/coverage density: 1.00)
# ''From War Till War'' = 106% size, 52% coverage (rel. density: 2.06)
# ''Face of Victory'' = 138% size, 38% coverage (rel. density: 3.60)
# ''Winter Break'' = 294% size, 18% coverage (rel. density: 16.26)
# ''Heart of the Beast'' (so far) = 964% size,[[note]]one and a half times the size of the other four combined[[/note]] 81% coverage (rel. density: 12.49), of which:
## ''Lies, Truth'' and ''Orb'' together = 188% size, 24% coverage (rel. density: 8.06)
## ''Blue Gaze of Death'' alone = 775% size, 55% coverage (rel. density: 14.42), of which:
### ''Sunset'' and ''Midnight'' together = 242% size, 24% coverage (rel. density: 10.23)
### ''Sunrise'' (so far) = 534% size, 30% coverage (rel. density: 17.71)

For a more graphical representation of the phenomenon, see [[https://www.koveras.net/files/tvtropes/eterna_chronology_vs_pagecount.pdf this PDF]].
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# ''Heart of the Beast'' (so far) = 964% size,[[note]]one and a half the size of the other four combined[[/note]] 81% coverage (rel. density: 12.49), of which:

''Red on Red'' covered just over a year of the main characters' lives in a single 500-something page volume. ''From War Till War'' covered half a year on the same page count. ''Face of Victory'' covered just over six months[[note]]note that Kertiana's year consists of [[ArcNumber sixteen months, each 24 days long]][[/note]] but was about 25% thicker than both previous books. ''Winter Break'' (a.k.a. ''From the Depths'') was where this trope really picked up steam: despite being longer than ''[=RoR=]'' and ''FWTW'' (but still shorter than ''[=FoV=]''), it barely covered one and a half months, chronologically.[[note]]Coincidentally, ''WB''/''[=FtD=]'' was the first book Kamsha wrote after publishing ''Literature/CrataegusSanguinea'', which she [[http://forum.kamsha.ru/index.php?topic=20.msg38946#msg38946 considers]] a standalone finale to (the original AbortedArc of) ''Literature/ArciaChronicles'', allowing her to [[OrphanedSeries move on from her first series]] and to work on ''Eterna'' full-time.[[/note]] ''Poison of the Past'' was almost twice the size of ''[=RoR=]'' (in fact, it was the first to get DividedForPublication), but chronologically shorter than ''WB'' by a couple of days. ''Lies of Mirrors, Truth of Steel'' bucked the trend a little by covering almost three months in the same page count as ''[=RoR=]'', followed by ''Orb of Fates'', which was the shortest book to date, but also barely covered a single month. ''Sunset'' was about the size of ''[=FoV=]'', but covered just shy of 2.5 months, while ''Midnight'' was equivalent to ''WB'' in terms of size and coverage. Finally, there is ''Sunset'', a book so gargantuan, not even five ''FWTW''-sized volumes could contain it, despite covering (so far) only just over six in-universe months[[note]]or even ''five'', if you consider that it opens with a month-long sequence from Carlo Capras' POV, which should have been in ''Midnight'', chronologically, but was cut out due to size constraints[[/note]]. Of particular note is the fifth sub-sub-volume of ''Sunrise'', which covers ''seven days'' in the volume of ''Red on Red''.

# ''Red on Red'' (reference: 100% size, 100% coverage)
# ''From War Till War'' = 106% size, 52% coverage
# ''Face of Victory'' = 138% size, 38% coverage
# ''Winter Break'' = 294% size, 18% coverage
# ''Heart of the Beast'' (so far) = 964% size,[[note]]one and a half the size of the other four combined[[/note]] 81% coverage, of which:
## ''Lies, Truth'' and ''Orb'' together = 188% size, 24% coverage
## ''Blue Gaze of Death'' alone = 775% size, 55% coverage, of which:
### ''Sunset'' and ''Midnight'' together = 242% size, 24% coverage
### ''Sunrise'' = 534% size, 30% coverage (so far)

''Red on Red'' covered just over a year of the main characters' lives in a single 500-something page volume. ''From War Till War'' covered half a year on the same page count. ''Face of Victory'' covered just over six months[[note]]note that Kertiana's year consists of [[ArcNumber sixteen months, each 24 days long]][[/note]] but was about 25% thicker than both previous books. ''Winter Break'' (a.k.a. ''From the Depths'') was where this trope really picked up steam: despite being longer than ''[=RoR=]'' and ''FWTW'' (but still shorter than ''[=FoV=]''), it barely covered one and a half months, chronologically.[[note]]Coincidentally, ''WB''/''[=FtD=]'' was the first book Kamsha wrote after publishing ''Literature/CrataegusSanguinea'', which she [[http://forum.kamsha.ru/index.php?topic=20.msg38946#msg38946 considers]] a standalone finale to (the original AbortedArc of) ''Literature/ArciaChronicles'', allowing her to [[OrphanedSeries move on from her first series]] and to work on ''Eterna'' full-time.[[/note]] ''Poison of the Past'' was almost twice the size of ''[=RoR=]'' (in fact, it was the first to get DividedForPublication), but chronologically shorter than ''WB'' by a couple of days. ''Lies of Mirrors, Truth of Steel'' bucked the trend a little by covering almost three month in the same page count as ''[=RoR=]'', followed by ''Orb of Fates'', which was the shortest book to date, but also barely covered a single month. ''Sunset'' was about the size of ''[=FoV=]'', but covered just shy of 2.5 months, while ''Midnight'' was equivalent to ''WB'' in terms of size and coverage. Finally, there is ''Sunset'', a book so gargantuan, not even five ''FWTW''-sized volumes could contain it, despite covering (so far) only just over six in-universe months[[note]]or even ''five'', if you consider that it opens with a month-long sequence from Carlo Capras' POV, which should have been in ''Midnight'', chronologically, but was cut out due to size constraints[[/note]]. Of particular note is the fifth sub-sub-volume of ''Sunrise'', which covers ''seven days'' in the volume of ''Red on Red''.

''Red on Red'' covered just over a year of the main characters' lives in a single 500-something page volume. ''From War Till War'' covered half a year on the same page count. ''Face of Victory'' covered just over six months[[note]]note that Kertiana's year consists of [[ArcNumber sixteen months, each 24 days long]][[/note]] but was about 25% thicker than both previous books. ''Winter Break'' (a.k.a. ''From the Depths'') was where this trope really picked up steam: despite being longer than ''[=RoR=]'' and ''FWTW'' (but still shorter than ''[=FoV=]''), it barely covered one and a half months, chronologically.[[note]]Coincidentally, ''WB''/''[=FtD=]'' was the first book Kamsha wrote after publishing ''Literature/CrataegusSanguinea'', which she [[http://forum.kamsha.ru/index.php?topic=20.msg38946#msg38946 considers]] a standalone finale to (the original AbortedArc of) ''Literature/ArciaChronicles'', allowing her to [[OrphanedSeries move on from her first series]] and to work on ''Eterna'' full-time.[[/note]] ''Poison of the Past'' was almost twice the size of ''[=RoR=]'' (in fact, it was the first to get DividedForPublication), but chronologically shorter than ''WB'' by a couple of days. ''Lies of Mirrors, Truth of Steel'' bucked the trend a little by covering almost three month in the same page count as ''[=RoR=]'', followed by ''Orb of Fates'', which was the shortest book to date, but also barely covered a single month. ''Sunset'' was about the size of ''[=FoV=]'', but covered just shy of 2.5 months, while ''Midnight'' was equivalent to ''WB'' in terms of size and coverage. Finally, there is ''Sunset'', a book so gargantuan, not even five ''FWTW''-sized volumes could contain it, despite covering (so far) only just over six in-universe months[[note]]or even ''five'', if you consider that it opens with a month-long sequence from Carlo Capras' POV, which should have been in ''Midnight'', chonologically, but was cut out due to size constraints[[/note]].