The Brakespeare Voyage (novel)

The Brakespeare Voyage
Main character(s):	Robert Scarratt, Nebaioth
Featuring:	Compassion
Main enemy:	Entarodora
Main setting:	The Brakespeare Mictlan Liverpool, May 1946 Hilberta's Hostel, 27th century
Key crew
Publisher:	Obverse Books
Writers:	Simon Bucher-Jones, Jonathan Dennis
Cover by:	Lawrence Burton
Release details
Release number:	9
Release date:	26 October 2013
Format:	Paperback novel
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-909031-14-2
Faction Paradox
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The Brakespeare Voyage was the ninth novel in the Faction Paradox series. The story featured Robert Scarratt and Entarodora, characters originating from The Book of the War.

Publisher's summary

"The Tribunal Decision in the matter of the Great Houses vs. Scarratt is as follows.

That the orders lawfully issued to the said Scarratt were deliberately ignored, as recorded in Scarratt's own thoughts, as recorded through the media first of the recording circuits of his timeship and then of the biodata retrieved from exhibit A."

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Jendrickenses
• Minkosa
• Robert Scarratt
• Entarodora
• Lord Dervishage
• Ella Stanton
• Thomas Hendron
• Cousin Nebaioth
• Father Cuttle
• Compassion
• Father Kercovian
• Plautus St. Germain
• Philetes
• High Priest Nodovekian

Worldbuilding

The War

• Minkosa recalls that Scarratt fought at Pentralaxia and Cuchailan's Rift.
• Minkosa posits that the discovery of Scarratt's head may be the worst breach in linearity since the Eight Day Week.
• Jendrickenses speculates that Scarratt's head may be one of the Seven Prophesied Heads of Severance.

Human history

• Anti-aging drugs began being sold to the public in 2028.
• Earth is swallowed by the Sun circa 12,000,000.
• While there were offshoots and "stray threads", the "core" final fate of humanity was to become homo solarians and live in the Sun.

Notes

• The Brakespeare Voyage was in development over a decade before its release, having its origins around the time that The Book of the War was finished. A synopsis draft from September 2002, which differed substantially from the ultimately-published version, was entitled A Noose of Stars to Hang Me and featured steampunk "Journey to the Centre of the Earth"-style imagery; it would have more heavily involved parallel universes, had Leviathans "swimming upstream" the Grandfather's Maw, and featured the Order of the White Peacock in a prominent role. Lawrence Miles thought the original premise was similar to Warlords of Utopia and advised that Simon Bucher-Jones take the novel in a different direction. It was Miles who suggested that the story have the nautical "Moby-Dick" motif which would become a large part of the final product. After Mad Norwegian Press announced the end of the Faction Paradox novel range in 2006, Bucher-Jones briefly posted on his blog an October 2005 synopsis of the novel, in which it was called Nebaioth, or, The Seventh Wave Boy's Book of Whaling for Universes.
• The cities of Kasting and Medicia were also featured in Simon Bucher-Jones' short stories Kasting and Medicia, entries in the Blind Atlas Cities series of short fictions, which expanded on the descriptions of the cities in chapter 37 of The Brakespeare Voyage. Additionally, another of Bucher-Jones' Blind Atlas Cities entries referenced "The Yarrow of the White Peacock", connecting to an earlier version of The Brakespeare Voyage.
• As briefly hinted at in the musings of Scarratt in the novel, the main character Nebaioth was named after the firstborn son of the biblical Ishmael. The main character of Moby-Dick was named "Ishmael" after said biblical character.
• Hilberta's Hostel is a play on Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel.
• Simon Bucher-Jones said that he wrote the first five chapters and everything involving "Scarratt/etc", while Jon Dennis did the Nebaioth chapters. However, they each tweaked each other's texts, so the wordage was roughly evenly split.
• Lawrence Burton posted previous versions of the cover art on his blog.

Continuity

• Scarratt claims to have been the last soldier to meet the Enemy in open parley before "the disaster on the plains of Utterlost". (PROSE: The Book of the War)
• Minkosa refers to the fact that the first message from the enemy was conveyed through a talking severed head. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
• Entarodora mentions that her Homeworld welcomed back many infamous outcasts and renegades during the War, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) some of whom climbed to high office. (PROSE: The Book of the War, The Taking of Planet 5, The Infinity Doctors, AUDIO: Body Politic, Words from Nine Divinities)
• Entarodora warns Dervishage of House Lolita. (PROSE: The Book of the War, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire et al)
• Scarratt is aware of the City of the Saved. (PROSE: The Book of the War, Of the City of the Saved... et al)
• Scarratt mentions Miss Foyle's House of the Rising Sun. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
• Compassion remembers that after Earth was made unsuitable for life, humanity had "long stays" first on Mars and then on Pluto. (TV: The Sun Makers, PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)
• Compassion jumps between strands of time, a process which was known by the term "skipping a time track" to her early predecessors. (TV: The Space Museum et al)
• Scarratt was involved in the Eighth Retro War. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
• Scarratt once gave a speech to Fifth Wave soldiers at Kobe. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

External links

• Official The Brakespeare Voyage page at Obverse Books
• The Brakespeare Voyage at the Faction Paradox wiki