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Hi, and thanks for signing up for my Super-Fan emails.

I’ve got a lot of “worldbuilding” details written down for The Magic Eaters Trilogy, but many of those details never make it into the books. I’m excited to share some of them with you in these emails!

Have you wondered why Anyarians use Sunday, Monday, etc. as days of the week, but they have different names for their months? Today, I’ll explain time on Anyari.

First, a note about why Anyari was chosen as a colony planet: it’s very similar to Earth. The climate is similar; the moon is a similar size; its trip around its sun is similar to Earth’s.

It’s not, however, identical.

Anyarian Days, Hours, and Minutes

An Anyarian day is 3% longer than an Earth day. When the colonists were preparing to come, they wanted to keep measurements that made sense to them, so they split up the slightly longer day into 24 hours. Each hour is 60 minutes, and each minute is 60 seconds...just like “back home.”

With the 3% difference, an Anyarian day is equivalent to 24 hours, 43 minutes on Earth; an Anyarian hour is equivalent to 61.8 minutes on Earth; and so on.

Our characters in the trilogy aren’t aware of these differences. Written and digital records were lost during the tragic colony flight (in which most colonists were killed...possibly because the stone struck the ship).

Honestly, this information makes zero practical difference as I write the book. I’m just a geek, so I like to know it!

Anyarian Weeks

Because colonists were used to having a seven-day week, they kept that tradition, along with the day names.

The Anyarian Moon and Anyarian Months

The Anyarian moon takes 28.5 days to travel around Anyari. This is similar to Earth’s moon.

Colonists wanted to break up their year into 12 months. However, the Anyarian year is slightly longer: 376 days instead of 365. With some months having more days than Earth months, they decided to rename them.

Anyarian months were named after the stars closest to Earth (listed in this article). This created a connection between Anyari’s colonists and their home planet. Of course, that knowledge ended up being lost, and my characters don’t know why the months are named what they are.

Here are the stars (starting with the one closest to Earth), their corresponding months, and the number of days in each month. I’ll organize them by their seasons (in the Southern hemisphere, where Cellerin is).

Winter:

Alpha Centauri (Centa, 31 days)

Barnard’s Star (Barna, 32 days)

Wolf 359 (Wolf, 31 days)

Spring:

Lalande 21185 (Lalan, 31 days)

Sirius (Rius, 31 days)

Luyten 726-8 (Luyt, 32 days)

Summer: 

Ross 154* (Ross, 31 days)

Epsilon Eridani (Erid, 31 days)

Lacaille 9352** (Cail, 31 days)

Fall:

EZ Aquarii (Quari, 32 days)

Procyon (Cyon, 31 days)

61 Cygni (Cygni, 31 days)

*There’s a planet between Ross 154 & Epsilon Eridani: Ross 248. I skipped it because I didn't want to reuse the “Ross” name.

**There’s yet another Ross planet, Ross 128, between Lacaille 9352 & EZ Aquarii.

Wrapping it Up

Whew—that may have been more information than you ever wanted to know about time on Anyari! I hope a few of you geeked out over it like I did when I planned it!

If there’s any worldbuilding information you’d like to know, feel free to respond to this email. I might answer your question in a future email.

By the stone,

Beth

P.S. If you’d ever like to look at all the past Super-Fan emails, click this link. This is the only email in that folder for now.