Faction Fiction

Since some of those reading this weblog will be doing so without a clear idea of the context into which Of the City of the Saved... fits, I've realised it's probably a good idea to plug the other novels published by Mad Norwegian Press in its Faction Paradox series.

So... for a start, there's The Book of the War, the collaborative anthology / encyclopedia / novel published back in 2002, edited by the Faction's creator Lawrence Miles, and written by Lawrence, Simon Bucher-Jones, Daniel O'Mahony, Ian McIntire, Mags L Halliday, Helen Fayle, me, Kelly Hale, Jonathan Dennis and Mark Clapham. You can read about it on my web pages or Mad Norwegian Press's. It's a fantastic read (I'm allowed to say that, as I only wrote around 4% of it), with multiple interwoven strands of narrative set out in encyclopedia format. It's not the only novel I'm aware of which uses this technique (Lawrence was rather irritated when I pointed out Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars to him), but it does so to great effect. The beauty of it is that all the different strands of story have distinct flavours, arising from the various authors' styles. My segments are fairly easy to spot now I've been "outed" as the creator of the City of the Saved, but the real highlight of The Book, for me, is the story of Faction Paradox's Hollywood wing. It's full of great stuff, though, and highly recommended.

The Book of the War is usually cited as Number 0 in the Faction Paradox series, which makes Lawrence Miles's This Town Will Never Let Us Go, published last November, Number 1. This is a fantastic, weird, warped and richly indulgent book, full of authorial asides and the occasional rant: it centres around ideas of politics, war and ritual (and says so, repeatedly). Lawrence's technique here has been compared with early twentieth century surrealism, rather than SF: either bravely or insanely for the first novel in a series, it takes the view that none of the central characters or forces in the Faction universe necessarily exist, seeing them instead as artefacts of popular culture. Fortunately (for what could frankly have ended up being a pretty pretentious read), This Town is firmly grounded both by its humour and the ordinariness of its central characters, who include a pop princess, a ritual-obsessed goth chick and an ambulance driver flirting with dangerously radical politics. It says disturbing and sometimes profound things about our world.

Of the City of the Saved... is due out in April: my pages on it are here, and Mad Norwegian's are here. A Preview of it is available both online and as an Appendix to This Town. To follow it, Mad Norwegian have announced novels Number 3 and 4: Lance Parkin's Warlords of Utopia, due out in August 2004, and Mags L Halliday's Warring States, due in December.

Lance's novel is about an apocalyptic transdimensional war between all the parallel universes where Rome never fell, and all the ones where the Nazis won World War II, which is about as high-concept as can be imagined. I'm a great admirer of Lance's work, and am thrilled he's going to be writing for Faction Paradox. Mags Halliday was one of the contributors to The Book of the War (she also moderates the unofficial Faction Paradox forum). Warring States brings back one of The Book's more intriguing characters, Cousin Octavia, and sends her to China in 1900, the time of the Boxer Rebellion.

I should also mention the Faction Paradox comics and audio dramas, both of which are Lawrence Miles's preserve.

Sorry if I've gone slightly overboard with the links there. If you're only interested in OtCotS because I'm writing it (because you are, for instance, my mother -- hi Mum), then none of the above will interest you. Otherwise, I hope it's informative. I really think the Faction novels are shaping up to be an excellent series, and that they will repay close attention. Honestly, I wouldn't be trying to sell them to you otherwise.