The Book of the War

The Book of the War
Published by Mad Norwegian in 2002 and described as "a stand-alone novel in alphabetical order", 'The Book of the War' serves as the foundation for the wider Faction Paradox literary universe, seeding plotlines as diverse as The City of the Saved and the machinations of the Celestis and House Lolita.

Structurally, 'The Book of the War' is a fictional encyclopaedia of some of the core events, major and minor players and ephemera of the first 50 years of the War between The Great Houses and their enemy.

Blurb
The Great Houses

Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy

Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox

Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage... assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War

A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past...

(A) Suggested Reading Order
Although there is no one true way of reading 'The Book of the War', one potential approach is as follows:

The Core Entries:

Spiral Politic; Great Houses; House Military; Celestis; Faction Paradox; Remote; Lesser Species; Yssgaroth…

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The History of Faction Paradox:

Anchoring of the Thread; Armour; Audience of the Ruling Houses; Caldera; Eleven-Day Empire; Fashion Paradox; Gregorian Compact; History; Imperator Presidency; Intervention; Linearity; Loa; London (Eighteenth Century); Morlock; (House) Paradox; Recruitment; Ritual; Severance; Sombras que Corta; Stacks; Stendec; Tower Hill; Unkindnesses; Westminster…

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The History of Earth:

Analytical Engine; Book of Enoch; Burton; Byron; (Ada) Byron; Canon per Tonos; Clockwork Ouroboros; Eleven-Day Empire: The 1834 Attack; Ghost Clusters; Grand Families; Grindlay's Warehouse; Grotesques; Karachi; Liber Sanguisugarum; Mal'akh; Maltese Incident; Mountains of the Moon; Musical Offering; Napoleonic Era; "Princess of Parallelograms"; Shelley Cabal; Society of St. George; Speke; Star Chamber; Walking Dead; Xianthellipse; Scarratt…

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The A - Z of the War:

Scarrat's Group; Entaradora; "Monsters" Coda; Xenoprediction; "You" Diversions; "Probability" Doctrine; Confusion; Utterlost; Zero Time; Gravity Spiders; Time-Thickening; Apportation; Women (Dressing Up as); Nechronomancers; HEM; Ordifica; Intercreationals; Leviathans; Quintessence; Redemption Cult; Forced Regen Missions; D-Mat; Burlesque Devices; "Killerbots" (Autonomic); Vaccinations (Temporal)…

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Houses and Orders:

Jungle Children; Hauserkinder; "Justine's Story"; Arpexia; Babels; Casts; Catherion; Ixion; Leathean Campaign; Order of the Weal; Thessalia; War Predictions: Chatelaine Thessalia; Zo la Domini…

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The History of the Homeworld:

Closed Session; Dronid; Dvora; Enemy; Faraway Declaration; First Message from the Enemy; Head of the Presidency; Homeworld; Lineacrux; Nine Homeworlds; Noosphere; Presidency; Protocols of the Great Houses; Regen-Inf; Ruling Houses; Sex; Space (Five Famous Battles); Timeships; Tobin; Umbaste; War King; Yeh; Appendix III; Compassion…

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The History of Posthumanity:

Earth; Posthumanity; Praxis; Siloportem; Time-Travel: Posthuman; War Predictions: The Rivera Manuscript; Appendix IV…

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The Academician's Story:

Academicians for Game Logic; Devonire; Grandfather Paradox (Representations); Grandfather's Arm; Kaiwar; Paradox Anxiety; Thousand-Year Battles; Waves; Appendix I…

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The Non-History of the Celestis:

Anarachitects; Chaotic Limiter; Conceptual Entities; Fluxes; Gargoyles; Meme; Mictlan; Order of the Dragon; Ottoman Purges; Sacrifice; Shifts...

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The Shift's Story:

Beshielach; Dating War Era Events; Greater Autrobulan Franchise; Lords Celestial; Memeovore; Planetesimals; Reboots; Worldofme…

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The City of the Saved:

City of the Saved; Timebeast Assault; Verrifant; Mirraflex; Mantissa; Het Linc; Secret Architects; Uptime Gate; Lefcourt; Krymtorpor; Ghetto of the Damned; Foaming Sky; Order of the Iron Soul; Pinocchio; Rump Parliament; Timon; (House) Halfling; Piltdown Mob; Sons of Tepes…

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The Impaler's Story:

Tirgoviste; Ulterior Worlds; Vlad III; Wallachia; Djinn; Edimmu; Gragov; Halved Birth; Investigators; Investigator 31; Mark of Indenture; Poenari Relic; Rasputin…

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The Thirteen-Day Republic:

Anastasia; Cult of Celebrity Death; Dyavol; House of Lords; Malachite Room; Nadim; Octavia; Red Burial; Removal of Members; Thirteen-Day Republic; Valentine's Day; Winter Palace; Witch-Blood…

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Labyrinths:

Biodata; Diaspora; Eremites; Faction Precursors; Foyle; House of the Rising Sun; Labyrinths; Remonstration Bureau; Voodoo Charter; Venue Accords; Weaponstores…

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The Ghost Dance:

A'daltem Ano'nde; Belial; Catch-the-Bear's War Bonnet; Ghost Shirts; North American Warrior Tribes; Nun'aha'wu; Open Doors; Pai'ngya; Peyote Dream-Runners; Sand and Snow Ammunition; Tenskwatawa; Appendix II…

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The History of the Remote:

Anchormen; Broken Remote; Fallahal; Jallama Reed Transmissions; New Young Gods; Remembrance Tanks; Shadow Masks; Simia KK98; Viewers and Listeners Protocols; Wovoka…

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Faction Hollywood:

Brookhaven; Brookhaven's Follies; Cwej; Cwejen; Faction Hollywood; Fat; Gauntlet; GCI Processor; Hollow Spectaculars; Hollywood Bowl Shooting; House of the Seven Gables; Mount Usu Duel; "Mystery of Edwin Drood"; North Los Angeles Cabal; Order of the White Peacock; Production Hell; "Through the Eye of Eternity"; Vandemeer…

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The End:

"Briefings"; Humanity; Nanotechnology; Nevitz; Time-Travel: Biodata Principle; Younger World Story…

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Coda:

(House) Lolita; (House) Tracolix.

There is, almost certainly, at least one mistake in this listing.

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