Faction Paradox (series)

The Faction Paradox series is a standalone collection of audio, prose, and comic stories set in and around the War in Heaven, introduced in Lawrence Miles's 1997 Eighth Doctor novel Alien Bodies.
== History ==
At the time that Lawrence Miles wrote Alien Bodies, he intended for the War in Heaven to stay indeterminably far in the Doctor's future, like Merlin or the Valeyard. However, after he learned that Kate Orman and Jon Blum were including Faction Paradox in their novel Unnatural History, he felt justified to explore them further in his 1999 two-part novel Interference, which introduced the Eleven-Day Empire and the Remote. Despite the novel's positive online and international reception, after Interference received unfavourable reviews in DWM 281 and elsewhere, Miles felt he had "lost [his] mandate" and resigned from writing Doctor Who to instead develop a Faction Paradox series.
By the year 2000, BBV Productions had agreed to produce The Faction Paradox Protocols audio series. These audios introduced several concepts that would later become staples of the Faction Paradox range, such as the Faction's shadow-weapons and alternate names like "Great Houses" for the Time Lords and "timeships" for TARDISes. Miles described these alternate names as the continuation of the reinvention that he began in Alien Bodies: as he developed more of the mechanics of the War in Heaven, the War-era Time Lords evolved further and further away from the Time Lords of the past.
This process would not be completed until the writing of The Book of the War, a "guidebook to a series that doesn't exist yet" intended to be a standalone companion to the Protocols audios. A total of twelve authors, including established New Adventures novelists as well as writers from contemporary charity publications, contributed short stories to the book in the form of alphabetically-sorted encyclopedia entries. As Miles collected, edited, and synthesised these stories, he developed the War as a more mythological setting with the scale and appearance of science fiction but none of the "props". For instance, rather than using aliens in The Book of the War, Miles characterised all non-humans as either gods, like the Great Houses and Celestis, or monsters, like the Yssgaroth and Mal'akh.
The Book of the War was published in September 2002 by Mad Norwegian Press, and it was such a success that, in December of that year, Mad Norwegian announced it was starting a series of standalone Faction Paradox novels edited by Miles. Despite the series' name, these novels would not specifically focus on the Faction, instead exploring "a myriad of times/settings" throughout the War. Each novel was written by a contributor to The Book of the War, either building upon the contents of their entries (e.g. Philip Purser-Hallard's Of the City of the Saved and Mags L. Halliday's Warring States) or telling completely new stories (e.g. Lance Parkin's Warlords of Utopia and Kelly Hale's Erasing Sherlock). Notably, each book was set before its predecessor, with some novels hinting that their events were connected to or even caused by their successors.Mags L. Halliday. Author's Notes. Warring States ebook edition (2013). “This was another conceit of the series: that each novel was set earlier than the previous one. So the events at the end of Erasing Sherlock trigger elements of Warring States, and the end of Warring States triggers elements of Of City of the Saved...” Along with these original novels, Mad Norwegian also republished Miles's 1999 book Dead Romance, which had originally been released in Virgin Books' New Adventures line.
At the same time, Mad Norwegian began producing a Faction Paradox comic to be published by Image Comics. It was written by Lawrence Miles and tied into his 2001 Eighth Doctor novel The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, albeit in a way that required no prior knowledge of that novel or any other Faction Paradox story. The first issue, Political Animals, was listed as one of Diamond Distribution's "Gems of the Month" and was received favourably by several mainstream comic reviewers, but for cost reasons Mad Norwegian chose to end the comic series after issue two, leaving the third part unreleased and the story unfinished.
In September 2003, BBV Productions announced it was ending its Audio Adventures in Time & Space range to focus exclusively on the The Faction Paradox Protocols line. However, BBV stopped producing any new content after A Labyrinth of Histories in 2004, so Miles, impressed by the quality of actors in Magic Bullet Productions' Kaldor City series, reached out to Magic Bullet to continue the Faction Paradox audios. Though the resultant True History of Faction Paradox series was designed to be standalone from the earlier Protocols audios, it continued to feature the characters of Justine, Eliza, and Lolita, albeit played by different actors. The first True History audio was released in July 2005, and the sixth and final story was released on 23 November 2009.Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who
Mad Norwegian Press CEO Lars Pearson announced in September 2006 that, as the return of Doctor Who to television had focused fans' attentions elsewhere, the Faction Paradox novels would end with Erasing Sherlock that December rather than continuing with "Novel #6" as had been previously announced. However, the following July, New Zealand-based publisher Random Static announced they would continue the Faction Paradox novel line with Newtons Sleep, published January 2008 to some local media attention. Concerned that the series branding was scaring off unfamiliar readers and distracting reviewers, Random Static later released the novel online as a free ebook without the Faction Paradox label. Despite plans for another novel to be released in 2010, this was Random Static's only Faction Paradox release.
On 7 June 2010, Obverse Books announced it had obtained the license to publish a series of Faction Paradox short story anthologies, beginning with A Romance in Twelve Parts in 2011. Following that anthology's success, Obverse took over the Faction Paradox prose license in its entirety. The new novel line began with Against Nature and The Brakespeare Voyage, both of which had begun production while Mad Norwegian was still running the series. At the same time Obverse announced novellas from Kelly Hale and Jim Mortimore, neither of which have been released . Obverse also began the first Faction Paradox prose spinoff: The City of the Saved, a series of short story anthologies edited by Philip Purser-Hallard.
Obverse maintains a steady release schedule of Faction Paradox prose. Notably, in 2015 they published the anthology Liberating Earth, edited by acclaimed Doctor Who novelist Kate Orman, which featured only women writers. This precedent was continued two years later by the City of the Saved release Tales of the Civil War.
24 November 2017 marked the twentieth anniversary of Faction Paradox's first appearance in Alien Bodies. Obverse Books commemorated the occasion by releasing the Faction Paradox novel Weapons Grade Snake Oil and the City of the Saved anthology Tales of the Civil War in the first months of the year. Then, on 25 November, Obverse released the novel Spinning Jenny, which had been in production since 2012, and opened preorders for the anthology The Book of the Enemy. They also announced The Book of the Peace, the December 2018 release of which was accompanied by a series of promotional vignettes and interviews collected on the Obverse Books website as The Book of the Peace Dossier.
To celebrate Obverse Books' tenth anniversary in 2019, six novellas were released in the Obverse Sextet line, each a tie-in to one of Obverse Books' fiction series. This included a new Faction Paradox book, Hyponormalisation: A Faction Hollywood Production, and the seventh City of the Saved release, Vanishing Tales of the City.
After a 17 year hiatus, BBV Productions reacquired the Faction Paradox audio and video license in 2021 and began releasing new standalone Faction Paradox audio stories, as well as two video crossovers with its P.R.O.B.E. series. The second of these videos, Ex-President, included a brief clip of a costumed Faction Paradox member: technically, the Faction's live-action debut. However, many of BBV's early decisions were decried by Lawrence Miles, and following public outcry over the company's hiring of an accused child predator on a different project in October 2021, its Faction Paradox license was revoked. As a result, several planned stories were never released, including Case File - Faction Paradox, the finale to the P.R.O.B.E. crossover arc.
On 21 April 2021, Obverse Books announced Worlds of the Spiral Politic, a new series of novels and anthologies focusing on specific settings around the Faction Paradox universe. The open call for pitches for the first of these books, an anthology set in the Boulevard of Alternate Brutalities, had been announced that February. After receiving almost 100 pitches, Obverse split the anthology into two volumes, and The Boulevard: Volume One was released on 1 June 2022.
== Stories ==
=== Novels ===
Title 	Writer 	Publisher 	Release date
The Book of the War 	ed. Lawrence Miles 	Mad NorwegianPress	17 September 2002
This Town Will Never Let Us Go	 	Mad NorwegianPress	29 October 2003
Of the City of the Saved... 	 	Mad NorwegianPress	11 May 2004
Warlords of Utopia 	 	Mad NorwegianPress	13 December 2004
Warring States 	 	Mad NorwegianPress	19 June 2005
Erasing Sherlock 	 	Mad NorwegianPress	13 December 2006
Newtons Sleep 	 	Random Static 	12 January 2008
Against Nature 	 	Obverse Books 	22 March 2013
The Brakespeare Voyage 	Simon Bucher-Jones, Jonathan Dennis	Obverse Books 	26 October 2013
Head of State 	 	Obverse Books 	29 June 2015
Weapons Grade Snake Oil 	 	Obverse Books 	17 January 2017
Spinning Jenny 	 	Obverse Books 	25 November 2017
Hyponormalisation 	 	Obverse Books 	9 December 2019
==== Worlds of the Spiral Politic ====
Worlds of the Spiral Politic was an Obverse Books series focusing on specific settings around the Faction Paradox universe.
Title 	Writer 	Publisher 	Release date
Inward Collapse	Lawrence Burton	Obverse Books	April 2023
=== Anthologies ===
Title 	Editor 	Publisher 	Release date
Dead Romance 	Lars Pearson 	Mad Norwegian Press	7 November 2004
A Romance in Twelve Parts 	Stuart DouglasLawrence Miles	Obverse Books 	31 May 2011
Burning with Optimism's Flames	Jay Eales 	Obverse Books 	31 January 2013
Liberating Earth 	Kate Orman 	Obverse Books 	31 January 2015
The Book of the Enemy 	Simon Bucher-Jones 	Obverse Books 	23 January 2018
The Book of the Peace 	Philip Marsh 	Obverse Books 	23 December 2018
==== The City of the Saved ====
Starting in 2012 with Tales of the City, Obverse Books also published a Faction Paradox anthology subseries or spin-off, The City of the Saved, set in the eponymous City introduced in The Book of the War.
Title 	Editor 	Publisher 	Release Date
Tales of the City 	Philip Purser-Hallard	Obverse Books	1 June 2012
More Tales of the City 	Philip Purser-Hallard	Obverse Books	1 June 2013
Tales of the Great Detectives	Philip Purser-Hallard	Obverse Books	1 October 2014
Furthest Tales of the City 	Philip Purser-Hallard	Obverse Books	31 October 2015
Tales of the Civil War 	Philip Purser-Hallard	Obverse Books	10 February 2017
Stranger Tales of the City 	Liz Evershed 	Obverse Books	12 March 2018
Vanishing Tales of the City 	Kara Dennison 	Obverse Books	9 December 2019
==== Worlds of the Spiral Politic ====
Title 	Editor 	Publisher 	Release Date
The Boulevard: Volume One	Stuart Douglas 	Obverse Books	1 June 2022
The Boulevard: Volume Two	Simon Bucher-Jones	Obverse Books	TBA
=== Audio ===
# 	Title 	Series 	Author 	Featuring 	Publisher 	Released
1.1	The Eleven-Day Empire 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Lolita, Morlock, Quelch, Sontarans 	BBV 	October 2001
1.2	The Shadow Play 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Lolita, Morlock, Quelch, Sontarans 	BBV 	October 2001
1.3	Sabbath Dei 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Lolita, Sabbath, Compassion, Peking Homunculi 	BBV 	February 2003
1.4	In the Year of the Cat 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Lolita, Sabbath, Compassion, Peking Homunculi 	BBV 	April 2003
1.5	Movers 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Lolita, Morlock, Sabbath 	BBV 	December 2003
1.6	A Labyrinth of Histories 	The FactionParadox Protocols 	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Lolita, Morlock, Sabbath 	BBV 	February 2004
2.1	Coming to Dust 	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Finton, Marne 	Magic Bullet	23 July 2005
2.2	The Ship of a Billion Years	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Sutekh, Finton, Marne 	Magic Bullet	15 April 2006
2.3	Body Politic 	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Sutekh, the War King, Lolita, Anubis, Mortega 	Magic Bullet	May 2008
2.4	Words from Nine Divinities 	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Eliza, Sutekh, the War King, Lolita, Anubis, Mortega, Nephthys	Magic Bullet	24 November 2008
2.5	Ozymandias 	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Horus, Sutekh, Lolita, Geb, Nephthys, Finton, Marne 	Magic Bullet	8 June 2009
2.6	The Judgment of Sutekh 	The True Historyof Faction Paradox	Lawrence Miles	Justine, Horus, Sutekh, Lolita, Geb, Nephthys, Finton, Marne 	Magic Bullet	23 November 2009
==== BBV spinoffs ====
Starting in June 2021, BBV Productions released several new Faction Paradox audios in its Audio Adventures in Time & Space line. These were grouped into the series names Dionus's War; Hellscape; and, retroactively, Rebirth.
Title 	Series 	Author	Featuring 	Publisher 	Release date
Eternal Escape 	Dionus's War	 	Dionus, House Military, the Friend	BBV Productions	6 June 2021
Call Me Ishmael 	Dionus's War	 	Dionus, House Military 	BBV Productions	23 June 2021
The Healer's Sin 	Dionus's War	 	Dionus 	BBV Productions	24 July 2021
Me & My Ghost 	Dionus's War	 	Dionus 	BBV Productions	1 October 2021
Mr Saldaamir 	Rebirth 	 	Mister Saldaamir 	BBV Productions	11 August 2021
Sabbath and the King 	Rebirth 	 	Sabbath, the War King 	BBV Productions	12 August 2021
The Confession of Brother Signet	Rebirth 	 	Signet 	BBV Productions	20 October 2021
Lucifer 	Hellscape 	 	Signet 	BBV Productions	1 January 2022
A planned fifth Dionus's War story, a prequel written by Aristide Twain, was written but never produced.
=== Short stories ===
Long before the first print Faction Paradox short story anthology in 2011, Mad Norwegian Press and Random Static both released short stories as tie-ins to their Faction Paradox novels. These were often published online as part of The Spiral Politic Database or as extras with other releases — not only in Mad Norwegian's own novels, but also in the Image Comics run of Faction Paradox comic books.
In 2018, Obverse Books resumed the practice with ten vignettes released in an online "Dossier" accompanying The Book of the Peace.
Title 	Writer 	Released 	Publisher 	Release date
Grass 	Lawrence Miles 	The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Vol. 101 No. 3	Spilogale, Inc. 	September 2001
Crimes Against History 	Lawrence Miles 	The Spiral Politic Database 	Mad Norwegian Press	11 November 2001
The Eleven-Day Empire: A Tour of the Capital	Mags L. Halliday 	The Spiral Politic Database 	Mad Norwegian Press	14 September 2002
Prologue to This Town Will Never Let Us Go 	Lawrence Miles 	FP 1 	Image Comics 	6 August 2003
The Reliquary 	Lawrence Miles 	FP 1 - 2 	Image Comics 	6 August - 19 November 2003
Prologue to Of the City of the Saved... 	Philip Purser-Hallard	This Town Will Never Let Us Go 	Mad Norwegian Press	29 October 2003
Prologue to Warlords of Utopia 	Lance Parkin 	Of the City of the Saved... 	Mad Norwegian Press	11 May 2004
The Night is Long, and Dreams Are Legion 	Mags L. Halliday 	Myth Makers: Issue 14Warring States (ebook) 	Mad Norwegian Press	November 2004
Prologue to Warring States 	Mags L. Halliday 	Online, Warlords of Utopia 	Mad Norwegian Press	9 November 2004
Prologue to Erasing Sherlock 	Kelly Hale 	Warring States 	Mad Norwegian Press	19 June 2005
The Return of the King 	Daniel O'Mahony 	Online 	Random Static 	7 January 2008
The Beasthouse 	Lawrence Miles 	Online 	 	6 July 2008
Unification Theory 	Philip Purser-Hallard	Of the City of the Saved... (ebook) 	Mad Norwegian Press	2013
Prelude to Against Nature 	Lawrence Burton 	Online 	Ce Acatl 	5 February 2013
The Unwoken Princess 	Lawrence Burton 	The Obverse Book of Detectives 	Obverse Books 	26 April 2013
Sojourner & Ellie 	Blair Bidmead 	Online 	 	16 December 2017
Unsent letter 	Philip Marsh 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	17 September 2018
The Story So Far... 	Jayce Black 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	2 October 2018
A Scene 	Niki Haringsma 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	7 October 2018
Daring Initiation 	Jayce Black 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	1 November 2018
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 	Jayce Black 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	25 November 2018
Inside the Looking Glass 	Greg Maughan 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	7 February 2019
Pure Light 	Philip Marsh 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	7 February 2019
A Farewell to R.M.S. 	Nate Bumber 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	11 February 2019
A Prelude to a Prelude 	Nate Bumber 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	11 February 2019
A Shift in Focus 	Nate Bumber 	The Book of the Peace Dossier 	Obverse Books 	11 February 2019
Mr Saldaamir 	Lance Parkin 	Ebook 	BBV Productions 	1 June 2021
=== Comic ===
Two issues of a bimonthly Faction Paradox comic were produced by Mad Norwegian Press and published by Image Comics in the latter half of 2003. Each issue had a central, 16-page comic along with shorter, illustrated text stories. The main comic story was an ongoing one, so the early cancellation of the title meant that the story was never finished. It was set after the end of the War in Heaven and acted as a prequel to The Adventuress of Henrietta Street; the Faction Paradox Protocols audio stories Sabbath Dei and In the Year of the Cat were intended to be prequels to the comic, although they were ultimately released first.
#	Title 	Writer 	Featuring 	Printed in	Released
1	Political Animals 	Lawrence Miles	Isobel, Mayakatula 	FP 1 	6 August 2003
2	Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses	Lawrence Miles	Isobel, Mayakatula, Sabbath Dei	FP 2 	19 November 2003
 	Creatures of Habit 	Lawrence Miles	Mayakatula, Sabbath Dei 	Unreleased	Unreleased
=== Video ===
Shortly before the release of the first issue of the Faction Paradox comic, a subsidiary company of Warner Brothers contacted the publisher to ask about the rights to a Faction Paradox theatrical film. The talks came to an abrupt end after Lawrence Miles described the project as " with monsters".
In 2021-22, BBV Productions released two video crossovers between Faction Paradox and its P.R.O.B.E. series, both ultimately collected in P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2. A third short, meant to conclude the storyline, was never released.
Title 	Author 	Featuring 	Release Date
Daylight Savings	James Hornby	Giles 	6 June 2021
Ex-President 	James Hornby	Giles, Felix Mather	25 February 2022
Faction Paradox 	James Hornby	Giles 	Unreleased
== Timeline of releases ==
== Notes ==
* Several concepts and characters that originated in Faction Paradox would later feature in other series set in the Doctor Who universe. For instance, in Big Finish Productions' Bernice Summerfield series, Cwejen from The Book of the War appeared alongside Straxus in The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel; Krisztina-Judit Németh from Of the City of the Saved... appeared in Predating the Predators; and the Ship of a Billion Years from the eponymous audio was mentioned in The Eye of Horus. Ruling Houses Dvora and Mirraflex, first mentioned in The Book of the War, were respectively mentioned in the Big Finish audios Panacea and The Conscript.
** In 2020, characters presented as post-War survivors of the Faction, named Sibling Same and Sibling Different, appeared in a BBC Doctor Who release, The Wintertime Paradox, for the first time since the end of the Eighth Doctor Adventures. The Wintertime Paradox editor Emil Fortune acknowledged the Faction Paradox series as "the Obverse canon" but noted that Same and Different were part of a different version of the Faction, hailing from a defunct "rewritten timeline".
* A subscription to the short-lived Faction Paradox comic series at Burton's Books came with a free mousemat based on Steve Johnson's cover art on issue 1.
* From its opening on 11 November 2001 to its expiration in 2007, the Faction Paradox website was directly overseen by Lawrence Miles. It included original material about the Faction Paradox universe written by Lawrence Miles, including the prose contents of The Spiral Politic Database and the original scripts to The Faction Paradox Protocols. Mad Norwegian Press maintained a reduced version of the website from 2009 to 2012. Ultimately the website was fully reopened, including the content of The Spiral Politic Database, on 31 October 2023.
* It was originally intended that sidebars would be a part of the Faction Paradox novels' "house style"; however, only The Book of the War and Of the City of the Saved... used them.
* On 1 July 2022, Obverse Music released The Eleven Day Empire, an album of ambient electronic music composed by Mike Dickinson inspired by Faction Paradox settings and stories.
== Cover gallery ==
== External links ==
* 
* Official website
* Official twitter account
== Footnotes ==
== References ==
Category:FP series
Category:Overview pages