The Book of the War (novel): Difference between revisions

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[[Simon Bucher-Jones]], [[Daniel O'Mahony]], [[Ian McIntire]], [[Mags L. Halliday]], [[Helen Fayle]], [[Philip Purser-Hallard]], [[Kelly Hale]], [[Jonathan Dennis]], [[Mark Clapham]], and [[Lars Pearson]]<ref name="BotW Question" /> all contributed material to the book. Each contributors mostly worked on their stories independently, only discovering [[Lawrence Miles]]'s added intersections with other stories once the book was released. It was deliberately kept unclear as to which authors contributed which entries, but later releases provided some clues.
[[Simon Bucher-Jones]], [[Daniel O'Mahony]], [[Ian McIntire]], [[Mags L. Halliday]], [[Helen Fayle]], [[Philip Purser-Hallard]], [[Kelly Hale]], [[Jonathan Dennis]], [[Mark Clapham]], and [[Lars Pearson]]<ref name="BotW Question" /> all contributed material to the book. Each contributors mostly worked on their stories independently, only discovering [[Lawrence Miles]]'s added intersections with other stories once the book was released. It was deliberately kept unclear as to which authors contributed which entries, but later releases provided some clues.
* As editor, [[Lawrence Miles]] was responsible not only for writing many entries but also for rewriting and interweaving the other writers' contributions. The "Faction Paradox Family" section was credited to him in the book's notes, and it had been previously released on the ''Faction Paradox'' website.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20011115105551/http://www.factionparadox.co.uk:80/family.htm The Faction Paradox Family]</ref>
* As editor, [[Lawrence Miles]] was responsible not only for writing many entries but also for rewriting and interweaving the other writers' contributions. The "Faction Paradox Family" section was credited to him in the book's notes, and it had been previously released on the ''Faction Paradox'' website.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20011115105551/http://www.factionparadox.co.uk:80/family.htm The Faction Paradox Family]</ref>
* [[Simon Bucher-Jones]] contributed slightly more than any other writer besides Lawrence Miles. The final edition of ''The Book of the War'' included at least one entry by him for every letter of the alphabet, including "Lords Celestial", which was interrupted by [[Shift (Alien Bodies)|the Shift]];<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/ask-the-author-sbj-t716.html#p4629 Ask the Author SBJ]</ref> the "Design Specs for Advanced Users" included a "The A-Z of the War" section that featured entries for many concepts also explored in his books ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]'' and ''[[The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)|The Brakespeare Voyage]]'', such as [[Robert Scarratt]]<ref>Credited to Bucher-Jones in the acknowledgments of ''[[Weapons Grade Snake Oil (novel)|Weapons Grade Snake Oil]]''</ref> and the [[Leviathan (The Book of the War)|Leviathans]].<ref>[http://simonbjones.blogspot.com/2014/01/shard-apocrypha-brakespeare.html Brakespeare Initialisation]</ref> The [[Order of the White Peacock]] also appeared in ''[[The Book of the Enemy (anthology)|The Book of the Enemy]]'' and early drafts of ''The Brakespeare Voyage''.<ref>[https://simonbjones.blogspot.com/2014/01/shard-apocrypha-brakespeare.html Shard Apocrypha - Brakespeare Initialisation]</ref>
* [[Simon Bucher-Jones]] contributed slightly more than any other writer besides Lawrence Miles. The final edition of ''The Book of the War'' included at least one entry by Bucher-Jones for every letter of the alphabet, including "Lords Celestial", which was interrupted by [[Shift (Alien Bodies)|the Shift]].<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/ask-the-author-sbj-t716.html#p4629 Ask the Author SBJ]</ref> Perhaps relatedly, the "Design Specs for Advanced Users" included a "The A-Z of the War" section which featured entries for many concepts also explored in Bucher-Jones' novels ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]'' and ''[[The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)|The Brakespeare Voyage]]'', such as the [[Leviathan (The Book of the War)|Leviathan]]s and [[Robert Scarratt]], who was credited to Bucher-Jones in the acknowledgments of ''[[Weapons Grade Snake Oil (novel)|Weapons Grade Snake Oil]]''. The [[Order of the White Peacock]] also appeared in ''[[The Book of the Enemy (anthology)|The Book of the Enemy]]'' and early drafts of ''The Brakespeare Voyage''.<ref>[https://simonbjones.blogspot.com/2014/01/shard-apocrypha-brakespeare.html Shard Apocrypha - Brakespeare Initialisation]</ref>
* [[Daniel O'Mahony]] came narrowly in third place for words contributed to the book. He wrote far more for ''The Book of the War'' than ended up in the final draft, and Bucher-Jones only overtook him in the final edit.<ref>[https://removalvan.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/pantechnicon_issue_eight.pdf Pantechnicon Issue Eight]</ref> He drew heavily from his rejected [[BBC Books]] novel proposals, saying "the entire plot of one outline is embedded in there somewhere, while a lot of the background for another became a major part of the Faction universe."<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/author-author-dom-t914-s10.html#p5756 Author! Author! DOM]</ref> The planet [[Lethe (The Parliament of Rats)|Lethe]], mentioned in the entry for the [[Lethean Campaign]], previously appeared in his Doctor Who short story ''[[The Parliament of Rats (short story)|The Parliament of Rats]]'', itself a scene from a BBC novel proposal.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20061213205116/http://www.gallifreyone.com:80/interview.php?id=omahony O'Mahony Gallifrey One Interview]</ref> He would later use [[babel]]s, [[Thessalia]], and the [[Order of the Weal]] in his novel ''[[Newtons Sleep (novel)|Newtons Sleep]]''. He stated that he'd had no involvement in [[Michael Brookhaven]]'s filmography.<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/brookhaven-a-filmography-t534.html Brookhaven: A Filmography]</ref>
* [[Daniel O'Mahony]] came narrowly in third place for words contributed to the book. He wrote far more for ''The Book of the War'' than ended up in the final draft, and Bucher-Jones only overtook him in the final edit.<ref>[https://removalvan.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/pantechnicon_issue_eight.pdf Pantechnicon Issue Eight]</ref> He drew heavily from his rejected [[BBC Books]] novel proposals, saying "the entire plot of one outline is embedded in there somewhere, while a lot of the background for another became a major part of the Faction universe."<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/author-author-dom-t914-s10.html#p5756 Author! Author! DOM]</ref> The planet [[Lethe (The Parliament of Rats)|Lethe]], mentioned in the entry for the [[Lethean Campaign]], previously appeared in O'Mahony's Doctor Who short story ''[[The Parliament of Rats (short story)|The Parliament of Rats]]'', itself a scene from a BBC Books novel proposal.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20061213205116/http://www.gallifreyone.com:80/interview.php?id=omahony O'Mahony Gallifrey One Interview]</ref> He would later use [[babel]]s, [[Thessalia]], and the [[Order of the Weal]] in his novel ''[[Newtons Sleep (novel)|Newtons Sleep]]''. He stated that he had no involvement in [[Michael Brookhaven]]'s filmography.<ref>[https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/factionparadox/brookhaven-a-filmography-t534.html Brookhaven: A Filmography]</ref>
* [[Ian McIntire]] introduced [[Carmen Yeh]] in his unlicensed short story ''Schrödinger's Botanist'' for the 1998 [[charity publication|charity anthology]] ''Perfect Timing''. The related entries were co-written with [[Mad Norwegian Press]] CEO [[Lars Pearson]].<ref name="BotW Question" /> He also contributed to the entry for [[the War King]], including the detail of the unfolded [[hypercube]] on his desk, which was intended as a link to one of his other, ultimately-rejected entries.<ref>[http://big-finish-sketches.tumblr.com/post/177895970788/id-a-facebook-post-by-ian-mcintire-which-says-i A Facebook post by Ian McIntire]</ref>
* [[Ian McIntire]] introduced [[Carmen Yeh]] in his unlicensed short story ''Schrödinger's Botanist'' for the 1998 [[charity publication|charity anthology]] ''Perfect Timing''. The related entries were co-written with [[Mad Norwegian Press]] CEO [[Lars Pearson]].<ref name="BotW Question" /> He also contributed to the entry for [[the War King]], including the detail of the unfolded [[hypercube]] on his desk, which was intended as a link to one of his other, ultimately-rejected entries.<ref>[http://big-finish-sketches.tumblr.com/post/177895970788/id-a-facebook-post-by-ian-mcintire-which-says-i A Facebook post by Ian McIntire]</ref>
* [[Mags L. Halliday]] wrote about [[Anastasia Romanov|Anastasia]] and the [[Thirteen-Day Republic]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040814202707/http://www.bbc.co.uk:80/cult/doctorwho/books/telepress/halliday/page8.shtml BBC Online Interview]</ref> She later used Cousin [[Octavia Sutherland|Octavia]] in ''[[Warring States (novel)|Warring States]]''.
* [[Mags L. Halliday]] wrote about [[Anastasia Romanov|Anastasia]] and the [[Thirteen-Day Republic]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040814202707/http://www.bbc.co.uk:80/cult/doctorwho/books/telepress/halliday/page8.shtml BBC Online Interview]</ref> She later used Cousin [[Octavia Sutherland|Octavia]] in ''[[Warring States (novel)|Warring States]]''.
* [[Philip Purser-Hallard]] wrote the articles concerning the [[City of the Saved]],<ref name="SWWW">[http://www.infinitarian.com/botwswww.html "So, Who Wrote What?"]</ref> which he had originally developed for his ultimately-unproduced ''[[Iris Wildthyme (series)|Iris Wildthyme]]'' novel ''[[Iris Wildthyme in the City of the Saved (novel)|Iris Wildthyme in the City of the Saved]]''.<ref name="iriscity" /> He would later revisit the City in his novel ''[[Of the City of the Saved... (novel)|Of the City of the Saved…]]'' and in [[Obverse Books]]' [[The City of the Saved (series)|''City of the Saved'' anthology series]]. He also wrote the entry for [[House Mirraflex]],<ref>[https://twitter.com/purserhallard/status/926070499729428480 purserhallard on Twitter]</ref> although Miles thoroughly overhauled it in editing. Purser-Hallard commented that he had not written the articles on [[Wallachia]], [[Michael Brookhaven]], [[Grigori Rasputin]], or the [[Spiral Politic]].<ref name="SWWW" />
* [[Philip Purser-Hallard]] wrote the articles concerning the [[City of the Saved]],<ref name="SWWW">[http://www.infinitarian.com/botwswww.html "So, Who Wrote What?"]</ref> which he had originally developed for his ultimately-unproduced ''[[Iris Wildthyme (series)|Iris Wildthyme]]'' novel ''[[Iris Wildthyme in the City of the Saved (novel)|Iris Wildthyme in the City of the Saved]]''.<ref name="iriscity" /> He later revisited the City in his novel ''[[Of the City of the Saved... (novel)|Of the City of the Saved…]]'' and in [[Obverse Books]]' [[The City of the Saved (series)|''City of the Saved'' anthology series]]. He also wrote the entry for [[House Mirraflex]],<ref>[https://twitter.com/purserhallard/status/926070499729428480 purserhallard on Twitter]</ref> although Miles thoroughly rewrote it in editing. Purser-Hallard commented that he had not written the articles on [[Wallachia]], [[Michael Brookhaven]], [[Grigori Rasputin]], or the [[Spiral Politic]].<ref name="SWWW" />
* [[Kelly Hale]], who herself is part [[Native American]], wrote the entries concerning Cousin [[Belial (The Book of the War)|Belial]] and the Faction's [[Remote]] experiments on Native American warrior tribes. She would later revisit Native America and [[Wounded Knee]] in ''[[Project Thunderbird (short story)|Project Thunderbird]]''.
* [[Kelly Hale]], who herself is part [[Native American]], wrote the entries concerning Cousin [[Belial (The Book of the War)|Belial]] and the Faction's [[Remote]] experiments on Native American warrior tribes. She later returned to Native America and [[Wounded Knee]] in ''[[Project Thunderbird (short story)|Project Thunderbird]]''.
* [[Jonathan Dennis]], who had previously written the story ''The Hollywood Life'' for the [[1999 (releases)|1999]] charity anthology ''Perfect Timing 2'', created [[Faction Hollywood]] for ''The Book of the War''. However, those entries also included major contributions from at least three other writers,<ref name="BotW Question" /> including Lawrence Miles<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20031218032809/http://www.factionparadox.co.uk:80/interview1.htm Lawrence Miles on Language, Literature and Lying to the Audience]</ref> and Simon Bucher-Jones.<ref>[https://the-voice-of-light-city.tumblr.com/post/171601681800/rassilon-imprimatur-i-think-the-funniest-thing#notes Re:"Through The Eye of Eternity" modest cough]</ref> Dennis also contributed one other full plotline and several miscellaneous entries. He later revisited Faction Hollywood in his stories ''[[Remake/Remodel (short story)|Remake/Remodel]]'' and ''[[Hyponormalisation: A Faction Hollywood Production (novel)|Hyponormalisation]]'', and he co-write ''[[The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)|The Brakespeare Voyage]]'' with Bucher-Jones.
* [[Jonathan Dennis]], who had previously written the story ''The Hollywood Life'' for the [[1999 (releases)|1999]] charity anthology ''Perfect Timing 2'', created [[Faction Hollywood]] for ''The Book of the War''. However, those entries also included major contributions from at least three other writers,<ref name="BotW Question" /> including Lawrence Miles<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20031218032809/http://www.factionparadox.co.uk:80/interview1.htm Lawrence Miles on Language, Literature and Lying to the Audience]</ref> and Simon Bucher-Jones.<ref>[https://the-voice-of-light-city.tumblr.com/post/171601681800/rassilon-imprimatur-i-think-the-funniest-thing#notes Re:"Through The Eye of Eternity" modest cough]</ref> Dennis also contributed one other full plotline and several miscellaneous entries. He later revisited Faction Hollywood in his stories ''[[Remake/Remodel (short story)|Remake/Remodel]]'' and ''[[Hyponormalisation: A Faction Hollywood Production (novel)|Hyponormalisation]]'', and he co-write ''[[The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)|The Brakespeare Voyage]]'' with Bucher-Jones.
* [[Mark Clapham]] and Bucher-Jones had previously explored the [[Celestis]] in their cowritten [[Eighth Doctor]] novel ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]''.
* [[Mark Clapham]] and Bucher-Jones had previously explored the [[Celestis]] in their cowritten [[Eighth Doctor]] novel ''[[The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)|The Taking of Planet 5]]''.

Revision as of 02:24, 9 August 2022

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prose stub

The Book of the War was the first novel in the Faction Paradox series.

Edited by Lawrence Miles and written collaboratively by more than ten authors, The Book of the War was formatted like an encyclopedia, with a number of stories spread across multiple alphabetically-sorted entries. In each entry, some words were emphasised in bold to point to other entries with that name, enabling the reader to jump around the book and read related entries.

Publisher's summary

The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage… assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past…

Entries

This page lists the entries in the order specified in the "Design Specs for Advanced Users", which were published on a hidden page of the Faction Paradox website,[2] rather than alphabetically as they appear in the book. Two errors were deliberately included in the "Design Specs": the nonexistent entry "Scarratt's Group" in "The A-Z of the War"; and the exclusion of an "Easter egg" entry which was not linked to in other entries and therefore unfindable except by reading in alphabetical order.

The Core Entries

History of Faction Paradox

The History of Earth

The A-Z of the War

With the inclusion of the prior and subsequent entries, "Robert Scarratt" and "Jungle Children", this section includes one entry for every letter of the alphabet.[3]

Houses and Orders

The History of the Homeworld

The History of Posthumanity

The Academician's Story

The Non-History of the Celestis

The Shift's Story

The City of the Saved

The Impaler's Story

The Thirteen-Day Republic

Labyrinths

The Ghost Dance

The History of the Remote

Faction Hollywood

The End

Coda

References

Notes

  • While editing The Book of the War, Lawrence Miles described it as "a continuity in a book, it's an encyclopaedia to the War Era universe. It's got a structure rather than a plot, the way history's got a structure or a Bible's got a structure. Some parts of the universe are cross-referenced with other parts, and it all comes together to make up this great big … vision."[4]
  • Miles carefully structured the book so it could also be understood if the entries were read in alphabetical order: at one point, he specifically requested that Jonathan Dennis rename a character to move the respective entry in the book.[5] The entries in several sections of the Design Specs listing are notably given in alphabetical order.[2]
  • Miles was selective regarding which concepts were explicitly borrowed from the Doctor Who universe, particularly with regards to alien species. For instance, he had permission from the Robert Holmes estate to use the Sontarans, who had previously appeared in his The Faction Paradox Protocols audio stories, but he decided they weren't necessary.[6] In contrast, he obtained permission from Neil Penswick to use the Yssgaroth from The Pit, because, even though the concept was generic, Miles described "Yssgaroth" as "the best name I've ever heard".[7]
  • Lawrence Miles briefly considered releasing an expanded version of The Book of the War on CD-ROM.[8] Though Mad Norwegian Press' other Faction Paradox books would be later be released as ebooks, CEO Lars Pearson said that the number of permissions that would be needed from the contributors made it untenable.[6]
  • The entry for the City of the Saved quotes a traveller's lyrical description of the City as "an urban sprawl the size of a spiral galaxy… a fabulous shimmering lightscape nonillions of miles across". This traveller was intended to be Iris Wildthyme.[9]
  • Besides its continuity connections to the Doctor Who universe, The Book of the War also includes references to many stories from other universes and genres. For instance, the effects of praxis and, more specifically, the story of Robert Scarratt defusing a native uprising on House Xianthellipse's praxis-supplying planet reference the classic science fiction novel Dune; similarly, the Eremites, who self-mutilate and live in the labyrinth, mirror the Cenobites from Clive Barker's Hellraiser franchise.

Who wrote what?

Simon Bucher-Jones, Daniel O'Mahony, Ian McIntire, Mags L. Halliday, Helen Fayle, Philip Purser-Hallard, Kelly Hale, Jonathan Dennis, Mark Clapham, and Lars Pearson[1] all contributed material to the book. Each contributors mostly worked on their stories independently, only discovering Lawrence Miles's added intersections with other stories once the book was released. It was deliberately kept unclear as to which authors contributed which entries, but later releases provided some clues.

Unincluded entries

The book credits Lance Parkin, David A. McIntee, and Eddie Robson as writers who "wanted to play but whose material didn't quite fit anywhere".

Additionally, Simon Bucher-Jones wrote two extra entries, "Protective Neotony" and "Instant Animals", for the planned CD-ROM expansion of the book; after the cancellation of that project, he published the entries on his blog.[8]

Continuity

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lars Pearson (22 May 2003). Re: BotW Constructing Themes Question. The Faction Paradox Community.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Design Specs for Advanced Users
  3. ↑ In the original "Design Spec" document, the nonexistent entry "Scarratt's Group" was included in this section as an intentional error.
  4. ↑ Outpost Gallifrey Interview
  5. ↑ Re: JP The Book of War
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Re: Faction Paradox (Non-BBC) - Your Favourites
  7. ↑ Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Book Of The War unused material
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Iris Wildthyme in the City of the Saved
  10. ↑ The Faction Paradox Family
  11. ↑ Ask the Author SBJ
  12. ↑ Shard Apocrypha - Brakespeare Initialisation
  13. ↑ Pantechnicon Issue Eight
  14. ↑ Author! Author! DOM
  15. ↑ O'Mahony Gallifrey One Interview
  16. ↑ Brookhaven: A Filmography
  17. ↑ A Facebook post by Ian McIntire
  18. ↑ BBC Online Interview
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "So, Who Wrote What?"
  20. ↑ purserhallard on Twitter
  21. ↑ Lawrence Miles on Language, Literature and Lying to the Audience
  22. ↑ Re:"Through The Eye of Eternity" modest cough
  23. ↑ Lawrence Miles on Twitter
  24. ↑ Myth Makers Past Issues
  25. ↑ Rejected Book of the War entries
  26. ↑ Eddie Robson's previously unpublished entries
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