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shumcal said: Right, throwing my useless opinion into the ring. I think any sort of numbering system, while intrinsically preferable, is simply unsustainable in the long term, leading to ridiculous numerical monikers.

I gave it quite some thought, but like you, the only alternative that I could see was using the dates. To address the very real problem of stories taking place concurrently, I do think that the simplest answer is a range. It would be quite easy to put something like the following at the bottom of each cover/spine:

2683/11/27 22:30
-
2683/2/14 14:25

or just:


2683/11/27
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2683/2/14

if you decide that hours are redundant, as it is visually preferable. This has a number of advantages, in that it is, as you said, infinitely expandable, and you will never have awkward problems about introducing a new era or series. It also becomes readily apparent which order stories should likely be read in, even if stories are overlapping or contained within another's timeline.

Finally, a small detail; you should put a complete (to-date) timeline of all novels/novellas/anything in the first few pages. Despite never being fully comprehensive, it is an invaluable resource, and one that I greatly appreciated having in other series.

Well, that's my two cents.