[This originally was part of the next article to be posted on that blog, but it grew into a separate rant, and I thought it would be good to use what little #influencer power I have to convince people to give money to a good cause: progressive and good storytelling.]

There’s a vested interest in talking about “The Book of the Peace” on this site. It’s a book made, mostly, by friends of mine, friends that I interviewed on here before the launch. That’s why you didn’t see any review of it on the site: because the review format, whether I want it or not, does carry with it an implication of objectivity, and I wouldn’t want to have people misguided. But still, given that the thing hasn’t stopped wandering through my brain since I first read it, I think a write-up is required. So, let’s use this keyboard as a gun and drop some bullet points.

Because I see you. I know you have hang-ups about that side of expanded universe, about this looming esoteric threat in the background. You’re allured by promises of representation and cool sci-fi storytelling, but, well, the Faction repulses as much as it attracts. So, let’s make a case for it, alright? Obviously, all that stuff matters: Obverse Books is a really important creative voice in Who right now, and they need money to maintain this creative and experimental space, which is all the more important given the emphasis they place on getting new writers into the Who production circles, especially LGBT+ and BAME ones; and, if you have money to spare (if you don’t, no one will shame you for it, fandom classism is a bane, but at the very least hopefully the following should get you a bit more on board with the project) you should put your money where your mouth is.

But let’s not take that into consideration. Let’s be philosopher-kings, and make an abstract, intellectual case for why, indeed, you should read Faction Paradox books (and “The Book of the Peace” specifically. BUY IT.)

“But no one can understand Faction Paradox stuff unless they have a PHD in Who studies!” is the thing you’re logically going to use as a defence to not buy this book. And yes, there is a reputation of obscurity surrounding the licence/Who spin-off (it depends who you’re asking, really), one that might have been cultivated by writers and part of the fandom. But it’s not fundamentally true. People who make these books are smart enough to realise the potential barrier to entry, and act accordingly. They are not what you’d call necessarily light reading: they are very dense, very rich, and sometimes, yes, kind of demanding – but there is room for that in the Expanded Universe, and it’s because of their stylistic choices and commitment that they are so, not because of canon and continuity. I have described the Faction before as “free-associative canon poetry”, and I’ll stand by that – just as with good poetry, you don’t need to understand every single part to appreciate the general aesthetic tableau; emotion and power can carry through. And they do with that book, which specifically was designed to be a good starting point and introduction.

Really, the reason why people get fixated on the canon thing is that a lot of Faction Paradox stories are designed to make you think, to figure out what the underlying structure of the narrative is. But, that’s the thing, they also very much affirm the principle that there’s no right answer! There’s not one absolute canon they all connect back to: but they’re very good at teasing your imagination and asking you how YOU, yourself, think they fit within the Whoniverse and your subjective vision of it. There are nods to mythos and to the vast expanses of Who canon, yes, obviously, but, be it only because a lot of those happen in a grey space caused by the lack of proper BBC publishing rights, they give you a ton of freedom to interpret and twist the meaning of things. Yes, Faction Paradox demands, in a way, research: but that research isn’t about spending hours on TARDIS Data Core picking at obscure comic books and tomes of forgotten lore. It’s much more a look inside of yourself: a demand of the text that you construct an appropriate shrine to it, an effort to expand your definition of Who to include these new places and their wild, abstract geometry.

Taking examples from The Book of the Peace, since this is the one that spawned this article – there is this ability the book has, through prose, of conveying very specific moods. More than moods, really, relationships to time and modes of engagement with the world, that draw from your experience reading the story to create new spaces. “To Dust We Shall Return”, for instance, is based entirely on the idea of repetition, of a character trapped in a hopeless routine (not just in the plot, but in a larger text linked to gender roles and the genre trappings the story borrows), and in doing so, forces you to reconsider how you envision both some aesthetical choices Who has made, and how a simple piece of technobabble like “time loop” or “Dead Frontier” can actually carry very real and human ontological implications. “The Ugly Spirit” turns the idea of the celebrity historical, of conjuring a fictional, exaggerated duplicate of a real person, a doppelgänger of ink, paper or film, into existential horror. “What Keeps Their Lines Alive” focuses on theatrical performances, and in adopting the time and rhythm of the performance, draws attention on all the backstage drama, the shifting identities (in all the meaning of the word) of the characters and performers: once again taking basic elements essential to everyone’s understanding of Who (it’s a show that is produced by people, and renewal and cycles are a key part of it), and dramatizing those in a way that forces you into contemplating deeper meaning and reframing your perspectives on the show. Intellectual catharsis, you might call it: a game of dark mirrors and twisted reflections that, in the end, gives you a better and wider appreciation of the world above, the exposed face of the Who iceberg.

And that process is one that, largely, carries into the real world and very current concerns. “Going Once, Going Twice” is one of the most emotionally powerful pieces of fiction that I’ve read this year, for instance. Because, beyond the mythology and the pretty smoke shapes that the prose calls forwards, there is at its core a tension that I find familiar: one that’s anchored in a gay love story; one between stillness, immobility, and the chaos and possibility of life among the stars. It speaks to real experiences: being frozen in time, incapable to move, paralyzed by the stare and expectations of others, is a concept behind which you can see the shadow of the closet; and when that lock breaks through queer love, it doesn’t just feel like a thing that happens within the narrative of Faction Paradox books, but like an utterly beautiful breakthrough that makes the story possibilities of the Whoniverse this much larger, all the more appealing. And, without even really realising it, you might start drawing parallels with other stories. The writer was, for instance, quite baffled when I initially told him his story made me think of a queerer “Hell Bent”: and really, he was probably right, because what I expressed was an inaccurate summary of the processes at work. It’s not that “Hell Bent” necessarily was an influence on the story: it’s that the story made me rethink what I knew of “Hell Bent”, interpret it under a new light, read it according to this queer and singular tension Black taps into. In a different way, that’s also what happens in my favourite story of the collection, “Jukebox”. In a way, it’s not all that different from something like “Demons of the Punjab”, prime example of postcolonialist Who they both are. But because of the medium and the way it builds engagement with the audience, it goes a lot further than “Demons” ever could: it actively forces you to assume the point of view of the colonised and the oppressed within the diegesis of Who. It forces you to think of that diegesis, of the Whoniverse, in postcolonial terms. And that is absolutely vital and brilliant storytelling.

Carole Clover, in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, talks a lot about horror as being, at its core, an educative and formative experience. For all that it can be exploitative, it is also based on female perspectives: it forces the male audience to adopt the point of view of the final girl, it makes them experience, in that Linda Williams-body-genres way, typically feminine fears and traumas; and can, therefore, hopefully contribute to making them better. Faction Paradox is, in a way, to Doctor Who what horror movies are to mainstream cinema. The gender coding isn’t nearly as present, but I think it is fair to say it aims to educate Whovians in the same way. Forcing them to identify with the weird, the unsaid, the strange things crawling at the periphery or the show or between its most secret recesses: and in the process, making them engage with the text(s) of Who in new, original, and honestly probably better and healthier manners.

So, goddamit: go read Faction Paradox books. It’s good for your soul – if you don’t plan on selling it, that is. And especially, go buy The Book of the Peace, because it’s frankly told an obscenely good piece of Who made by extremely clever and talented people, and that it deserves to be praised, and remembered. Even if you don’t – talk about it! Engage with the writers, ask them about things, get curious, get initiated! These places have beauty in them, the kind you really cannot experience by just retweeting Looms memes on Twitter. Take a chance, take a step, and who knows what treasures are waiting for you?

Bloodline to bloodline, in constant transition.

Our pattern, our flesh, and our one restoration.

Conception, completion, the will of the city.

Grandfather watch me, Spirits maintain me.

Header image credit: Elena Snegotskaya & Vladimir Snegotsky