Faction Paradox

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Doctor Who: Novels: Faction Paradox
'Faction Paradox. They're here. They're not here. Get used to it.'

By a factor of several billion, the best Who-related series of books.

By Emily on Friday, May 19, 2000 - 8:03 am:

Moderator's Note: Moved from the Monsters: Faction Paradox section, with the heading:

'Kill your ancestors! Before it's too late!'

They put the cult into culture. They buy eleven missing days from King George to create their black Parliament against a blood-red sky. Their Grandfather hacks off his prison tattoo (and his arm with it). They're the most dangerous politico-terrorist organisation this side of Event One. They destroy the Blue Peter Garden. They're swallowed whole by rogue TARDIS Lolita. Melodrama has always been the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.



I love Faction Paradox. So far they’ve managed to –

Um...spoilers for Unnatural History, Interference and Taking of Planet 5:
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a) Steal the Doctor’s shadow
b) Steal one of the Doctor’s Companions
c) Provide the Doctor with two Companions
d) Get the Doctor killed

Which is pretty impressive. I was surprised when the Doctor said that them fighting the Time Lords would be like the Hare Krishnas fighting the British. I’d back FP against the Time Lords any day. But then I’d probably back a pet poodle against the Time Lords...


By Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Friday, May 19, 2000 - 11:05 am:

They ruled in Alien Bodies as bad nasty evil guys, but in UH they just weren't nasty enough, and in Inty they seemed slike generic bad guys.


By Luke on Thursday, September 14, 2000 - 9:22 pm:

If the Faction seem generic in 'Interference' than there positively one-dimensional in 'The Ancestor Cell'.


By Emily on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 4:41 pm:

I don't see how they could have been generic bad guys in Interference when they didn't kill anyone. The only people that die in the two books are that Saudi Arabian dissident - Badar? - and of course you-know-Who.

But 'one-dimensional' is far too kind a desciption for them in tAC.


By Luke on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 5:59 am:

I said 'if', implying I disagreed with Ed. Anyway, that was ages ago, and Ed doesn't even come here anymore :)


By Emily on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 1:47 pm:

Oh yes, my remark was aimed at him not you. I didn't see why the fact he hasn't shown his face round here for months should stop me nitpicking him. Nothing wrong with an opponent who can't answer back :)


By Daniel OMahony on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 7:08 am:

So... who's read The Book of the War?


By Emily on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 9:03 am:

ME ME ME! (Well, reading anyway.) It has to be said, compared to the Enemy and the Time Lords, sorry, Great Houses, and after the Faction Paradox Protocols, I'm finding it harder and harder to regard Faction Paradox as the villains.


By Daniel OMahony on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 5:01 pm:

They're so fluffy and adorable aren't they?

Oh no, hang on, I'm thinking of cats...


By Emily on Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 7:35 am:

And we all know what happens when you think of cats. THEY GET EATEN.

Well, if not fluffy and adorable, Faction Paradox are at least 'A more _responsible_ type of voodoo criminal organisation', chortle.


By Daniel OMahony on Sunday, January 30, 2005 - 6:30 pm:

Warlords of Utopia time: assuming it's not just an unreliable narrator at work, in one Germania parallel Marcus meets a communist Hitler who led a successful Spartacist revolution in 1919 but was then secretly deposed by a fascist Hitler from another universe.

Two things bother me about this. First, we're told that the Germania histories don't diverge until the autumn of 1918. Even assuming that the Spartacist uprising took place later in 1919 than 1 January (as in 'real history'), this seems a remarkably short period of time for Hitler - who until recently has been one non-divergent personality - to overcome his rabid anti-communism. If, as is implied, this Hitler had enough clout to postpone the uprising to later in 1919 (concurring with Rosa Luxemburg in real history) then he must have renounced his deep-seated hatred of communism and embraced it, fallen in love and taken joint control of a powerful and popular political movement in the space of a few weeks (cf real history, where it was over three years before the Nazis attempted anything like the Spartacist uprising and then on a much smaller scale).

More practically, why do the Germania I-directed Nazis let the Spartacist Hitler live. It can't be because they're squeamish about killing a Hitler - we're later find out that they're plotting to kill him anyway, many pointless years later.


By Emily on Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 2:07 pm:

It was implied that they were going to kill Communist-Hitler but he escaped - they weren't expecting him to abandon Rosa and run while they were beating her. Which is a fairly flimsy excuse for him getting away from ultra-efficient planet-hopping Nazis, but at least it's an excuse.

That's THREE excellent Faction Paradox novels in a row - a 100% success rate. Justin Richards take note. (And resign.)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, December 12, 2010 - 4:22 pm:

Warlords of Utopia by Lance Parkin: Hundreds of alt-Earths ruled by the Roman Empire clash with hundreds of alt-Earths ruled by the Nazis...with Partes Paradoxem occasionally popping up...

Well. This certainly stands up to a reread. Still seriously brilliant - even better than anything he did for Who (grossly unfairly, Lawrence really does make just as good an editor as he does author).

This is about the best portrayal of an alien culture Who has ever managed. Marcus is so utterly human, but his morality - slavery, murder, underage sex, etc etc - is so matter-of-factly different to our own.

Why does Marcus expect the inhabitants of the 'True Earth' - where he writes his memoirs - to know the significance of 8th January? It only mattered to HIS universe.

And why does he address an audience at all? Is he expecting to publish this - and thus his potentially universe-destroying breaking of the Treaty?

This takes a New Who, loads-of-alternative-universes stance rather than an Old Who one (the FAR more sensible attitude that there aren't that many of 'em) - despite being published pre-new series. On the other hand, the bangle not translating writing is more Old Who-ish.

I don't care how lucky Marcus's Rome was, I can't believe they were THAT lucky in ALL their Emperors.

How did the historians claiming the significance of the old man's appearance had always been recognised gloss over the NINETEEN YEAR gap?

Frankly alt-Angela's appearance on an Earth with a totally different history for the last couple of millennium was a bit hard to swallow. To think I thought Inferno was pushing it...

What happens to alt-Angela's dad? Presumably murdered - but if no why does she show no sign in the succeeding weeks of giving him a single thought?

And frankly if I was confronted with an alternative version of myself...I would not 'adore' her. I'm not a narcissist.

'Men of learning stand outside the temple of Jupiter and squabble over whether the Jupiter worshiped here is the same Jupiter worshipped in Roma II, Roma III and so on' - I find that hard to believe. The Romans were SO much more sophisticed than modern-day people about religion. They were quite happy to believe that any other gods and goddesses they came across in countries they'd conquered was one of their own under a different name. Their temple at Bath, for instance, was dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva - the local version of the goddess even got precedence. And they never had any problem with Zeus = Jupiter, let alone Jupiter = Jupiter.

Why has each Roman Century only got 80 men? Sure, it did in THIS universe, but THIS is the perfect Rome - each Century should have had 100 men.

How can Marcus get so far in Nazi Germany - just because of his stolen uniform?

Why doesn't Marcus try killing the irreplaceable August Hitler instead of one of his numerous elderly dads Adolf?

Why did all space-travellers promptly die of cancer?

Why did the Romans stick to swords instead of adopting and adapting new technology? But STILL managed to defeat the Nazis?

Why did Adolf and August Hitler not use nukes? Even when they were drastically losing? The one time they did, it was extremely successful. And they're not exactly the type to care about colateral damage.

If they're so in love, why does real-Angela not bother visiting her husband in his years of ruling the ex-Nazi-worlds?

'Pandora's Box, though, cannot be closed once it has been opened' - I thought it WAS shut again? Albeit without much left in it.

In Warlords of Utopia's lovely prelude in Of the City of the Saved..., Marcus is waiting for Hitler for six million lifetimes. Isn't that a bit pointless? I mean, there must be HUNDREDS of Hitlers running round the City...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 1:21 pm:

Ancestor Cell - pah. This book portrays poor darling House Paradox as your typical genocidal invading loonies. Did they somehow fail to notice them NOT KILLING ANYONE in Alien Bodies? Sending a mere Cousin to attempt to obtain the Doctor's corpse because they cared about learning from failure more than they cared about success?

'And then all the Time Lords will join the Faction' - er...why will they? And why would the Faction WANT them, anyway? Faction Paradox was set up to get AWAY from those losers.

And as for this 'The Grandfather is a god' stuff - rubbish. He's not a god. For a start, he actually EXISTS. (Well, alright...'the Grandfather never actually existed, and has now never actually existed for over two-hundred years' but you know what I MEAN.)

Plus...THE GRANDFATHER IS NOT THE EIGHTH DOCTOR, can we get that clear, please.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 1:21 pm:

Alien Bodies:

'The Spirits came...This was absurd, the Doctor reminded himself, of course it was absurd. There were no Spirits, everybody knew that. There were just the forces of Space and Time, uncaring and impersonal; only Faction Paradox would be mad enough to turn them into gods.' - come to think of it, what the hell ARE the Faction Spirits? Cos whatever else they are(n't) they DO exist. They protected the Eleven-Day Empire until it rather stupidly signed a contract giving Gallifrey...sorry, the Great Houses...the right to hunt down Grandfather Paradox/Cousin Justine...

I really need to know, given that the Faction Shrine(/space-time-machine) is more powerful than THE DOCTOR before TARDIS-Marie came to his aid. (That's the Doctor who can manipulate the vortex without even being aware of it. That's the Doctor whose CORPSE's auction is the most significant event in the history of space and time...)


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Friday, June 03, 2011 - 1:23 pm:

The big question: who is this Emily person without whom 'A Romance in Twelve Parts' would never have been written?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Friday, June 03, 2011 - 2:47 pm:

*Attempts to look bashful and modest and dismally fails*

The REAL question is: does anyone get a sexually-transmitted disease in the Daniel O'Mahony story?


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Friday, June 03, 2011 - 4:52 pm:

Give me time. I've not got past the dedication page yet.


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Sunday, June 05, 2011 - 12:47 pm:

Three stories in and I'm not entirely sure that the Faction have even appeared yet...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, June 05, 2011 - 1:14 pm:

Oh.

Dear.

Well, maybe they're under a cunning pseudonym? Like Partes Paradoxem in Warlords of Utopia...?


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Sunday, June 05, 2011 - 3:21 pm:

Don't worry, they turn up in all their glory in the fourth story, which draws a generous amount of inspiration from a certain popular BBC TV series that's on at the moment. How I long to see the Chronofungal War Cow make its first appearance on that show!


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Monday, June 06, 2011 - 8:38 am:

And then *r*s W*ldth*m* shows up!!!


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Wednesday, June 08, 2011 - 11:29 am:

Yay, I've finished 'A Romance in Twelve Parts'. A couple of duff stories aside, the biggest drawback I see is that it gives newcomers absolutely no idea what Faction Paradox is about, and the diverse mix of stories isn't going to help enlighten them much. Philip Purser-Hallard's 'A Hundred Words from a Civil War' is more or less a direct sequel to 'Of the City of the Saved...', but very efficiently lays out the situation for newcomers.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 5:54 am:

Three stories in and I'm not entirely sure that the Faction have even appeared yet...

Call me a person of staggering intelligence, unparalled acuity, even sharper than Rory 'No flies on the Roman' Pond, but...I suspect the bone-faced blood-witch who severs the threads of history in the first story might possibly have something to do with the Faction...


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 10:32 am:

I thought it was a Sycorax.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, June 19, 2011 - 2:42 pm:

You wouldn't be LYING to me, by any chance...?

A Romance in Twelve Parts:

Not that keen, frankly. The entire book is utterly incomprehensible, which I don't actually have a problem with, but...most of the stories are also pretty boring. Which I DO have a problem with.

Storyteller - Good story, great and intense background, and only slightly boring.

Gramps - Excruciatingly tedious, incredibly nasty, utterly pointless. I'd sooner read about Turlough being anally-probed in a Keith Topping novel. And Faction Cats simply do not behave like this - see Newtons Sleep.

Mightier Than the Sword - I actually get the feeling there MIGHT be a semi-decent story buried somewhere under the interminable, incomprehensible tedium and swearing.

Now or Thereabouts - A fun Apprentice rip-off is just what I needed, by this stage. OK, so there's a boring incomprehensible glass-faced dream-stalker in there too, but what the hell - love the Chronofungal War-Cow.

Nothing Lasts Forever - Least of all my patience. A teenage Brother builds a TARDIS which seduces him, gets pregnant, pretends to be Catherine of Aragon in an attempt to marry Henry VIII and foist said son on him, to prevent the Eleven-Day Empire's eventual deal with King George, before topping herself on her owner's orders, leaving the miracle-baby behind...no, really. Do I LOOK as if I could make this stuff up?

Library Pictures - 'Morality tales are so dull.' You said it, sunshine.

Holding Pattern - So being disembowelled doesn't hurt? Well, maybe he was too bored to notice. God knows I was.

The Story of the Peace - Quite good. Well, when I say 'quite good' I mean there were a couple of rather funny lines.

Print the Legend - like Storyteller, I like the intelligent story but love the rich background. How could Dickens afford the train-fare if he didn't have a dime? How DARE this accuse the Faction of 'leprosy of the soul' - have you SEEN Cousin Eliza's sacrifice to defeat Sutekh? Oh, and LOVE the Faction-at-noon-has-no-shadows idea.

Tonton Macoute - Gruesome and - surprise! - boring. Though I like the ending. And the 'boil the Faction soldier until only her shadow remained' idea. Less keen on the idea you can eat a timeship. Since when has Unkindness ferocity been legendary? They were perfectly nice to Justine.

Alchemy - Not a bad idea, just implausible and, it goes without saying, boring.

A Hundred Words From A Civil War - Forget A Good Man Goes To War - THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is a WAR. Love it. Aside from the incomprehensible ending, the idea ANYONE in the City can not have noticed the changes (PAIN AND WAR, people!), the alleged humbleness of Jesus, and Marilyn Monroe marrying Henry VIII...


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - 10:49 am:

Why so negative? You seem to have liked 5 out of 12 stories there and have positive things to say about some others. That's not a bad hit rate for an original anthology!


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 8:37 am:

Exactly! I'm practically being NICE about the book...by my standards. So it's rather annoying that I'm being slagged off for my review all over the Internet by people who haven't got the guts to come HERE and say it to my face.

(I mean, which bit of 'endless drivel' at the top of the novels section failed to tip them off that me n'Who books don't tend to be on the best of terms? Though I suppose the cat reference would be a bit puzzling to people who don't realise I have to defend the fluffy diddumses to the death against Rodney's slanders...)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, August 21, 2011 - 6:24 pm:

Is anyone else sitting in front of the news thinking that Gaddafi's just luring everyone into a false sense of security before exploding a nuclear bomb over Tripoli? And is anyone else realising this unpleasant feeling is ALL THE FAULT OF WARLORDS OF UTOPIA?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 12:11 pm:

'The two sides are playing by different rules, and it's more a case of good-versus-postmodern than good-versus-evil.' - Interference.

Why didn't anyone else writing about the Faction grasp this basic point??


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Monday, March 05, 2012 - 4:26 pm:

Erasing Sherlock by Kelly Hale: Academic Gillian nips back in time to meet her hero, Sherlock Holmes. Accidentally fictionalising him in the process.

A fantastic book, thought-provoking and emotionally wrenching, marred only slightly by forgetting to include Faction Paradox.

The narrator is INCREDIBLY stupid. Not asking exactly why she's being blessed by being the first human to travel in time ('What had I been thinking back then? That a project of such magnitude, surrounded by secrecy and costing billions, was designed so I could make a big splash in the academic community?')...Keeping the boots under the bed before bizarrely mailing them to New York...Blowing her cover by dressing up and speaking Italian...Unnecessarily lying to Sherlock 'for reasons I'm not sure of even to this day'.

Why is Corkle incapable of planting his own bugs? And why doesn't it occur even to the Great Detective (or, indeed, to Corkle) that he might have secretly planted a third bug?


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Friday, April 06, 2012 - 1:02 pm:

Wow! What a great trailer for the new series of Doctor Who! Cyborgs in the Wild West! Where does Steve Moffat get his ideas from?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Friday, April 06, 2012 - 3:22 pm:

Well, having thoroughly plundered all of Lawrence Miles's ideas, what with the Time War, destruction of Gallifrey, Doctor's funeral, bone-masked blood-voodooists, etc etc, it's quite understandable that New Who should now be turning to OTHER Faction Paradox universe stories like that fine Daniel O'Mahony one from Romance in Twelve Parts involving, er, Cyborgs in the Wild West.

Might I just, as the current owner of the Faction (insofar as this absurd 'owner of the Faction' idea means ANYTHING AT ALL) assure Russell T God AND God Mark II, aka Steven Moffat, that it is an ENORMOUS HONOUR to be robbed blind, and they should feel free to do so ANY TIME. If they want my skin for a rug they can have THAT too, worship 'em.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, June 03, 2012 - 3:18 pm:

Shadows of Avalon:

'While Faction Paradox existed, there was no reason for him to do anything. Everything was negotiable....His birthright, his culture, the things he'd defined himself against, were all variables now. He remembered his father, but he also remembered the loom, being twice born. He didn't know which he remembered from life and which from dreams...They could rewrite every better outcome he accomplished. They rendered him impotent and meaningless.' - Well, THAT'S going a bit far. The Faction are out for FUN, not to foil every move the Doctor's ever made. And Eleven seems positively chirpy at the thought that history can be rewritten.

And don't you DARE blame the poor old Faction for any of that Doctor's-got-a-father nonsense, OR that looms rubbish!


By Francois Lacombe (Franc0is) on Sunday, June 03, 2012 - 3:44 pm:

The Doctor has got to have a father. And a mother. Time Lords don't just poof into existence out of thin air, do they?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Tuesday, June 05, 2012 - 11:35 am:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that, in the Doctor's case, that's EXACTLY what they do.

I mean, Divided Loyalties was traumatic enough, can you imagine Little Hartnell in NAPPIES too...?


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Tuesday, June 05, 2012 - 4:03 pm:

If you read 'State of Change', you have to.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Tuesday, June 05, 2012 - 4:12 pm:

I HAVE read State of Change.

Mercifully my mind seems to have blanked out whatever-you're-talking-about. There are times when a bad memory is truly a blessing.


By Francois Lacombe (Franc0is) on Wednesday, June 06, 2012 - 2:22 pm:

can you imagine Little Hartnell in NAPPIES too...?

Well, I can imagine him in his cot.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Wednesday, June 06, 2012 - 3:20 pm:

Oh.

Yeah.

.

I ADORED that cot, I just didn't...think through the implications...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Saturday, June 09, 2012 - 1:39 pm:

Taking of Planet 5:

COMPASSION [re Gallifrey's War in Heaven]: A war? With Faction Paradox?

DOCTOR: I shouldn't know, but I don't think so. That'd be like a war between the United Kingdom and the Hare Krishnas.

SEE! THIS is what Ancestor Cell just didn't GET, when they had the Faction conquer Gallifrey. (Plus shouldn't the Doctor have KNOWN from Alien Bodies that the Enemy wasn't the Faction? They sent different representatives to that auction, for starters.)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, October 14, 2012 - 12:33 pm:

Tales of the City, edited by Phil Purser-Hallard:

Enjoyable book, albeit rather slender for a tenner (plus postage) and nothing like as brilliant as Of The City Of The Saved...

Akroates - Nice but slightly pointless-feeling, at least until you read the rest of the book. That 'strange extra eye' thing was MEAN, I spent the whole of the book thinking 'But none of these people have three eyes - do they!' before realising the Akroates was a Cyclops. (I say 'realising'. I actually mean READING the word 'Cyclops'. God I can be thick sometimes.)

Happily Ever After is a High-Risk Strategy - Very good. CARS get resurrected too? (Alright...technosapiens. Whatever. I don't want to sound racist, but...)

The Socratic Problem - Pretty good. 'The party must be over - except for the one still thumping its way through his head' - you can get HEADACHES in the City?!

Lost Ships and Lost Lands - 'She felt a twinge in her left wing....then the itch in her wings intensified' - you can ITCH and TWINGE in the City?! Why did they bother to wait for PAIN to return before they started their Civil War? Why not just attack your enemies and lock them up for eternity with some itching powder if you're feeling THAT pissed-off?

Oh great, and now you can CHOP PEOPLE'S HANDS OFF in the City! Isn't it taking the point, and the sheer horror, out of those potent-weapon-things if you can ALREADY do this sort of thing? And isn't it rather a coincidence that whatshername happens to fall out of the sky onto a ship, let alone a ship full of people concerned with the very reason she feel out of the sky in the first place?

Highbury - Very good. The Ettin evolved on another planet! They're ALIENS! Call me racist (AGAIN) but...what the hell are they doing in the City! And which bit of SHE'S A HOSTAGE FOR YOUR RELEASE does Davenport not grasp during his proposal?

About a Girl - Considerably better than anything ELSE I've read by Dale Smith. Still not much GOOD, though. 'He managed to look slightly embarrassed by [the bodyguards], realising the absurdity of having protection in the City' - right, cos it's not as if someone can overpower you, encase you in concrete, and bury you, is it...oh, wait! YES THEY CAN!

Bruises - Quite good. 'What did Bartholomew think would happen once I made contact with this girl? Maybe he'd just assumed I'd be too disgusted to ever have sex with a bruiser, but it was obvious that something was about to happen, and if it was consensual I was fairly sure it wasn't against the law' - you mean you can have non-consensual sex in the City? There's rape AS WELL? Honestly, I don't know why the Manfolk BOTHERED destroying the invulnerability protocols.

'The nausea that kicked in the morning after was awful' - great! Now you can FEEL HIDEOUSLY SICK in the City too! 'Something smashed into the back of my head and everything slipped away' - AND get knocked out!

I am SO not moving to this City when I croak. Someone tell the gunrunning chubby hamster to keep her TARDISy paws OFF me.

So some Jesus bloke really DID resurrect his pal Lazarus? How exactly does that fit in with the fact the City of the Saved disproves all that nonsense about heaven?

Though surely it's NOT the 'only explanation' for there being two of 'em? There are plenty of clones and people-from-alternative-timelines and suchlike knocking aroud the City, aren't there?

Apocalypse Day - Rather tragic, despite all the previous stories having done their best to undercut said tragedy. 'We'd never troubled much with making ourselves hard to find' - why the hell NOT? You KNOW the Greeks and Trojans will be after Helen, it's all they've done for centuries, and you KNOW they can kidnap her and take her back to that stupid beach.


By Tim McCree (Tim_m) on Saturday, February 16, 2013 - 5:40 pm:

Hasn't this whole Faction Paradox been de-canonized by the New Series? Does it still have a place here among the canon monsters?


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Sunday, February 17, 2013 - 3:51 pm:

And don't forget the Sycorax - can the Faction possibly exist in the same fictional milieu as RTG's shoddy ripoff?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, February 17, 2013 - 4:32 pm:

Hasn't this whole Faction Paradox been de-canonized by the New Series? Does it still have a place here among the canon monsters?

I never said the whole Monsters section was CANON. After all, the Companions: Audios and Companions: Novels and Doctors: Other "Doctors" sections have plenty of non-canonical nonsenses in them...still, you have a point. Ever since the Sabbath comments were dumped into the Humans section (cos no one had much to say about him rather than due to his lack of canonicity), the Faction has been looking...lonely here. And we DO have a Novels: Miscellaneous: Faction Paradox section in which to discuss their print appearances, and an Audios: Other Spin-Offs: Monsters section in which to discuss their CD appearances...OK, I'll see if I can divide all this stuff between 'em.

And don't forget the Sycorax - can the Faction possibly exist in the same fictional milieu as RTG's shoddy ripoff?

Are NOT a shoddy ripoff! Are a loving...tribute to the Faction. And OF COURSE it's a big universe - there's plenty of room for TWO blood-obsessed bone-masked voodoo ritualist organisations with a Doctor fixation...


By Francois Lacombe (Franc0is) on Sunday, February 17, 2013 - 7:08 pm:

Or it could be parallel universes


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Sunday, April 03, 2016 - 2:52 am:

The second item in this article is of interest:

http://www.avclub.com/article/running-gag-vegan-bag-and-doctor-who-spin-novel-233668


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, April 03, 2016 - 6:25 am:

Ah, that's sweet. Personally I'd've gone for Warlords of Utopia or Of The City of the Saved as the absolute best FP novels, but what the hell.


By V117 (V117) on Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 8:52 am:

I'm surprised there's nothing on Obverse's Faction Paradox and more on their City of the Saved books? Are they not worth buying? How am I to judge these things without Ms. Carter's opinion? ;)


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 9:14 am:

To tell the truth, Lawrence Miles gave me the Faction Paradox rights as a present and I licenced Obverse to publish new Faction fiction and after my bad review of A Romance in Twelve Parts, Obverse's Stuart Douglas suggested that in the circumstances it was inappropriate or unprofessional (or some such thing that frankly I've never really got the hang of) to slag off the Obverse Faction books, ergo, I haven't READ any more of 'em for fear that the desire to slag 'em off on Nitcentral (or even praise them whilst listing a copious number of nits, which authors seem to find just as distressing, oddly enough) would overcome me...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Saturday, December 15, 2018 - 12:06 pm:

Newtons Sleep by Daniel O'Mahony:

'Thus the fallen matter, which in fact most keenly resembles the manure from which all garden idylls spring, becomes in fiction a happier symbol; how sly that it should be the apple, that sweet fruit of bitter knowledge and exile' - look, if THE DOCTOR said it's an apple (Pirate Planet) IT'S AN APPLE!

'If war be fought in Heaven then Earth be strewn with its portents. He believes this: as above, so below' - well that's just not true, is it. 'The Time War. The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged. Invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms' - The Unquiet Dead said so, so it must be so. (Admittedly this has been somewhat undermined since, what with Cass telling McGann to go himself and Gallifrey appearing in the skies above Earth and suchlike...)

'If there be no maidens why then he will make do with a pretty boy' - blimey, I doubt even Charles II's worst enemies ever accused him of having GAY sex.

'This Shire is solidly for Parliament; its soil is so sensible of its faith that were he to cross into its borders the very air would cause him to shrivel to stone' - for heaven's sake, we don't get Melkurs on Earth!

If Isaac Newton is possessed by an alien...whatever...how come the Doctor never noticed when he was dropping apples on his head (Pirate Planet) or being imprisoned by him (Circular Time)?

And how DARE he not include inventing the catflap in his fast-forward flick through his future life?

'A raggedy man danced a gleeful jig in the street to celebrate the regicide, and a flock of birds fell upon him to peck the eyes from their sockets and the tongue from his jaw' - ah yes, always considerate when a Who novel gets the eye-gouging out of the way on p9 so I don't spend the entire book wondering when it's gonna pop up...

'Their successor was the same lord of misrule, reborn in a new body with a new face and a new person and sometimes even a new sex' - great description of the Doctor, possibly not so appropriate for 'the pagan kings founded in England by Brutus' - I mean, they were KINGS. Married to a sacred Queen Regnant. I don't think they had lesbian marriage in pre-history...?

'Silver shook his head in bewilderment. "I knew nothing of this," he exclaimed' - well he certainly doesn't waste any time assuming his patron is INNOCENT of the charge of coinage-debasement (OK, so he isn't. That's not the POINT).

'The ranks of her contemporaries having been drastically thinned' - but she was a kid when the civil war ended! Who exactly slaughtered all the males of her age?

'"The Faction was misrule. It was meant to shock. The biggest shock of all was when the order started to admit people like me - and you." "English folk?" "Human folk." Olympia laughed. "Don't think of it as an order. It's a carnival and we are the flesh and the bone"' - hadn't the Homeworld already admitted human scum? Leela (Invasion of Time). Ace (Gallifrey: Intervention Earth).

'They're wiping us out across the board, whole colonies and long-term projects ripped out of history as if they'd never been there' - I'm sure this fits in with The Book of the War but am totally failing to see how it fits in with The Faction Paradox Protocols, wherein the Great Houses say 'Come home Faction, we really like you!' and they say 'Yeah, OK'. And promptly get eaten by -TARDIS-from-hell Lolita. (Sure, Godfather Morlock told 'em to walk right into the trap but it's not like he told 'em how to get out of it...)

Wow the whole Alice Lynch = Mistress Thomas Piper = Little Sister/Cousin Greenaway thing is painfully obvious. By which I mean I'm REALLY pained I didn't spot it ten years ago, one can't really claim credit for working stuff out ON THE REREAD, maybe I was just so incensed by the 'Mistress Thomas Piper' stuff to be suspicious of it, after all, women's identities WERE utterly subsumed in their husbands' in those days, as opposed to this enlightened post-feminist era where women get to keep their first names at least!!

'"I would spit in God's eye," she said firmly. "How worse can Hell be than what He has already visited on us on Earth?"' - Look, I'm not saying being locked in your house to starve to death while your husband dies of plague is a heap of fun, but it's definitely preferable to being roasted in hell for, like, ETERNITY. If you can't reconcile your own experiences with the existence of a beneficent God then BECOME AN ATHEIST, moron!

What, Alice gets to join the Faction just by sacrificing a chicken? Whatever happened to killing your ancestors (before it's too late!)?

'"Gentlemen!" he said confidently' - even though some of them are WOMEN?

'Silver might become suspicious if she were constantly at his side' - um, as it turns out SHE'S HIS GIRLFRIEND...probably not.

To be continued...


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, December 16, 2018 - 6:04 pm:

'Most buildings resented their occupants, the human parasites whom they saw as an essential but intrusive part of their reproductive cycle, and could be persuaded into petty conspiracies against them' - must admit this is a lot more believable for some reason than those godawful sentient houses in the Chimes of Midnight and The Condemned audios...and may even help explain how they GOT into that really silly state, but still...

'Homeworlder magic - the capacity to see into the mind and the soul' - since WHEN! Even the glowy-eyed gits in War Games weren't that great at reading minds and as for SOULS - surely the Time Lords don't actually BELIEVE in them?

The navel is a 'fascinating blemish'...'They're beyond love and death. They're not born, they're grown on machines'...'The Homeworlders were sexless...but that frigid blankness was said to be powerfully erotic in itself' - hmm. This was written three years into our Glorious Resurrection yet still used Lungbarrow as its template rather than, say, the fact the Doc had spent the last three years snogging various Companions...?

'You should see some of the things they've become. Once they would have grown back looking like ordinary men and women, but since the War started...' - haaang on, I got the impression that Cwej was the only moron trying to turn himself into a tank via regeneration (Dead Romance)? And that this was frowned upon by the Time Lords (Tears of the Oracle)?

'You like cats?' 'Who doesn't?' responds Alpha Behn despite living in a time when lots and lots and lots of people don't like cats, the sick freaks.

'"I want to see what kind of monster we can grow in your womb. Half-man, half-well...whatever hellish thing you are." The object of Bendo's vicious intentions didn't even shrug. "No. That would be impossible"' - oh yeah? Tell it to Mr 'Half-Human' Eighth Doctor...

Reinette? THE Reinette?!

'He felt certain this must be a simple burglar - le Pouvoir were watching this place' - but disinclined to stop burglars nicking/destroying years of Nate's research for le Pouvoir?

'Some who knew her from that time said she'd put a gun in her mouth. It was a drastic course of self-improvement' - wouldn't that be way too risky? Kill yourself instantly and you die forever. Wouldn't shooting one of your hearts be a much better idea? Or just regenerating without mortal damage, a la Romana (Destiny of the Daleks) or the Newbloods who changed bodies the way they did their clothes (Christmas on a Rational Planet)?

'The Imperator had been troublesome even in exile. He'd be executed eventually, his body burned cleanly and scattered' - well, SOMEONE hasn't noticed Brain of Morbius, Warmonger, Vengeance of Morbius etc etc...(Alright, so they're exactly the sort of things the Time Lords WOULD hush up but as the Housekeeper talks about Morbius incessantly she probably should have spotted at least some of his resurrections...)

'The ship having died and collapsed in on itself leaving nothing worth looting' - whatever happened to the TARDIS graveyard (Omega) or Cracking the universe apart (Pandorica Opens)?

Did they really drive sheep onto a field to draw enemy fire in the seventeenth century?

'This is a continuity weapon. It doesn't just kill. It purges an individual's biodata from the Spiral Politic. Kill the host with this, and it will be as if she never existed. And it will take our prisoner with it' - but what the Housekeeper fails to emphasise is that if she as the host is already dead then it won't bloody work. Also, if Little Book's dead then she won't be able to plunge said needle into said hearts, obviously. So if it breaks loose all the ex-prisoner - aka the worst thing in the universe - needs to do is to kill one of 'em. Which makes it an incredibly rubbish failsafe system. And also makes it really really weird that he deliberately left 'em both alive. And sat around while Little Book faffed around failing to administer the coup de grace until it was too late.

OK, not really getting the significance of the strange foreign child whose place Greenaway took?

Well, that was an excellent if vaguely incomprehensible novel with considerably less torturing-of-animals to death than I remembered. And Faction Cat is a delight requiring SEVERAL SEQUELS.

Ah, that's sweet, the Acknowledgements thank me for protecting Lawrence Miles from Daniel. I always thought it was the other way round.

Newtons Sleep Prologue:

House Paradox? The War King was inaugurated before it became a renegade Faction since WHEN!

The War King was inaugurated before the WAR?!

(Dammit, have GOT to reread The Book of the War, asap.)


By Kate Halprin (Kitten) on Monday, December 17, 2018 - 8:42 am:

I think - it's been a while since I read it - that the idea is that Morbius/the Imperator sees the War coming and decides to set himself up as War King, but gets deposed before that happens.

So someone else (Leon Ny Taiy) gets to be the actual War King when the War finally turns up.


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Wednesday, January 06, 2021 - 2:18 pm:

Wow. I wasn't expecting BIG FINISH of all people to back up the insane hints in The Book of the War that the War President of Gallifrey was...THE MASTER. Yet in Masterful Jacobi was waffling on about maybe he could have averted the Time War and his own people would have made him President...


By V117 (V117) on Tuesday, April 27, 2021 - 9:06 pm:

Obverse's Stuart Douglas suggested that in the circumstances it was inappropriate or unprofessional (or some such thing that frankly I've never really got the hang of) to slag off the Obverse Faction books, ergo, I haven't READ any more of 'em for fear that the desire to slag 'em off on Nitcentral (or even praise them whilst listing a copious number of nits, which authors seem to find just as distressing, oddly enough) would overcome me...
Why would it be inappropriate to, 'nitpick'/slag off the books? It's unfair given you've already reviewed the .M.N.P. and .R.S. ones. Plus you do hold the rights afterall. Then again Mr Douglas is apparently known for being oversensitive to criticism.


New Faction anthology threatened, (see below) and more novels are apparently on the way.

From the newsletter:
We're putting together a new Faction Paradox anthology and we've left a slot - maybe two - open for open submissions.
Here's the details...

In the story 'Library Pictures' in the initial Obverse faction collection, A ROMANCE IN TWELVE PARTS, Iris Wildthyme searches for Panda in a Faction Prison called The Boulevard.
Here's what Iris had to say about the place:

'If the rumours are right then the entire place is endless, a single Frankenstein's street made up of a million different roads and lanes and highways, each grabbed up by Faction Paradox at the moment of its destruction, and stitched together to create the Boulevard; part prison, part museum, part showing off.

'I heard once that this is the place where the Faction imprison one of their own lot if they go to the bad. Very into imprisonment, the Faction. They say they've got one really bad guy locked in the eye of a storm or down a well or inside a sock or something. But most of the rest of them are stuck in the Boulevard, trapped in their own particular tailored realities, doomed to pay for their crimes for...eternity.

'There are only two types of being here, Sammy – prisoners and computer generated AIs to live alongside them. Nobody else at all. If you're locked up here you literally don't have a friend in the world.

'Gives me the bloody willies, so it does.'

For once with the Faction, what we're looking for is all pretty straight-forward... just ask yourself the question, what would you need to do - criminal, political, far odder than either of those - to end up in a Faction Paradox prison?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 - 2:11 pm:

Why would it be inappropriate to, 'nitpick'/slag off the books? It's unfair given you've already reviewed the .M.N.P. and .R.S. ones.

Well, that was before I OWNED the Faction. And the book WAS dedicated to me. And a lot of people got their feelings hurt, even though a) they didn't have the guts to come on here and defend their stories and b) if they'd bothered to read any of the rest of the site they'd realise that Romance in Twelve Parts got let off pretty lightly compared to what I think of MOST Who fiction so it's almost certainly a case of 'it's not you, it's me.'

Still, I have numerous beautiful books full of Factiony goodness on my shelves that I haven't read cos what on Earth would be the POINT of reading something if you can't rip it to pieces on Nitcentral afterwards and it's becoming increasingly frustrating so I'm seriously thinking of grabbing one and attempting to be POSITIVE about it on Nitcentral no matter what. Should be an interesting exercise. A bit unfair to every OTHER Who-related book that's been left in dismembered pieces, perhaps, but not dishonest as long as I make it clear that this is what I'm aiming for...

'I heard once that this is the place where the Faction imprison one of their own lot if they go to the bad. Very into imprisonment, the Faction. They say they've got one really bad guy locked in the eye of a storm or down a well or inside a sock or something. But most of the rest of them are stuck in the Boulevard, trapped in their own particular tailored realities, doomed to pay for their crimes for...eternity.

Haaang on, if there's a prison full of members of Faction Paradox, why the hell didn't Justine or Eliza mention it when they were on the run as THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBERS OF HOUSE PARADOX after Lolita swallowed the Eleven-Day Empire...?


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Friday, February 04, 2022 - 1:58 am:

Faction Cat is a delight requiring SEVERAL SEQUELS.

OBVIOUSLY said sequels must entail Faction Cat teaming up with Group Marshal Cat from The Great Sontaran War, no question about it...


By V117 (V117) on Sunday, April 24, 2022 - 4:04 pm:

Still, I have numerous beautiful books full of Factiony goodness on my shelves
I'll give Obverse that the front covers are nice, it's just a shame the same can't be said for most of the contents, (mainly the anthologies).

Haaang on, if there's a prison full of members of Faction Paradox, why the hell didn't Justine or Eliza mention it when they were on the run as THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBERS OF HOUSE PARADOX after Lolita swallowed the Eleven-Day Empire...?
Inuniverse they either weren't told for security reasons are just simply forgot. Out of universe: You still expect the Obverse writers, (mostly Faction tumblr users *shudder*) to respect lore/mythos beyond what enables their fanon and think through what they write?
In a way I'm glad you haven't read them as it means your a font of Faction knowledge untainted by this... material.

More information on the latest release:
Faction Paradox: The Boulevard (Volume One)
Yes Volume 1, hopefully Volume 2 has some of the proper Faction, (.M.N.P. and .O.B. novel) writers involved and feel connected to the universe. Oh who am I kidding.

The Boulevard (Faction Paradox: Location Unknown)
More formally, The Boulevard of Alternate Brutalities, the Boulevard is a Faction Paradox prison.

Physically, the Boulevard is, as the name suggests, a single broad street, stretching for an unknown distance in both directions, and lined on one side with a dense forest of oak trees.

Facing this forest is the prison itself, which is comprised of buildings lifted from throughout history at the moment of their destruction. This lifting extends to the street immediately outside each building, giving the Boulevard a patchwork appearance, and leading one time travelling visitor to describe the Boulevard as a ‘funky Frankenstein’s Monster of a place’.

Behind each doorway on the Boulevard there is a cell, containing a single prisoner. Each cell can extend to encompass anything from the traditional square concrete enclosure with barred windows, to an entire planet. It is believed that the Boulevard is controlled by an appointed Godfather and a cadre of Cousins, assisted by guards taken from certain of the more aggressive Lesser Species.

Although there has never been any formal proclamation regarding the purpose of the Boulevard, it is believed that the environment of each cell is tailored to the punishment – or, possibly but implausibly, the rehabilitation – of the individual imprisoned.

[from Apocrypha to The Book of the War]

A Reasonable Man – Gareth Madgwick
Body and Soul – Paul Hiscock
The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Aging – Tim Gambrell
Marticide – Robert Shepherd
The Sisters Of The Little Moments – Kelly Hale
You Are The Absurd Hero – Kevin Burnard
The Oracle – Philip Marsh
The Fixer – James K. Maddox
This Is What They Took From You – Phil Shaw
The Crikeytown Cancellations – Charles Murphy


Basically like, "The Book of the Peace" only more so. I'll wait until someone uploads an illegal ebook copy somewhere then skim read it to see connected to the Faction mythos it is, (though I'm not holding my breathe) then delete it.

Edited by Stuart Douglas.
... Yeah I'm not buying this.

How Obverse uses the Faction Paradox


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Monday, April 25, 2022 - 2:15 am:

I'll give Obverse that the front covers are nice, it's just a shame the same can't be said for most of the contents, (mainly the anthologies).

*Wince*


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Sunday, May 01, 2022 - 4:29 pm:

OK, not really getting the significance of the strange foreign child whose place Greenaway took?

Daniel has now explained (alas, a little late as I've now totally forgotten about said child):

Basically when I was writing the story my idea was that Mother Sphinx would die (of old age) during book three, Cousin Hateman would become the leader of this particular FP cell, and then during the fourth book they'd be training up a new Little Sister as their mission progresses.

Except when I came to write it, Mother Sphinx refused to die so I abandoned that idea and kept her as leader for the rest of the book. So the newbie didn't get a role, but I decided to add a little cameo so she at least got an appearance. All the stuff about "the Grandfather's hand" is supposed to suggest that she was destined to get the job that Justine has in the audios but make a much better fist (ahem) of it, and eventually gets recruited by a different cell instead and becomes just a common or garden Cousin instead.

I can't remember how much I knew about her before I wrote the cameo except that she was definitely going to be a little girl. I think I wanted to make her an Australian aboriginal fairly early on but couldn't swear to it. I didn't come up with her name until I started writing her bit. And the reference to FP as "The Bone People" is a little nod to the country of my publisher's, as it's also the title of NZ author Keri Hulme's Booker winning novel from 1984 that everyone hated (not least because it beat 'Empire of the Sun' to the gong).


By V117 (V117) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 5:17 am:

Over at the new Faction Paradox Forum, we’re starting a reading group for The Book of the War, the first book/bible of the FP series. https://factionparadox.boards.net/thread/24/book-club-announcement-reading-schedule

This is a great chance to start Faction Paradox if you’ve been holding out! A user on the forum is doing their best to make sure as many people as possible have copies, so hopefully we can get a big group.

And if you’re already a pro with The Book, there’ll be something for you, too: we’ll be using the “Design Specs for Advanced Users” reading order to linearize the entries and make the stories easier to follow, and according to one early reader, this points to a “90% certain” identity for the Enemy!.

Whether it’ll be your first time reading or your fiftieth, please join in, and tell your friends, too!


By Emily Carter (Emily) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 11:32 am:

Ooh, excellent idea! Frankly this site pretty much devours my life so I don't particularly want to get involved with another one, but I HAVE been feeling a Book of the War reread is in order for quite a while now...


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