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Might as well stick this here. I wrote at the beginning of the year with the intention of getting it in The Guardian Review or similar, except my frequent attempts to communicate with them were entirely unsuccessful, the stuck-up nazi commie kiddie-fiddling skag addicts that they are (this is actually a last ditch attempt to open up a dialogue and should not be taken as a reference to either the beliefs or lifestyle choices of any Guardian employee, although obviously I'm only saying that for legal reasons) - not even so much as a 'no thanks and fuck off'. Tried Death Ray, then I had to move flat and everything got complicated. Anyway here is a review of Newtons aimed at a readership who would (hooray!) in theory not give a shit about ER ancestry. If anyone wants to use this review for any purposes whatsoever, cut and paste it onto Amazon, send it to a site or newspaper, even claim it as your own - please be my guest... just trying to pread the word is all...

Daniel O'Mahoney Newtons Sleep (Random Static, 2008)
Whilst the variously authored Faction Paradox novels share many basic staples with less esoteric schools of science-fiction literature, Newtons Sleep is a vivid illustration of how limited, even misleading the term can often be. The underlying narrative set up by The Book of the War (the first of the line published in 2002 by Mad Norwegian Press) describes a universe wherein the entire structure of history is ordered by the all powerful Great Houses of an ancient time-travelling race. So far, so Doctor Who, until said race is drawn into conflict with an anonymous and impossibly formidable equal - not so much an army, as a hostile new kind of history, so it is claimed. And given the nature of this war, or rather War, it is difficult to imagine it being fought in any medium other than the written word as each side destroys vast tracts of the other's past, entire cultures are primed as memetic weapons, and cause and effect becomes a no man's land.

Lawrence Miles (who originated the line) has sired a mythos which seems almost inimical to pedestrian writing and prosaic ideas. A personal favourite illustration of the latter is the bomb which destroys the meaning of a building whilst leaving its physical structure undamaged, but the dark stars of the whole show (despite being absent from at least two of the novels) are Faction Paradox, the fallen angels of Great House society expelled from the Homeworld for thinking and doing the unthinkable. One memorable example of this was the Faction elder who murdered his own ancestors so as to prevent his own history being used against him; and given the territory, it should therefore not be so surprising that, in exile, the Faction takes up residence in the eleven days excised from the English calendar during the Gregorian reform of 1752.

Relative to its Apollonian Great House origins, Faction Paradox is virtually a voodoo cult - dark, unsavoury, blackly humourous, and - to the best of my knowledge - quite unlike anything else that has come before in science-fiction literature. Typically and happily, each new Faction Paradox novel has thus far proven as wilfully perverse and unpredictable as the universe it reveals in microcosm, possibly due to each author using the mythos as a reference point rather than an end in itself, so the emphasis is very much on the highest quality writing. In a fictional conflict where continuity is itself a legitimate target, conventional A to B narratives might inevitably be deemed redundant, which is not to say that the Faction Paradox novels are necessarily a heir to Brion Gysin's cut-up technique, but it sometimes seems as though they might be distant relatives, and in spirit they share more common ground with William Burroughs than with H.G. Wells.

Wisely, the improbable scale of the War is mapped entirely in terms of more immediately tangible events around its periphery, and the periphery described in Newtons Sleep is 17th century England. As one might surmise, Isaac Newton is himself a character, although his presence is pleasantly understated thus avoiding the pitfall of his being a novelty "star guest". Less understated is the more uproarious portrayal of author, playwright and feminist icon Aphra Behn whose (possibly apocryphal) work as a spy ensnares her in a minor skirmish at the edge of the War in heaven - as it is termed here. Despite having quite dissimilar roles, both Newton and Behn can be viewed (to one extent or another) as pivotal historical figures without whom contemporary western culture would have turned out very different, and it is this sense of vulnerable history which provides both the setting of the tale and the lure for representatives of the Great Houses, Faction Paradox, and a posthuman culture set many millions of years in the future.

This being the 1600s, the narrative remains faithful to its era with accounts of visions, angels, secret societies, and magic standing in for more contemporary (and hence incongruous) descriptions. Whilst this approach sometimes requires effort on the part of the reader, the rewards are great, and even the most fantastic elements become entirely credible within this lavishly woven tapestry of cause and effect as each new chapter leaps back and forth between earlier and later events in the lives of its characters. Although it reads science-fiction on the back cover, it truly feels more like alchemy-fiction. Daniel O'Mahoney writes Protectorate era England with such casual attention to detail that no amount of speculative novelty can break its persuasive spell, and even the more astonishing passages remain true to the whole - astounding the reader for the exact same reasons that they would have astounded Newton or Behn, rather than relying upon the more obvious trick of square pegging the anachronistic and alien into a roundhead round hole, if you'll pardon the expression.

Faction Paradox has thus far been an unfortunately troubled imprint built upon somewhat insecure foundations. The first six titles were produced by Mad Norwegian, an American publisher which, despite initial success, ultimately found itself unable to break out of the small press ghetto and was reluctantly forced to drop the line. Some laid the blame on an irregular publishing schedule dictated by literary rather than economic standards, although given the overwhelming enthusiasm and devotion of those making the effort to seek out these books, it seems quite inappropriate to criticise the preference for quality over quantity. If the line had died with Mad Norwegian, the sheer breathtaking perfection of This Town Will Never Let Us Go, Of The City Of The Saved..., Erasing Sherlock and others would remain at least sufficient to justify the sacrifice of the imprint as a whole. It is therefore a wonderful thing that Random Static have not only re-lit the flame, but have done so with Newtons Sleep, a novel which continues and embellishes the Faction Paradox tradition of literary excellence. So here's to the success of this wonderful novel, and a hope for the critical mass that may carry it to a wider audience. If Faction Paradox can turn their own shadows into weapons and build an entire city inside an edit made in the Christian calendar in 1752, escape from the small press event horizon cannot be far off.