Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)

	Obverse Books
	Simon Bucher-Jones
	The Book of the Enemy
	25 January 2018

Pre-narrative Briefings formed part of the linking material of The Book of the Enemy. Each was a briefing in the form of a quote of varying length from a person or document, chosen to accompany the following story.

Of the nineteen parts, two were written by Michael Simpson and Lesley Brakken, and the remaining seventeen were written by the anthology editor Simon Bucher-Jones and attributed to fictional individuals. Biographies for these individuals appeared interspersed among the real author biographies at the end of the book; several of them were referenced within the corresponding briefings.

Briefings

Letter	Attribution	Accompanying story	Author
0	Entarodora and Irma Ebbinghaus	Subjective Interlock	Simon Bucher-Jones
A	Irma Ebbinghaus	The Annotated Autopsy of Agent A
B	Oracle of Shakespeare	Cobweb and Ivory
C	Michael Simpson	The Book of the Enemy	Michael Simpson
D	Irma Ebbinghaus	T.memeticus: A Morphology	Simon Bucher-Jones
E	Entarodora
F	Robert Scarratt	The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale
G	The Writer's Yearbook 2019	A Bloody (And Public) Domaine
H	Robert Scarratt	Life-Cycle
I	Entarodora	First Draft
J	Alain Chartier	Eyes
K	Xenaria Who Survived	We Are the Enemy
L	Marko Marz	Timeshare
M	Malachi Yarrow	A Choice of Houses
N	Book of Lies	Houses of Cards
O	Infancy Gospel of Grandfather Paradox
P	Psychiatrist	The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy
R	Gen Volst	No Enemy But Despair
Q	Lesley Drakken	The Map and the Spiders	Lesley Drakken
S	X-12		Simon Bucher-Jones

References

• Scarratt rejects the term "lesser species" as pejorative.
• The Utterlost Accords are mentioned.
• The Great Captains were House Military heroes in the War in Heaven.

Notes

• Pre-narrative Briefing Q appears between R and S.
• The pre-narrative briefings were followed by one "Post-Narrative Briefing", the final part of Subjective Interlock.
• In November 2017, Simon Bucher-Jones posted on his blog a cut excerpt from The Book of the Enemy. In it, the series of briefings is said to address "the essential problem of ENEMY IDENTIFICTION".

Continuity

• Irma Ebbinghouse notes that agents of the Enemy are referred to as "Reps". (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
• Robert Scarratt is "now definitely" dead. (PROSE: The Brakespeare Voyage)
• Powers that are not the Enemy, but have tried to take advantage of the Great Houses' paranoia, include the Mal'akh "hoping for a little payback"; (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, The Book of the War, et al) "the end-point summoned into the City of the Saved"; (PROSE: A Hundred Words from a Civil War, God Encompasses) defectors from the Sixth Wave; (PROSE: The Book of the War) a progressive timeship; (PROSE: Toy Story, AUDIO: The Shadow Play, et al.) and xenophobic mutants in personal war machines. (TV: The Daleks, et al.)
• The ideology of the Great Houses is compared to the Whig political party. The man with the rosette, one of the four surviving elementals, specifically wore the colours of the Whig party when the War was over. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, The Gallifrey Chronicles)
• Xenaria is considered a war hero and has been given the honorary title of "Xenaria Who Survived." (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)