Greg Maughan
When did you first encounter the Faction Paradox?
My first contact with Faction-y stories and ideas was reading Dead Romance when I was 15.
What interests you about the FP universe and made you want to write for it?
I like that FP can be used to distort and reshape stories, queering a text. I like that there is an outlet for the weird, for strange expressions of the personal and for bizarre marginalia to the cultural behemoth that birthed FP. I’m very happy that I’ve had the chance to offer my doodlings on those edges!
What are your other influences , and what particularly had an impact on your story?
William Burroughs is an important writer to me. So, I’m glad his mark can be felt on the TBOTP, even though it doesn’t have a direct bearing on the story I’ve written. B S Johnson and Anne Quinn too are very important, and I think have had an impact on how I think about what fiction is and why we might make it. In relation to my story, my starting point was thinking about the development of ‘Krautrock’.
How did you find the process of writing your story?
I really enjoyed working on TBOTP; it feels nice to think that someone believes your writing is worth encouraging, engaging with, editing and eventually publishing. I also enjoy working to commission and like having the weight of a deadline to focus my mind – as a shift worker with childcare responsibilities, without that nagging pressure very little of what rattles around in my head finds its way out at the moment, unfortunately!
What else do you write? Do you have other creative outlets?
I’ve had two previous short stories published by Obverse; one in the anthology The Perennial Miss Wildthyme and the other in A Treasury of Brenda & Effie. Other work has both previously appeared and is forthcoming in a few different charity publications.
Why should someone buy TBOTP?
Because it’s strange and fun and interesting, full of ideas and unexpected images. Because Obverse are a great publisher who you should support, and I can promise you’ll get more enjoyment from reading TBOTP than you will from trying to memorise the TARDISWikia entry on it! Because it contains stories from new and interesting voices that you’ll see more of in the future.
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Niki Haringsma
When did you first encounter the Faction?
I first read about Faction Paradox on TV Tropes. I was curious about the Doctor Who novels, found a few entries on the Eighth Doctor Adventures, started reading about Fitz Kreiner… and I was equal parts confused and terrified by what I found. The moment I encountered the Faction properly, in Alien Bodies, I fell in love and just dived headfirst into the rest of the lore.
What interests you about the FP universe and made you want to write for it?
I love stories about liminal identity; worlds in which everything feels alive, and where everything is continuously observed and dissected by the narrative; faux-encyclopedias; deeply emotional time paradoxes; and extreme gore. Writing for Faction Paradox allows me to explore all of that, and to even make it a lil’ bit sexy!
What are your other influences, and which particularly had an impact on your story?
Bertolt Brecht was one of my biggest influences in writing this. Others include the anime series Shoujo Kakumei Utena, the games Fallen London and Undertale, the lyrical styles of Joanna Newsom and Suzanne Vega, the art of Luigi Serafini, and the short story “An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” by J.L. Borges. Within Doctor Who lore, I think the novella Fallen Gods by Jon Blum and Kate Orman shaped me the most.
How did you find the process of writing your story?
I had most of my plot ready on day one, and then just spent months and months refining it. My friends were very amused by me whipping out my little black notebook at the most inopportune moments. I learned a lot about how to craft a story, and I had so much fun doing this.
What else do you write? Do you have other creative outlets?
I’ve also written a Black Archive — a book-length essay — on the Doctor Who episode Love & Monsters, which was published in early 2019. Other than that, keep an eye on my works in charity publications and non-fiction books! And if you’d like to see some weird art, feel free to have a look over at www.nikiart.nl.
Why should someone buy TBOTP?
If you’re new to the Faction, The Book of the Peace is a great introduction. If you’re a die-hard Faction fan, it answers a whole lot of pressing questions (and asks many more). And if you just want to read a super queer sci-fi book full of delicious horror, you’ve come to the right place!
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When did you first encounter the Faction?
With the Eighth Doctor! That “one night stand” of an incarnation utterly fascinated me when I dived into Classic Who a decade ago, and that led to obsessive research on Wikipedia, the old Doctor Who Ratings Guide, the archived rec.arts.who forums and finally diving into Big Finish and whatever BBC novels I could get my hands on. Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor is now my favorite incarnation, the BBC Eighth Doctor novels are my favorite corner of Doctor Who, and my understanding and love is irreversibly tied to the Faction. I met them through him, and discovering how much more material existed of this cabal of nechronomancers was really a great day for me. So I guess a better answer would be Alien Bodies…
What interests you about the FP universe and made you want to write for it?
The Faction Paradox universe is all about breaking the familiar and the loved, the things we’re nostalgic over. We can argue and debate all day about how connected/disconnected FP should be/shouldn’t be from Doctor Who, but FP was always about breaking Doctor Who. Taking the comfy aspects and tropes and characters and just destroying them. Running them through meat grinders, tortuous paths through shadowed valleys.
Faction Paradox killed the Doctor. Faction Paradox turned dusty Gallifrey into a War-churning Homeworld of eldritch horrors. Faction Paradox redefined TARDIS into terrifying timeships of infinite complexity and hidden masterplans.
It breaks, rebuilds, and redefines the things we love. The familiar becomes unfamiliar and terrifying, and I really wanted to dive into that.
I’m adamant that Doctor Who and Faction Paradox have had some of the greatest writers ever, and would be unfair and wrong to forget the influence the that Kate Orman, Jon Blum, Lance Parkin, Lawrence Miles, Lloyd Rose, Philip Purser-Hallard, and Daniel O’Mahony have had on my writing and this story in particular.
(But I also wanted to write a story where the FP mythos wasn’t afraid to laugh at itself a bit.)
What are your other influences, and which particularly had an impact on your story?
Outside of Faction Paradox and other Doctor Who-related prose, my favorite authors and inspirations are my biggest influences. Sir Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Ursula Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman. Bradbury himself is probably my biggest writing influence (his style has had the most sway over mine).
How did you find the process of writing your story?
I always start with an image when I write. A single, poignant scene or snapshot. I focus on the colour, the smells, the tension. I write it all out, no matter how wild or purple or unrestrained. Then I sit back, look at it, edit it, trim it, and look at it again. I decide if that’s the opening “shot,” the climax, the final glimpse of the characters before the big “FINIS.”
And then the outline starts!
(Pitching is actually quite a new thing for me, but usually my writing sample comes first and then I outline and summarize where on Earth I’m going with it. In the case of Peace, the central setting of my story, a bazaar of alien creatures with my character hiking through, was that first “image.”)
What else do you write? Do you have other creative outlets?
I was published in Faction Paradox: The Book of the Enemy after the awesome Simon Bucher-Jones took a chance on me. I will never be able to repay him for that and will be grateful for the rest of my life. Otherwise, my outlet is mostly fanfiction or pages and pages of in-universe ‘canon welding’ but I’ve had a novel “series” in the works for almost a decade now. I’m also something of a cartoonist, though I don’t really share my doodles with anyone.
Why should someone buy TBOTP?
It’s a unique Faction book. It really, really is. It celebrates queerness, both gender and sexuality. It presents the Faction as something new and exciting for newcomers. It presents the Faction as old friends to those returning. There’s some great returning lore from Eighth Doctor novels and some brand new, canon-shattering mythos. It’s really a great collection.
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Lawrence Burton (cover artist)
When did you first encounter the Faction?
Alien Bodies, so 1997. I wasn’t going to bother with those BBC novels, but it seemed like it had potential, plus I thought Christmas on a Rational Planet had been great.
What interests you about the Faction Paradox universe and made you want to write or create art for it?
It seemed to salvage all the elements I liked about Doctor Who and do something interesting with them whilst discarding the elements I enjoyed less, and which seemed limiting to me. It seemed closer in spirit to the sort of writing I enjoy – mostly science-fiction but not exclusively so – and also to chime quite loudly with certain aspects of the ancient Mexican view of the cosmos. I was up to my eyeballs in the ancient Mexican view of the cosmos in 1997 so I appreciated the parallels.
How did you come up with the idea for the cover painting?
Honestly, I don’t know. Once Philip Marsh (editor of The Book Of The Peace) told me that Burroughs would be making an appearance in the book, and he said he liked my photograph of a megatherium skull, it just sort of came to me fully formed in my mind’s eye. The best ones always do. It’s the ones I have to work at which never look right, at least not to me.
What techniques or materials did you use to realise it?
Well, it’s acrylic on paper for starters. The megatherium skull is in the natural history museum in Houston, and I took a photo of that a while back, then later used it in a collage whilst messing around with GIMP on my PC. Whacking up the colour saturation gave it that peculiar coppery quality, so I tried to keep that in the painting by using copper paint. I realise the shine of the original won’t show up the same in print, but never mind. It’s some of the way there. The collage aspect, specifically using pages from – I think Exterminator!, which was the first Burroughs I ever read, just seemed a logical choice given the aforementioned presence of himself. So I tore up a few pages, glued them to the paper and painted over them. It was a lot of fun because I’ve tended to avoid collage in recent times. It’s too easy, and hence not very satisfying; but when there’s a good reason, it really gets the job done. The hand is actually my own hand painted from life, so that’s my wedding ring there too.
Tell us about your other creative work (writing, art or whatever) and where can we find it?
So far as the art goes, I’m mostly concentrating on oils painted from life – landscapes with cacti and animal skulls, that sort of thing – because I’ve taught myself to paint in oils just this year, so that’s been interesting. I sell the paintings at local art markets, meaning you’d probably have to come to San Antonio if you wanted to buy one. I write all the time, and some of that appears on various blogs which I suppose can be found by Googling my name. The rest is towards a number of books I’ll be eventually publishing, and most likely self-publishing, at some point or another. I have a whole load of plates in the air and I spend a little time each day working on different things. There are a couple of novels in there, mostly finished, plus my Mexican Diaries which I’m indexing right now. I have a Lulu page already full of stuff from the last couple of decades, most of which would make an ideal Christmas present for anyone who is a bit dour; and of course there’s always the Faction Paradox novel (Against Nature) which Obverse put out.
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Nate Bumber
When did you first encounter the Faction?
When I first started watching Doctor Who I absolutely loved the dangerous mysteriousness of the Time War. I spent a lot of time imagining that war between two god-like civilizations throughout space and time; it’s no surprise that the portrayal in The Day of the Doctor didn’t live up to my dreams. So I decided I would write my own version! It was when I was googling around for cool Time Lord weapons that I found an article about “The Slaughterhouse” from The Ancestor Cell, and my first encounter with the Faction followed shortly thereafter when I started begging people for photos of any relevant articles in The Book of the War!
What interests you about the FP universe and made you want to write for it?
Oh, I just love it. I’m a sucker for a good setting, and the FP universe is a delightfully rich one, with its War in Heaven and its reckless “mythology-in-scifi-dressing” aesthetic. And the series itself occupies a very special place as the condensed heir of the wildest and most creative elements of the Wilderness Years. I never expected to write for the series, but I’ve spent enough time engaging with it as a fan that, when I was lucky enough to be asked to write for it, I had no shortage of ideas!
What are your other influences, and which particularly had an impact on your story?
All of my writing has been heavily influenced by the rational fiction community, which I was very proud to organise on the r/rational subreddit several years ago. As for my story in particular, without any spoilers, I watched a lot of heist movies in preparation. This was my own take on that genre.
How did you find the process of writing your story?
Honestly, it came at kind of a bad time for me. Usually, I love to write by sinking into the story and the setting and the characters and just mulling it all over for a few days. But while writing “A Farewell to Arms”, all flavours of real life issues threw themselves in my way! That said, Phil was an incredibly helpful and patient editor, and I’m really proud of the final product.
What else do you write? Do you have other creative outlets?
My main creative outlet is school! I do also have plenty of fiction and nonfiction writing projects in progress, including the very busy Drafts section of my blog https://doctornolonger.tumblr.com/. I also mod some communities on Reddit and edit some wikis.
Why should someone buy TBOTP?
It’s a great introduction to the Faction Paradox series, and it’s a great new chapter for returning fans. It plays with settings and ideas that haven’t been seen for twenty years, and it’s written by a diverse team of new talent who have brought some striking new ideas to the Faction Paradox universe. (And, besides its excellence as a collection, it’s published by the delightful Obverse Books at a pivotal moment for the FP range.) But you don’t need me to tell you any of that. Come see for yourself!
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Philip Marsh
When did you first encounter the Faction?
The first reference in the New Adventures novel Christmas On A Rational Planet, and then their first full appearance in Alien Bodies.
What interests you about the FP universe and made you want to write for it?
I like the anarchic element of the universe – for all its lore, by its very nature nothing is tied down and there are few rules you can’t break. I think it’s that setting more than the Faction itself or the War that I find compelling. As I got older I started finding myself wishing that the current Doctor Who series (which, I should say, has often been wonderful) would be bolder, chuck out the rule book and make the universe more dangerous and strange. And then I realised that that was what Faction Paradox has been doing for years. That said, one of the things I was very keen on was that The Book Of The Peace wouldn’t require any previous knowledge from the various novel ranges/short story collections/audio dramas/comics/board game* that have come before – I wanted it to be a perfect jumping on point for new readers, while hopefully satisfying the existing readership. As this is a book about what people do when they hear that the War is over, something we’ve never seen before, it seemed like the natural thing to do.
*not all of these items actually exist.
What are your other influences, and which particularly had an impact on your story?
Well, William S. Burroughs is the most obvious influence on my story ‘The Ugly Spirit’ as it is based on a particular journey that Burroughs actually made, and includes various nods to his writing. The reason I asked George Mann to write the final story in the volume was because of how brilliantly he’d handled epic science fiction in his Engines Of War novel, which had influenced my thinking about how I wanted the TBOTP to end. There’s also a touch of Neil Gaiman in the tone of part of what I wrote for the book, although I suspect I’ll be the only one who thinks so.
In more general terms, there are few things that I write in which I’m not attempting to channel Italo Calvino or JG Ballard, and Naomi Alderman, Paul Auster, Jack Kerouac, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and HG Wells are often in there somewhere, as well as the imagery of David Lynch.
How did you find the process of writing your story?
Difficult! More so than I’d expected. I’d had the idea of ‘The Ugly Spirit’ for a while, and had even discussed it with Stuart Douglas as the basis of a Faction Paradox novel, so when I sat down to write the short story version I was confident that it would be a fairly smooth ride. How wrong I was. After the first few scenes I got utterly bogged down in it and floundered, trying to find the best version of the story and the best way to tell it. It came together in bits. I revised key elements after reading the drafts of the other stories in the book which inspired me to think in new ways. Eventually I just put my head down and wrote my way through the block, and came up with a second half that went in a completely different (and, I think, much more interesting) direction than I expected. The process did, however, reminded me of why having an editor to bounce ideas off and get feedback from is a good thing, even though I’m quite pleased with how the story ultimately turned out.
What else do you write? Do you have other creative outlets?
I’ve written for Obverse before, contributing two Doctor Who stories for the Target For Tommy fundraising books, and I have an Iris Wildthyme story in the collection Wild Thymes on the 22 in which she and Panda get into an adventure at The Factory with Andy Warhol and his crowd. I’ve also written Sherlock Holmes short fiction for Titan Books and some essays on politics and literature for The Weeklings web site. I have a few ideas buzzing around in my head for novels and short stories that I want to write which cover various genres, it’s just a question of finding the time to write them.
Why should someone buy TBOTP?
Because it’s a collection of really good stories by writers who could go on to become your favourites. Because it’s a good entry point into a universe that is dark and dangerous, anarchic, frequently funny and full of bold ideas that will make your head spin. And because we all want Peace…don’t we?
