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Faction Paradox #11
Faction Paradox: Liberating Earth
"The human race had every opportunity. We blew it, darling."
Take two Cousins from Faction Paradox.
Give them a world – the Earth, for example – and give them the power to change that world’s history as they see fit.
Then stand back and watch what happens…
Just what would happen if a couple of Cousins used our planet as their personal game board? As they create one alternative reality after another, twisting history and reality into knots, only one outcome is sure: whoever wins, the human race loses.
TOC
Playing for Time I - Kate Orman
Dreamer in the Dark - E.H. Timms
Playing for Time II - Kate Orman
Annie's Arms - Xanna Chown
Playing for Time III - Kate Orman
The Mountains are Higher at Home - Juliet Kemp
Playing for Time IV - Kate Orman
Judy's War - Rachael Redhead
Playing for Time V - Kate Orman
Red Rover Red Rover - "Q"
Playing for Time VI - Kate Orman
The Vikingr Mystique - Dorothy Ail
Playing for Time VII - Kate Orman
Life of Julia - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Playing for Time VIII - Kate Orman
Project Thunderbird - Kelly Hale
Playing for Time IX - Kate Orman
Take two Cousins from Faction Paradox.
Give them a world – the Earth, for example – and give them the power to change that world’s history as they see fit.
Then stand back and watch what happens…
Just what would happen if a couple of Cousins used our planet as their personal game board? As they create one alternative reality after another, twisting history and reality into knots, only one outcome is sure: whoever wins, the human race loses.
TOC
Playing for Time I - Kate Orman
Dreamer in the Dark - E.H. Timms
Playing for Time II - Kate Orman
Annie's Arms - Xanna Chown
Playing for Time III - Kate Orman
The Mountains are Higher at Home - Juliet Kemp
Playing for Time IV - Kate Orman
Judy's War - Rachael Redhead
Playing for Time V - Kate Orman
Red Rover Red Rover - "Q"
Playing for Time VI - Kate Orman
The Vikingr Mystique - Dorothy Ail
Playing for Time VII - Kate Orman
Life of Julia - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Playing for Time VIII - Kate Orman
Project Thunderbird - Kelly Hale
Playing for Time IX - Kate Orman
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2015
79 people want to read
About the author
Kate Orman
65 books41 followersKate Orman studied biology at Sydney University and worked in science before becoming a professional author. Orman is known for her sci-fi work, and especially her frequent collaborations in the "Doctor Who" universe. For Virgin Publishing and BBC, she wrote more than a dozen full-length novels, as well as numerous short stories and non-fiction pieces related to "Doctor Who". She was the only woman and only Australian to write for the initial range of novels, the Virgin New Adventures.
As of 2022, Orman lives in Sydney and is married to fellow author Jonathan Blum.
As of 2022, Orman lives in Sydney and is married to fellow author Jonathan Blum.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 9, 2025
★★★☆☆ – Respectable!
Freaky and Fun – Perhaps Occasionally Too Freaky?
Liberating Earth belongs to that more ambitious class of anthologies – one that unites it stories not only under a common theme, nor a common premise, but a common framing narrative. Two acolytes of Faction Paradox take turns instating new rulers on (a simulation of?) our Earth, and thus create a string of alternate realities where we, the humans, invariably have our collective day thoroughly ruined in a series of distressing science fiction ways. It’s not the sort of collection to use this premise to say anything in particular about the finer points of power structures or human nature, but rather uses it in service of three Fs: fun, fancies, and freakitude.
What sets Liberating Earth apart as a publication more than anything is that it’s an anthology written entirely by women! Stuart Douglas, the man behind Obverse Books, strikes me as a lovely bloke – reportedly, this was his admirably pragmatic solution to the issue that they hadn’t hired many female writers up to that point. As a woman who writes science fiction myself, of course I had to read it. As expected, the result is a refreshing lack of male gaze and chauvinism, not to mention the beneficial side effect that we have a higher proportion of new blood than usual. Somewhat funnily (stereotypes are what they are for a reason!), it also results in a markedly higher romance and sex content than in your typical Faction Paradox fare. A few of these romances hit hard; some missed me entirely. Some of the romantic and sexual elements, unfortunately, put me off quite profoundly – most notably, the framing narrative has a psychosexual throughline that I’d rather not have had in the background the whole book. See my individual story reviews below for details.
Though I tend not to mind when it comes to independent publications, I would in the case of Liberating Earth be remiss if I failed to mention its seeming complete lack of proofreading. Grammatical and typographical errors abound, punctuation is missing here and there, and no unification of typography appears to have been made: Some authors use curly quotes and some straight; some use en dashes and some use hyphen-minuses… Particularly tickling is an example from the final story of the bunch – a draft appears to have slipped through the editing and publication process, rather than the final version:
The author apparently left a note to herself to fill out the scene, but never did. A decade after publication it’s a bit late to do anything about it, innit. For the most part, the proofing errors were only a mild amusement – but they did distract here and there, as well as impede some of the more emotional scenes. The publisher have gotten a bit better about it since.
I look forward to reading another Faction Paradox anthology! This sort of not-hard-but-certainly-not-soft sci-fi – high-concept, but not high-science (you could call it “science as magic”) – is surprisingly difficult to find, and I will forever remain thankful to Obverse Books for carrying that torch.
“Playing for Time” by Kate Orman
★★☆☆☆ – Couldn’t quite abide.
It’s a bold decision to frontload your anthology with psychosexual discomfort – for your framing narrative to heavily feature a group of young men being sexually exploited. That’s a plot device I, to be honest, am not particularly comfortable with. Had it been a short story positioned on the same level as the others, this would not have been quite such a problem – but being the framing narrative, it’s interwoven between the other stories, and thus makes its presence known again and again, meaning a part of me dreaded the interludes this story comprises. That and the fact that it’s a bit vague and fuzzy on the details – I certainly have a grasp on the emotional arc of the story, but the exact plot is a bit up in the air.
Still, “Playing for Time” contains some beautifully wondrous (and unsettling) imagery, and ties into one (only one, but nevertheless one) of the short stories to great effect (see “Red Rover Red Rover” below). The anthology would be poorer for a lack of it. It does elevate the book to “more” than a collection of short stories.
“Dreamer in the Dark” by E. H. Timms
★★★★☆ – Don’t mind if I do!
Economical and efficient; emotionally resonant and eminently personal. Possibly other “E” words. Effulgent. Effervescent. Ecclesiastical. No… I immediately veered into irrelevance there.
A lovely image of a smartly bounded mini-world, painted in a bit further with every paragraph. Timms gives the impression of having an eye on what every part is meant to accomplish.
I particularly enjoy the element of using mythology without naming it – the ruling class is plainly based on , but she is never named, which (along with the fact that it takes place somewhere in Egypt-ish) lends the story a moreish sense of cultural amalgamation; of living naturally in the greater collective consciousness of fiction.
“Annie’s Arms” by Xanna Chown
★★★☆☆ – I had a good time!
A pleasantly quotidian glimpse of a very strange alternate present. The sort of thing made for anthologies. It ultimately goes in a fun, non-obvious direction, which I appreciate – the sort of direction you might (stereotypically, perhaps, but in this case correctly) imagine is more expected to come about in an anthology written exclusively by women. Lovely to read something by Chown outside of Big Finish!
The story is let down by an all-too-abrupt ending and a lingering feeling that neither the “hook” nor the characters were quite compelling enough – it spends many of its precious words on worldbuilding the same few aspects somewhat redundantly, leaving the more personal elements underexplored.
Until the final couple of pages I was certain that . Deeply thankfully, that did not turn out to be the case. I couldn’t have taken it after Kate Orman’s (probably intentionally) eminently unpleasant psychosexual onslaught.
“The Mountains Are Higher at Home” by Juliet Kemp
★★★★☆ – Alright, yeah!
I love a story that describes familiar concepts in unfamiliar terms. There was a series of sci-fi novels written from different species’ perspectives, weren’t there? Some squid creatures or some such? Can anyone tell me what that was? Either way, it’s as titillating here as always.
I can admire the focus and restraint that this story shows. Kemp exudes somewhat of the quality of a Zen master: Countless trifling questions that would niggle at any sci-fi writer abound – How do these boulder creatures locomote? How do they, concretely, restrict the humans? Why are they such staunch environmentalists? – but she either lacks the impulse to get into them, or rightly recognizes that answering them would be liable to at best yield an “oh, huh” and at worst wreck the pacing or eat up precious word count.
The decision to set the story not from the freedom fighter’s perspective but from that of a doubter is an intelligent one – it partly replaces the default tension of “will they succeed or fail?” with a feeling of watching a trainwreck in slow motion. Not that the underdog perspective doesn’t work – far from it; it’s the popular mode for a reason and worked just fine for “Dreamer in the Dark” – but this feels perhaps particularly fitting for the theme and setup of this anthology: that it’s about Earth being thoroughly messed up in a series of freaky-deaky ways.
Incidental spoilers for (this short story and) Earthshock (Classic Doctor Who, 1982):
“Judy’s War” by Rachael Redhead
★★★☆☆ – Sure!
A short short story woven of irreverence and spur-of-the-moment nonsense. It almost gives the impression of the author having sat down and written nonstop whatever popped into her head. There’s a certain Douglas Adams-ian tone, but there’s none of the prudence or internal logic that characterizes his work – very #NoFilter.
As a result, this story feels entirely unsubstantial, but it’s having fun, so it’s easy to have fun with it. Besides, it’s shorter than the skirt I’m planning to wear to next month’s sapphic club night.
Kate Orman’s framing narrative connective tissue after this begins with a character remarking “What the hell was that?” – a hilariously rude move on her part that I can’t help but read as her using her characters as a mouthpiece. BM, Kate Orman. BM.
…Not that it isn’t a reasonable comment to make!
Read the rest of the review on Hardcover…
Freaky and Fun – Perhaps Occasionally Too Freaky?
Liberating Earth belongs to that more ambitious class of anthologies – one that unites it stories not only under a common theme, nor a common premise, but a common framing narrative. Two acolytes of Faction Paradox take turns instating new rulers on (a simulation of?) our Earth, and thus create a string of alternate realities where we, the humans, invariably have our collective day thoroughly ruined in a series of distressing science fiction ways. It’s not the sort of collection to use this premise to say anything in particular about the finer points of power structures or human nature, but rather uses it in service of three Fs: fun, fancies, and freakitude.
What sets Liberating Earth apart as a publication more than anything is that it’s an anthology written entirely by women! Stuart Douglas, the man behind Obverse Books, strikes me as a lovely bloke – reportedly, this was his admirably pragmatic solution to the issue that they hadn’t hired many female writers up to that point. As a woman who writes science fiction myself, of course I had to read it. As expected, the result is a refreshing lack of male gaze and chauvinism, not to mention the beneficial side effect that we have a higher proportion of new blood than usual. Somewhat funnily (stereotypes are what they are for a reason!), it also results in a markedly higher romance and sex content than in your typical Faction Paradox fare. A few of these romances hit hard; some missed me entirely. Some of the romantic and sexual elements, unfortunately, put me off quite profoundly – most notably, the framing narrative has a psychosexual throughline that I’d rather not have had in the background the whole book. See my individual story reviews below for details.
Though I tend not to mind when it comes to independent publications, I would in the case of Liberating Earth be remiss if I failed to mention its seeming complete lack of proofreading. Grammatical and typographical errors abound, punctuation is missing here and there, and no unification of typography appears to have been made: Some authors use curly quotes and some straight; some use en dashes and some use hyphen-minuses… Particularly tickling is an example from the final story of the bunch – a draft appears to have slipped through the editing and publication process, rather than the final version:
[…] [']You have to be able to prove heritage these days and even then...'
*something here.
There's a huge scarcity of resources in most of the European countries because of all the refugees.
The author apparently left a note to herself to fill out the scene, but never did. A decade after publication it’s a bit late to do anything about it, innit. For the most part, the proofing errors were only a mild amusement – but they did distract here and there, as well as impede some of the more emotional scenes. The publisher have gotten a bit better about it since.
I look forward to reading another Faction Paradox anthology! This sort of not-hard-but-certainly-not-soft sci-fi – high-concept, but not high-science (you could call it “science as magic”) – is surprisingly difficult to find, and I will forever remain thankful to Obverse Books for carrying that torch.
“Playing for Time” by Kate Orman
★★☆☆☆ – Couldn’t quite abide.
It’s a bold decision to frontload your anthology with psychosexual discomfort – for your framing narrative to heavily feature a group of young men being sexually exploited. That’s a plot device I, to be honest, am not particularly comfortable with. Had it been a short story positioned on the same level as the others, this would not have been quite such a problem – but being the framing narrative, it’s interwoven between the other stories, and thus makes its presence known again and again, meaning a part of me dreaded the interludes this story comprises. That and the fact that it’s a bit vague and fuzzy on the details – I certainly have a grasp on the emotional arc of the story, but the exact plot is a bit up in the air.
Still, “Playing for Time” contains some beautifully wondrous (and unsettling) imagery, and ties into one (only one, but nevertheless one) of the short stories to great effect (see “Red Rover Red Rover” below). The anthology would be poorer for a lack of it. It does elevate the book to “more” than a collection of short stories.
“Dreamer in the Dark” by E. H. Timms
★★★★☆ – Don’t mind if I do!
Economical and efficient; emotionally resonant and eminently personal. Possibly other “E” words. Effulgent. Effervescent. Ecclesiastical. No… I immediately veered into irrelevance there.
A lovely image of a smartly bounded mini-world, painted in a bit further with every paragraph. Timms gives the impression of having an eye on what every part is meant to accomplish.
I particularly enjoy the element of using mythology without naming it – the ruling class is plainly based on , but she is never named, which (along with the fact that it takes place somewhere in Egypt-ish) lends the story a moreish sense of cultural amalgamation; of living naturally in the greater collective consciousness of fiction.
“Annie’s Arms” by Xanna Chown
★★★☆☆ – I had a good time!
A pleasantly quotidian glimpse of a very strange alternate present. The sort of thing made for anthologies. It ultimately goes in a fun, non-obvious direction, which I appreciate – the sort of direction you might (stereotypically, perhaps, but in this case correctly) imagine is more expected to come about in an anthology written exclusively by women. Lovely to read something by Chown outside of Big Finish!
The story is let down by an all-too-abrupt ending and a lingering feeling that neither the “hook” nor the characters were quite compelling enough – it spends many of its precious words on worldbuilding the same few aspects somewhat redundantly, leaving the more personal elements underexplored.
Until the final couple of pages I was certain that . Deeply thankfully, that did not turn out to be the case. I couldn’t have taken it after Kate Orman’s (probably intentionally) eminently unpleasant psychosexual onslaught.
“The Mountains Are Higher at Home” by Juliet Kemp
★★★★☆ – Alright, yeah!
‘Look, there are all those bits that have cracked off the tree,’ Bretet said, making out like he knows all about carbon lifeforms. ‘Something must have put them there.’
‘Leaves,’ I said, remembering our last Earth lesson. ‘They’re called leaves.’
I love a story that describes familiar concepts in unfamiliar terms. There was a series of sci-fi novels written from different species’ perspectives, weren’t there? Some squid creatures or some such? Can anyone tell me what that was? Either way, it’s as titillating here as always.
I can admire the focus and restraint that this story shows. Kemp exudes somewhat of the quality of a Zen master: Countless trifling questions that would niggle at any sci-fi writer abound – How do these boulder creatures locomote? How do they, concretely, restrict the humans? Why are they such staunch environmentalists? – but she either lacks the impulse to get into them, or rightly recognizes that answering them would be liable to at best yield an “oh, huh” and at worst wreck the pacing or eat up precious word count.
The decision to set the story not from the freedom fighter’s perspective but from that of a doubter is an intelligent one – it partly replaces the default tension of “will they succeed or fail?” with a feeling of watching a trainwreck in slow motion. Not that the underdog perspective doesn’t work – far from it; it’s the popular mode for a reason and worked just fine for “Dreamer in the Dark” – but this feels perhaps particularly fitting for the theme and setup of this anthology: that it’s about Earth being thoroughly messed up in a series of freaky-deaky ways.
Incidental spoilers for (this short story and) Earthshock (Classic Doctor Who, 1982):
“Judy’s War” by Rachael Redhead
★★★☆☆ – Sure!
A short short story woven of irreverence and spur-of-the-moment nonsense. It almost gives the impression of the author having sat down and written nonstop whatever popped into her head. There’s a certain Douglas Adams-ian tone, but there’s none of the prudence or internal logic that characterizes his work – very #NoFilter.
As a result, this story feels entirely unsubstantial, but it’s having fun, so it’s easy to have fun with it. Besides, it’s shorter than the skirt I’m planning to wear to next month’s sapphic club night.
Kate Orman’s framing narrative connective tissue after this begins with a character remarking “What the hell was that?” – a hilariously rude move on her part that I can’t help but read as her using her characters as a mouthpiece. BM, Kate Orman. BM.
…Not that it isn’t a reasonable comment to make!
Read the rest of the review on Hardcover…
March 15, 2015
"Liberating Earth" is, as I expected, an amazing book. As far as previous Obverse Faction short story collections go, it may be the best yet. (But I did love "A Romance in Twelve Parts" an awful lot...)
This collection revolves around a series of alternate earths, as two Faction Paradox members fiddle with a device that alters our planet's history. Each tale is set in a different one of these Earths.
Saving the linking story till the end, let me address the stories individually:
"Dreamer in the Dark" - by E H Timms
"Annie's Arms" - by Xanna Chown
"The Mountains Are Higher At Home" - by Juliet Kemp
"Judy's War" - by Rachael Redhead
"Red Rover Red Rover" - by Q
"The Víkingr Mystique" - by Dorothy Ail
"Life of Julia" - by Tansy Rayner Roberts
"Project Thunderbird" - by Kelly Hale
"Playing For Time" - by Kate Orman
If there's something wrong with this book, it's that the idea has a kind of theme, but it is so loose that none of the stories really have anything to do with one another. There's no real theme to the concept, no build, no structure. It's just some good stories with a damn fine linking narrative that theoretically ties them into the same meta-universe.
That's not a terrible thing, though, of course. One senses that there could have been a "better" version of the book where the individual stories somehow built on one another to tell an escalating tale in the bigger narrative, but it is far from necessary. The fact that this is a collection of some really amazing works of fiction is enough in itself.
Even if you've never heard of Faction Paradox before (and who are you?) this will be a wonderful book for you. It is Faction in only the sense of the possibilities it offers, not in the details of the Spiral Politic or what have you. Perfectly accessible to newcomers.
I really want to give this book 4.5 stars, but it's not possible on Goodreads. In this case, I'm rounding down to 4 stars rather than up to 5, but it was a tough decision. An excellent addition to anyone's book collection.
This collection revolves around a series of alternate earths, as two Faction Paradox members fiddle with a device that alters our planet's history. Each tale is set in a different one of these Earths.
Saving the linking story till the end, let me address the stories individually:
"Dreamer in the Dark" - by E H Timms
A fantastic first (complete) story in the book. Timms creates an Earth where humans are ruled by Medusas, the lowly humans forced to wear eye-coverings so that they are not inadvertantly turned to stone. A friendship is formed between a blind girl and another girl found weeping, and their difficult relationship continues through the years despite the hurdles thrown at it.
This is a well-written story, and quite moving. The characters are well-drawn and both of them invite the reader's sympathy easily.
However, I can't help but feel that (great as this is as a short story) the world created here (and even the main story being told) would easily support a full-length novel. It works here, it absolutely does, but I can easily see a full novel covering (in part) the same events that comprise this story. I don't want to say that the concept and the world are "wasted" on this story, but it could be even greater if expanded out.
(Think about it, E H Timms.)
"Annie's Arms" - by Xanna Chown
This one is even better than the last: a pretty outstanding short story.
Here, Annie exists in a version of the world where shadows have appeared in everyone's home. On everyone's wall, in every house, flat or living quarters, is a ghost-like shadow on the wall that screeches and wails when left alone. Shade-sitters are employed to watch your guest when you need to leave the house, to keep it entertained. Something goes wrong one day when Annie is shade-sitting, and the truth behind these strange visitors is revealed.
The setup is intriguing and well-told. The first part of the story is told in flashbacks, but is easily followed due to the layout. (The e-book version has one paragraph not formatted correctly, but we can understand the flow of it regardless.) At first, the concept appears to be slightly reminiscent of the Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts", but soon reveals itself to be something else entirely.
Annie is an engaging character, and her home life is very realistic and sympathetic. The situation into which she is drawn is utterly fantastic; a great contrast to the grounded life she's been exposed to so far. Her story is intriguing and engaging - I won't hint as to the ending, but I practically guarantee you'll be moved by the occurrences.
"The Mountains Are Higher At Home" - by Juliet Kemp
Who'd have thought two rocks could be such exciting point-of-view characters?
Bretet and Sahran are Kyalites, sentient rock beings who have taken over the Earth to rehabilitate it, heal it from the human damage. The plan is to leave and allow the humans back into the planet after teaching them a better way, but our two lead characters start to think that this may not be the way things go this time...
There's a nice reference to the Chicxulub impact being a visit from the Kyalites that is rather clever. In fact, the whole story is very clever indeed. Humans are viewed (not unfairly) as a misguided species who need to be separated from the world and retrained to take care of it properly. Bretet and Sahran, though, befriend some humans and learn to sympathize with them. As they grow, the two Kyalites have different ideas about what to do in their situation.
Kemp parallels human environmental politics well with the stone characters, giving a unique view of the split between different (and more radical) views of activism. The Kyalites are a well-defined species, allowing the two main Kyalites to stand out well as characters in their own right.
It's a smart story, but an emotional one, too. I loved it.
"Judy's War" - by Rachael Redhead
This one doesn't work for me quite as well, but it's certainly not bad. I can see it especially appealing to certain kinds of tastes, but it doesn't all quite gel for me.
This one is a more wacky tale, starring a 20-ish former goth chic, two fembots and their baby-bot on the run from some Jalaxian soldiers. There's a surprising amount of references to Doctor Who (vaguely couched, of course) and this is also the first of the Earth-stories in the book to blatantly deal with Faction Paradox as an entity. It's all quite fun, but slight, and doesn't end up suiting my sense of humor.
I expect many others will enjoy it a lot more than I do.
"Red Rover Red Rover" - by Q
Yes, you read that author's name correctly. "Q". One assumes it is neither the Bondian nor the Trekkian "Q" but some other. Whoever she is (we've been told all the authors are female) she's a hell of a writer.
The story alternates between Ellie's point of view, and Joe's. Both turn out to be what Ellie calls "Rovers" - flitting back and forth between two alternate versions of Earth, waking up in the same spot every time they "flip". They meet each other one day, and hit it off. But both are on the run from soldiers who exist in both Earths.
The story in this is really great, and the setup is very intriguing. The best thing about it, though, is the characters of Joe and Ellie and their interactions. Both seem very real, and likeable, and I could easily have spent a lot longer in their company. Q has a great grasp of character as well as prose, easily giving them a distinct narrative style that seems natural but precise.
This is also the story that probably makes the most use out of the setup of "Liberating Earth". The actual framing narrative has a direct impact on the events of this story, in a way utterly unlike the others. (The other stories are not specifically Faction-oriented - just stories that fill the brief of "taking place on an alternate Earth".)
Almost certainly my favorite of the Earth-stories in this book.
"The Víkingr Mystique" - by Dorothy Ail
I believe it was Lawrence Burton who called this "Thelma & Louise with Vikings". And he wasn't too far off.
Gloria is a middle-aged woman who is visiting the Big Apple when aliens called Víkingrs invade. These resemble ancient Vikings (for good reason, as explained in the story) whose longships fly through air and space as easily as water. Gloria and Aldis, one of the invading women, take a road trip in Gloria's car and this is the story of what happens along the way.
It's a good story, but doesn't quite manage to be great. It's another one, though, that I think could really benefit from being a novel. Unlike "Dreamer in the Dark", though, this one doesn't quite work for me in its current form. I really think, though, that at novel length Dorothy Ail could really have a great little book on her hands. With more space to include incident enough to really explore Gloria and Aldis' relationship properly I think it could be wonderful.
As it is, it is a pleasant tale that certainly does more or less what it sets out to do. It seems, though, like only really scratching the surface of these characters, instead of really getting under their skin, and I would love to get to know them better.
"Life of Julia" - by Tansy Rayner Roberts
This is a really clever little story, about an alternate Ancient Rome where alabaster aliens (the Nova) have replaced certain historic personages in an attempt to occupy their space without greatly upsetting history.
Julia is the daughter of Titus, niece of Domitian, who knows that she will one day be wed to a Nova invader to cement their place in the royal line. The story follows her through her childhood to adulthood, exploring the changes to history that are occurring.
Julia is the only character here who is very strongly characterized, but this is fine as it is very focused on her to the exclusion of others. It is very much her story and we get to know her and her plight very well.
The sections of the story are titled after lyrics from Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and feature alternate commentaries from Roman historians such as Plutarch and Suetonius. The narrative cleverly entwines real history with this new invasion narrative, while telling a very specific story about this one young woman.
It's a very engaging story, and definitely a highlight of the book.
"Project Thunderbird" - by Kelly Hale
This story mostly takes place in 1972 in an alternative version of America where the white men have all been driven out.
Basically, at the battle of Wounded Knee, the Native Americans unleashed what was supposed to be the spirits of their ancestors to aid in their fight. Soon, the whole world was doing likewise. Now the Earth is overrun with these spirits, who do not appear to truly be the ghosts of past humans after all.
The various tribes are now congregating to discuss a plan to rid the world of these spirits, and Lalla (a young woman who would not usually be permitted to attend one of these conferences) has a knack for spirit traps and sets out to take part in an attempt to free the word of the evil that assaults it.
This is one of the longest stories in the book, but one of the best. The world-building is particularly impressive, and the Native American culture well-researched and believable. (Whether it is accurate I could not say, but "believable" is more important than "correct" for storytelling anyway.)
Lalla is an engaging protagonist, but other characters are equally well-drawn. We are submerged in the world Kelly Hale has created, and it is very effective. The plot itself is not as good as the characters and the world they inhabit (the ending is a bit sudden, as well, after the lengthy build-up) but I've always been less interested in plot than in character and theme anyway. And those are very skillfully handled.
There's a very odd little glitch in the Kindle version (at least) around location 3878. I assume it is not deliberate - something seems to be marked as missing and not in a way that is part of the narrative.
Anyway, apart from that oddity, it is a really great story and well deserving of being the climactic of the Earth-tales in the book.
"Playing For Time" - by Kate Orman
The linking narrative, in nine parts. (Part Three not being part of the Kindle Table of Contents, by the way.)
Kate Orman states that she wrote this story very quickly, to bridge the gaps in the stories being included in the collection. It sure doesn't show.
Of course it should come as no surprise, but Orman's story is distinctly above the others in quality. Her writing (even in her books that I liked less) always stands out as being seemingly effortless in its ability to portray real-seeming characters. When reading through the Virgin "New Adventures" it was always astonishing to suddenly get to one of Orman's books. Suddenly the characters that were enjoyable enough in the other novels become flesh-and-blood beings in a way that seems totally natural. I could never see what she did that was different, but she just has a handle on people in a way that not many other authors do.
This story tells the tale of Tefen, a Faction Paradox initiative of sorts, enthralled to Mrs Triphis. She has enslaved many men aboard her bizarre alien space vessel - a ship that not even she understands. The men are reformed and programmed by the red weed to her specs, but she has a particular fondness for her protégé Tefen, to whom she gives a bone mask.
Together, they play with the newly discovered chronomasticon - a device allowing them to reforge Earth's history from an infinite number of variations that exist . They explore it, seeing the havoc it wreaks on the Earth below their ship.
But there are other things afoot on board the mysterious vessel, and other intelligences with agendas of their own. Tefen finds himself caught up in a dangerous game; one that he doesn't know he can extricate himself from.
It's a stunningly sophisticated story to have sprung up as quickly as Orman intimates. Not just a quick way to link some disconnected stories about different Earths, but a powerful and strange tale in its own right. Orman has a firm hand with character and dialogue, but also creates a fun and intriguing narrative (filled with her typical character-torturing) that is sophisticated but simple enough to grasp when being told in bits and pieces between other stories. It's not complicated to follow, but has depth.
If it is at all possible to get a novel from Kate Orman sometime soon, I beg that it happen. This story more than proves that she still has what it takes.
If there's something wrong with this book, it's that the idea has a kind of theme, but it is so loose that none of the stories really have anything to do with one another. There's no real theme to the concept, no build, no structure. It's just some good stories with a damn fine linking narrative that theoretically ties them into the same meta-universe.
That's not a terrible thing, though, of course. One senses that there could have been a "better" version of the book where the individual stories somehow built on one another to tell an escalating tale in the bigger narrative, but it is far from necessary. The fact that this is a collection of some really amazing works of fiction is enough in itself.
Even if you've never heard of Faction Paradox before (and who are you?) this will be a wonderful book for you. It is Faction in only the sense of the possibilities it offers, not in the details of the Spiral Politic or what have you. Perfectly accessible to newcomers.
I really want to give this book 4.5 stars, but it's not possible on Goodreads. In this case, I'm rounding down to 4 stars rather than up to 5, but it was a tough decision. An excellent addition to anyone's book collection.
February 22, 2015
I really enjoyed this collection. One story I thought was poor (I won't name names), but the rest were of an impressively high standard, and the anthology as a whole hung together very well. Any Faction Paradox collection which includes Vikings, Romans and Native Americans is doing things right as far as I'm concerned. I shall be trying to poach a couple of the authors for future City of the Saved collections.
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