Faction Paradox
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Overview
Faction Paradox is the fictional time travelling voodoo cult/rebel group/organized crime syndicate created by Lawrence Miles. The family/organization, originally featured as recurring villians in the BBC Doctor Who novels, have gone on to spin-off into their own continuing tales.
The semi-mythical founder of Faction Paradox is Grandfather Paradox, named after the grandfather paradox of time travel theory.
The Faction Paradox universe is heavily centered around the 'War in Heaven', a history spanning conflict between 'The Great Houses' and 'The Enemy'. It features characters and concepts introduced in Doctor Who, in most cases with names changed or obscured for literary or legal reasons.
Faction Paradox take a perverse pride in causing time paradoxes and achieving impossible or ridiculous effects for their own sake. For instance, their stronghold on Earth exists in London of 1752, within what they call "The Eleven-Day Empire." In that year, the British Empire first adopted the Gregorian calendar, and in so doing had to correct their dating scheme by eleven days (September 2, 1752 being followed by September 14, 1752). Faction Paradox claimed the missing eleven days as their base (even though, logically, only the numbering scheme changed and no days were actually "missing").
Books
Doctor Who (BBC Books)
Faction Paradox debuted and appeared repeatedly in the Eight Doctor Adventures, a series of Doctor Who novels published by BBC Books featuring the Eighth Doctor (as portrayed by Paul McGann). The most relevant books to the Faction Paradox Universe are:
- Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles (1997)
- Unnatural History - Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman (1999)
- Interference Books 1 & 2 - Lawrence Miles (1999)
- Taking of Planet Five - Simon Bucher Jones and Mark Clapham (1999)
- Shadows of Avalon - Paul Cornell (2000)
- The Ancestor Cell - Stephen Cole and Peter Anghelides (2000)
N.B. Lawrence Miles has stated that the events of The Ancestor Cell will be ignored in all of the Faction Paradox spin-offs. This book exists exclusively to curtail the Faction Paradox story and its version of the Faction bears no resemblance to anything seen in previous BBC Books.
- The Adventuress Of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles (2001)
Faction Paradox (Mad Norwegian Press)
In 2002 the Faction started appearing in a series of books of their own, as published by Mad Norwegian Press. These novels centre on the ongoing War in Heaven; the Faction and its members are sometimes only featured as minor characters.
- The Book of the War - An encylopedia/handbook/digest of the first 50 years of the War. Jointly written by many authors and edited by Lawrence Miles (2002)
A series of novels followed
- This Town Will Never Let us Go - Lawrence Miles (2003)
- Of the City of the Saved... - Philip Purser-Hallard (2004)
- Warlords of Utopia - Lance Parkin (2004)
- Warring States - Mags L Halliday (2005)
- Erasing Sherlock - Kelly Hale (2005)
Other
- Christmas On A Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles
One of Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who spin-off novels. Contains the earliest (though only a passing) reference to the Faction, at least in the form of its founder Grandfather Paradox.
- Dead Romance - Lawrence Miles
Originally published by Virgin Publishing in 1999 as part of their Virgin New Adventures line, Mad Norwegian Press republished this novel, which features several characters and concepts that have subsequently appeared in the Faction Paradox universe, in 2004.
Audio
A series of full-cast audio dramas dubbed 'The Faction Paradox Protocols' has been produced by BBV, written by Lawrence Miles. These are centred around two Cousins of the Faction, Justine and Eliza and were initially set within the Eleven Day Empire, though from "Sabbath Dei" onwards the setting varied. Although there were six releases and an ongoing story, each pair (usually released close together) formed a two part story. In order they were:
- The Eleven Day Empire
- The Shadow Play
- Sabbath Dei
- In the Year of the Cat
- Movers
- A Labyrinth of Histories
In May 2004 it was announced that Magic Bullet Productions, known for their 'Kaldor City' audio dramas, had obtained the license to produce further Faction Paradox audios. The first title has been announced as:
- The True History of Faction Paradox Vol. I: Coming To Dust (guest starring Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh)
Comics
In 2003 the first two issues of a Faction Paradox comic were produced by Mad Norwegian and published by Image Comics, but it was subsequently placed on hiatus. The comic was written by Lawrence Miles with art from Jim Calafiore, and set after the events of the 'War in Heaven'. Mad Norwegian have stated that they intend to complete the story in some form at some point in the future.
External links
- Faction Paradox.co.uk (http://www.factionparadox.co.uk/) - maintained by Thomas Pratchett
- Faction Paradox at Mad Norwegian Press (http://www.madnorwegian.com/fp/index.php) - maintained by Lars Pearson
- Discussion forum (http://p211.ezboard.com/bfactionparadox) - moderated by Mags L Halliday
- [1] (http://www.geocities.com/willbswift/docwho3b.html) - chronicles The War, Faction Paradox and the Future of Gallifrey as maintained by William B. Swift