FACTION PARADOX
Faction Paradox is: a time-travelling fetish cult with a penchant for skull memorabilia; a shared ‘fictional universe’ (though in fact it spans many fictional ‘universes’); and a publishing phenomenon spanning – at current count – three media, eight publishers and multiple fictional formats.
Originally created by Lawrence Miles for his BBC Books Doctor Who novels, the Faction Paradox milieu formed a major part of the series’ background (and that of Virgin Books’ spinoff series, the New Adventures) before being relaunched as a series of novels (published first by Mad Norwegian Press and more recently by Random Static Ltd), audio dramas (released by BBV and subsequently by Magic Bullet Productions), a short-lived comic series (published by Image Comics) and – most recently – short-story anthologies (published by Obverse Books).
A brief explanation of what the Faction actually is can be found here, although the ‘War in Heaven’ in which the Faction’s a reluctant combatant is a larger and stranger settting than the cult itself.
The fiction I’ve written for the the Faction Paradox series includes:
- Various contributions to Mad Norwegian Press’s first Faction Paradox book, The Book of the War (2002).
- An original novel, Of the City of the Saved... (2004).
- A short story, ‘A Hundred Words from a Civil War’ in the first of the Obverse anthologies, A Romance in Twelve Parts (2011).
- Another short story, ‘De Umbris Idearum’ in the second Obverse anthology, Burning with Optimism’s Flames (2012).
A huge amount of Faction Paradox material by Lawrence Miles and others – including history, social structure and the instructions for a pageant – was published on the unofficial Faction Paradox website, still available via the Wayback Machine internet archive. There’s also a forum for discussion of the Faction Paradox universe.
- Buy Burning with Optimism’s Flames, A Romance in Twelve Parts, Of the City of the Saved... and The Book of the War at Peculiar Tomes.
- Buy Burning with Optimism’s Flames from Obverse Books, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
- Buy A Romance in Twelve Parts from Obverse Books, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
- Buy Of the City of the Saved... from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Mad Norwegian Press.
- Buy The Book of the War from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Mad Norwegian Press.
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All material © Philip Purser-Hallard 2010-12 except where otherwise noted, and not to be used without permission.
A Romance in Twelve parts banner banner extracted from cover © Lawrence Burton 2011.
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