Faction Paradox

''Faction Paradox'' is a series of novels, audio stories, short story anthologies, and comics set in and around a "War in Heaven", a history-spanning conflict between godlike "Great Houses" and their mysterious enemy. The series is named after a group originally created by author Lawrence Miles for BBC Books' ''Doctor Who'' novels.

Overviews

Originally a subplot in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, the War involves several characters and concepts evolved from the original ''Doctor Who'' set-up. In several cases, the ''Faction Paradox'' series still features these groups, albeit with names changed for reasons both literary (most of the groups or items mentioned are described from different perspectives) and legal (the Faction and the Enemy are Miles's creations, but other elements are not – thus the Great Houses are the Faction Paradox range's equivalent to ''Doctor Whos Time Lords). Faction Paradox themselves are ''not'' the enemy in this War, and play a neutral part, willing to act against both sides in their own interests. Miles has described them as "a ritualistic time-travelling guerrilla organisation".

The semi-mythical founder of Faction Paradox is Grandfather Paradox, named after the grandfather paradox of time travel theory. Originally a member of the Great Houses himself, the Grandfather created a new group after he became frustrated with the ways of the Great Houses. Faction Paradox therefore takes a good deal of pleasure in irritating the Great Houses, and many of their traditions and rituals are aligned in direct opposition to the way the Great Houses do things. Their time machines are bigger on the inside, in much the same way as TARDISes are, and the familial titles its members use (e.g. "Father", "Cousin") reference family units which the Great Houses lost when they became sterile.

Faction Paradox also take a perverse pride in causing time paradoxes (something that is against the laws of the Great Houses) and achieving impossible or absurd effects for their own sake. For instance, they typically wear ritual skull masks which are in fact the skulls of vampirised members of the Great Houses who, in the Great Houses' version of history, never existed. Their stronghold on Earth exists in a version of London, within what they call "The Eleven-Day Empire", bought from the British government in 1752. In that year, the British Empire first adopted the Gregorian calendar, and in so doing had to correct their dating scheme by 11 days (2 September 1752 being followed by 14 September 1752). Faction Paradox claimed the missing 11 days as their base (building on the illogicity that only the numbering scheme changed and no days were actually "missing").

Stories

Doctor Who (BBC Books)

After a brief mention of Grandfather Paradox in the Virgin New Adventures novel ''Christmas on a Rational Planet'', Faction Paradox and the War in Heaven made their debut in BBC Books' Eighth Doctor novels.

The most relevant books to the ''Faction Paradox'' universe are:
*''Alien Bodies'' (Lawrence Miles, 1997)
*'' Unnatural History'' (Kate Orman and Jon Blum, 1999)
*'' Interference: Book One (Shock Tactic)'' (Lawrence Miles, 1999)
*'' Interference: Book Two (The Hour of the Geek)'' (Lawrence Miles, 1999)
*''The Blue Angel'' (Paul Magrs, 1999)
*''The Taking of Planet 5'' (Simon Bucher Jones and Mark Clapham, 1999)
*''The Shadows of Avalon'' (Paul Cornell, 2000)
*''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'' (Lawrence Miles, 2001)

Several other ''Doctor Who'' novels featured or referenced Faction Paradox, most notably ''The Ancestor Cell'' (written by Stephen Cole and Peter Anghelides in 2000), ''The Quantum Archangel'' (written by Craig Hinton in 2001), and '' The Gallifrey Chronicles'' (written by Lance Parkin in 2005), but were contradicted or otherwise ignored in the ''Faction Paradox'' series.

Faction Paradox (BBV)

A series of full-cast audio dramas dubbed ''The Faction Paradox Protocols'' was produced by BBV between 2001 and 2004. All were written by Lawrence Miles. These stories centred on two Cousins of the Faction, Justine and Eliza. (Justine had previously featured in the BBC
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