Guide to Faction Paradox

Faction Paradox is a franchise tangentially connected to Doctor Who, featuring godlike beings who control time known as the Great Houses, a time-traveling cult known as Faction Paradox, and a cosmic war fought across the very fabric of space-time. The stories told within this setting vary wildly, with sometimes the only shared traits being the fact of their taking place within this massive, cosmic setting filled with wild and vibrant worldbuilding ideas.

The franchise tends to be thought of in the Doctor Who fandom as some obscure, super-complex, hard-to-get-into spinoff of Doctor Who. This is true in some ways – however, it’s a lot more approachable than many make it out to be! Many installments of the franchise are quite standalone – everything ties into everything else, yes, but that doesn’t mean there’s prerequisites. Hell, you barely have to know Doctor Who to enjoy it! Rather, it just means that the more of the franchise you’ve consumed, the more context and perspective you get on each individual installment, which makes reread/relisten value very high.

Here’s my own breakdown of the various corners of the franchise, in an attempt to make it as approachable and understandable as possible.


Introductory Media

Faction Paradox lets you start at pretty much any point, but certain books serve as a particularly smooth or helpful inroads to the series.

There’s the relevant story arc in the Eighth Doctor Adventures books, of course; these serve as an inroads if you’d prefer to have something familiar to start you off.

Eighth Doctor Adventures guide

These are all the books relevant to the Faction Paradox / War in Heaven arc of the Eighth Doctor book series. Personally I’ve only read Alien Bodies and Interference, so if I’ve got anything wrong here please let me know.

As for content that’s part of the franchise proper, there’s a couple good inroads. To start off I would recommend these two books:

  • Dead Romance - originally published as a Bernice Summerfield VNA without Bernice Summerfield, it was later republished as a Faction Paradox novel with some minor edits to help it better fit into this franchise. This is the book I recommend most people start off the franchise with; it introduces you to the universe through a distinctly down-to-earth human perspective.
  • The Book of the War - basically the Faction Paradox bible. It’s an encyclopedia/novel that details all sorts of things in the universe, allowing readers to work their own way through the lore and explore the wild world of Paradox. It’s a labyrinth of fascinating stories, lore, and mysteries, and a great way to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts and æsthetic of the franchise. This is the backbone of the series, with everything from here on out being built on this baseline. Unfortunately it’s out-of-print and borderline impossible to get your hands on a copy, but you know how it is with the internet.

Audio Dramas

Faction Paradox has two seasons’ worth of audio dramas, with different studios and actors but the same main cast of characters throughout. The audio series focuses on two Cousins of Faction Paradox who are suddenly thrust into a crucial position in the Faction, and who must fight to keep Faction Paradox alive while encountering threats from all sides. Also they’re kinda gay :3

Notably, the two main characters in these audios are Cousin Justine from Alien Bodies, and Christine Summerfield from Dead Romance (here known as Cousin Eliza). But once again, you don’t need to know their backgrounds to enjoy them here. The second season also features Gabriel Woolf returning to the role of Sutekh!

Audio drama guide

Season 1: The Faction Paradox Protocols

(produced by BBV)

Season 2: The True History of Faction Paradox

(produced by Magic Bullet Productions)


Comics

There was a short-lived comic series set after the War in Heaven. It only lasted two issues out of a planned twenty-something, so the storyline never got wrapped up, but it’s an interesting curiosity.

Comic guide

Novels

Faction Paradox has a long-running series of novels, each of which tell their own standalone story set in the same universe. Almost every novel has a different author, and the series has been shunted around to different publishers over the years, meaning each book offers something different. Once again, there is no set reading order here!

Novel guide
  • This Town Will Never Let Us Go - over six hours one night in a small town, a young adult attempts to awaken a horror beneath the town’s surface, an ambulance crewman makes nervous preparations for something drastic, and a pop star becomes all too aware of her own reflection. By the end of the night, humanity’s future may very well be changed forever.
  • Of the City of the Saved - The City of the Saved is essentially Heaven, a haven for all of humanity at the end of the universe where nobody can so much as get hurt… so what does it mean when a City Councillor turns up murdered in his own bedroom?
  • Warlords of Utopia - An aristocrat born into a world where Ancient Rome just kept growing in prosperity, Marcus Americanius Scriptor was the man who discovered parallel universes, championing the war between the universes where the Nazis won WWII and the universes where Rome never fell. This tome is a rip-roaring memoir of his interdimensional exploits.
  • Warring States - Cousin Octavia, lover-to-enemy of Princess Anastasia of Russia as detailed in the Book of the War, travels to Boxer Rebellion–era China in an attempt to find the secret of immortality – but she’s not the only one in pursuit of it.
  • Erasing Sherlock - Gillian Petra has traveled back in time to Victorian London to complete her master’s thesis on the life of young Sherlock Holmes. However, as she’ll soon discover, Sherlock – and the intrigue surrounding both of them – is a lot more than she’s bargained for.
  • Newtons Sleep - Three denizens of 17th-century England get wrapped up in a war across the heavens, one more complex than they could ever have imagined. As Nate Silver, Mistress Piper, and Aphra Behn all make contact with the celestial in distinct ways, each of them finds themself chasing after the War in an attempt to find their life’s purpose.
  • Against Nature - I honestly can’t come up with a good brief summary for this one – it’s very complex and symbolic, if also very good. It’s kind of a stealth sequel to Doctor Who’s “The Aztecs” so that’s neat.
  • The Brakespeare Voyage - Robert Scarratt leads a galaxy-sized timeship on a mission to capture one of the beasts who live in the void between universes. For reasons he’ll slowly come to understand, however, there’s parties working against him on all sides, including the very denizens of the ship he’s supposed to be captaining…
  • Head of State - As the next US election cycle is getting into gear, journalist Rachel Edwards is sent to report on its events, and comes to realize there may be a conspiracy afoot – or at least a serial killer stalking the campaign, which is never fun. Meanwhile, a couple of centuries prior, Richard Burton explores Arabia and the course of his life is changed indelibly.
    (I haven’t read any of the novels following Head of State so I can’t provide synopses! I’m sure they’re well worth it, though.)
  • Weapons Grade Snake Oil
  • Spinning Jenny
  • Hyponormalisation: A Faction Hollywood Production
  • Inward Collapse

Anthologies

The most recent holder of the Faction Paradox license, Obverse Books, has come out with a series of anthologies based on it, many of which have interconnecting themes and occasionally even story arcs.

Anthology guide

The City of the Saved

The City of the Saved was introduced in – where else? – the Faction Paradox novel Of the City of the Saved: it’s a city at the end of the universe where every human who ever lived exists. This is a premise packed with potential, and Obverse has accordingly come out with a whole series of anthologies set in the City!

I’ve already written up a whole guide for this corner of the franchise here, but the gist is that you can read Of the City of the Saved, followed by “A Hundred Words from a Civil War” from the anthology A Romance in Twelve Parts, and you’ll pretty much be good to go for the anthology series.

City of the Saved guide

And that’s that! I hope this helps people find this franchise more approachable :slight_smile: Frankly, between early drafts of books, Arcbeatle spinoffs, and books which started life as Faction novels before being published independently, there’s even more than this to explore if you’re really invested… but I’m doing my best not to be overwhelming, so perhaps those kinds of things are best saved for a separate post. For now, please enjoy this guide and the wonderful, strange world of Paradox!

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So useful thank you! I have been wanting to dip my toes into FP but as I’m reading the EDAs I feel like I at least have to get to Unnatural History before I start

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For what it’s worth, I didn’t read any EDAs until long after I’d gotten into Faction Paradox… I started with the Book of the War and the audios!

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Massive thanks to you @glass_shard :tada: Awesome guide and instant bookmark!

This is hard for me. I even watch classic who in a space-time randomizer way so who knows what would happen when I try to untangle FP series… :crazy_face:

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Well, like I said, everything grants context to everything else, so there’s really no wrong way to do it in my view. Though I would really recommend dipping your toes into the Book of the War early on…

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I’ll end up trying to read five novels and eight short stories while on the audios orz

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Oh goodness, with how tangled the plots of individual Faction novels can get I wish you the best of luck keeping track of all that XD

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I liked the BBV/Magic Bullet audio series.

I would to get more into FP, but I can only hold so many fandoms in my frazzled brain.

Cool guide though.

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Thank you so much! This is really useful, especially since I still need to get around to properly go through it all (or at least the ones I can). I must say I am surprised how many Publishers got involved with it to some extent or another.

Really appreciate it overall, going to save this Guide for the Future!

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I’ve heard that time lords (and other doctor who things) exist in faction paradox but are just called something else, but I’ve also heard that they’re not the same thing. Are they like alternative universe versions? Or just inspired by the concepts?

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Absolutely bookmarking this, seems a great guide, thank you!

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Time Lords essentially exist, but everything in Faction Paradox has been renamed both for copyright reasons and to better fit the æsthetic. So there’s Time Lord–like beings known as the “Great Houses”, which you can think of as reconceptualized Time Lords. Similarly, there’s a lot more lore around TARDISes that wasn’t in Doctor Who, and they’ve been renamed “timeships”.

Faction Paradox’s canonical relationship to Doctor Who is weird, more generally speaking. Most FP material is legally distinct from Doctor Who and treats itself as being in its own isolated universe, but every now and then there’ll be a reference to Doctor Who concepts or characters that reminds you that FP started out as part of a Doctor Who book series. It’s stuck in a weird limbo where it wants to be its own thing but is kind of doomed to be connected to Doctor Who just by virtue of how it started out and how esoteric it is. And nowadays with Obverse having the license there’s even less effort to cordon it off from Who canon.

Ultimately, as with any expanded universe material, it’s canonical to Doctor Who but only if you want it to be. Personally I try to treat it as its own independent work of fiction whose universe just has occasional connections/similarities to Doctor Who’s universe – it reads better that way for me – but plenty of people treat it as being a Doctor Who spinoff that’s canonical to the show. Canon is a tricky word and especially so when it comes to obscure spinoffs like this that are so many layers removed from the show proper.

TL;DR the answer to your question is “yes, no, and all of the above”

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How very Faction Paradox :smiley:

My main experience of FP is the EDAs (although I’m only up to Casualties of War so there’s a chunk I haven’t read) and the audios both the BBV and Magic Bullet. I enjoyed the BBV ones but the Magic Bullet ones are better - and I love how they tie in Osirian lore as well.

I do have The Book of War but haven’t read any of it for years.

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Another piece of advice for anyone who wants to get into FP but isn’t sure where to start, Weapons Grade Snake Oil is a book that requires very little / no prior knowledge to get into, and is absolutely phenomenal, especially the ending, but no spoilers of course
(I love this book and compulsively have to bring it up and recommend it any time anyone mentions FP)

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