BT seems very 20th century to me. Sometimes Jazz Age, sometimes 70s-80s, sometimes 1940s. I have difficulty picturing it in the 21st cent.

Stroud said that it was modern daym just that they didn't have the same technologies we do because they rely on djinn instead.

I still believe there are "tech-mages" who code Djinndows and Impix... :D

i think that it was set in the past becuase there is no magic in britan today or anything like that.
and if it was set in modern day then y were there no techothings like computers everywhere??????
because it was set in the past PAST
one of the reasons was that there were all these egypshan stuff and people and since they have all been killed now by wasrs it could not be set in the future
also there is britain being all colonising in america and that happened before the constitution in ameroica so it cant have been in present day but in the 17th century or sonmething.
either that or the author made mistakes in his writings and forgot that it was meant to be in the past or something like that. :sentynel: :sentynel: :sentynel: :sentynel: :sentynel: :sentynel: why is that one called sentynal? can i have one named after me?

There was no magic in the past in Britain either. There were computers and cars about; it mentions in the first book Underwood is using a computer. The bits with Ptolemy in were flashbacks from Bartimaeus' point of view. Britain has held America for ages in the books - they just didn't lose it when we did in real life.
No you can't have one named after you.

I always thought it was set now!
You know the magicians? Why on earth do they have limos to ship them round?? ;)
That seems so dumb I always imagined them to be in slick black cars, Bentlys and the like

Limos aren't slick black cars?

They are occasionally white.

And, a lot of things they do are ridiculous, just becasue they need to look eccentric.

or, since you could consider the trilogy to be set in an alternate universe, it could be the 1770s except that universe developed faster than this one (thank the djinn) so by the late 1700s, they already had technology that is equivalent to our modern day?

Yeah, I think so too.

Didn't Mr. Stroud already say it was present day?

Let the n00bs speculate... :D

i say its about the year 2025 because in one chapter of the golems eye bartimus says he saw a statue in 1475 then said its a little weird seeing it 3500 years later

It's modern day. Leave it at that.

Modern day as it would be if djinn had existed thoughout history. Not an alternate world, our world seen with fantasy in it.

For the first book, I thought of it as the late Edwardian age. Then, in TGE Kitty mentioned the computer in the courtroom, and I was like "Oh. Wow, I had that messed up."

Underwood uses a computer in the first book doesn't he?

Oh my Lord, how many times must I explain?

Look, It's completely modern. Completely. The time in the books just has an alteresd history than our world does. Period.

i found something! it is most definetly not befroe 1950.

'A russian archealogis had found it in the 1950's...'

pg 19-20, AoS


That help?

And i go for future.

It's quite clear from the books, and stated quite clearly by Stroud in the answered questions, that this is set in the present day.

well i just know its not in the past, so...