“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.
For those
who have not heard of it Faction Paradox started life as a spin-off of the BBCs
popular science fiction show Doctor Who.
Originally conceived prior to the new series returning to our screens,
Faction Paradox has now distanced itself from its origins and continues to be a
franchise is its own right. The premise
of the series is that a vast war rages through time and space between two
matched powers – The Great Houses (aka Time Lords) and an undefined Enemy. The Faction Paradox are a third group who then
use this conflict as an opportunity to promote their own interests.
This
latest Faction Paradox collection is a series of short stories, the whole
collection written exclusively by women, this shows as predominately strong
women are the main protagonists. The
stories themselves have a linking narrative whereby the history of Earth is
manipulated over and over to create new realities. Each short story details one of the alternate
Earths. The stories/authors are as
follows:
Dreamer
in the Dark - E.H. Timms
Annie's
Arms - Xanna Chown
The
Mountains are Higher at Home - Juliet Kemp
Judy's
War - Rachael Redhead
Red Rover
Red Rover - "Q"
The
Vikingr Mystique - Dorothy Ail
Life of
Julia - Tansy Rayner Roberts
Project
Thunderbird - Kelly Hale
Playing
for Time - Kate Orman
The
stories vary in style and tone, since each is set on a completely different
earth to our own. Individual stories are
set in the past, present and future – and range between romance, comedy, horror
and obviously science fiction.
Overall
the quality of the individual stories is very high. My personal favourite being “Dreamer in the
Dark” depicting a world populated by medusa-like aliens where the human race
are forced to be blindfolded at all times and are therefore reduced to a slave
race. “The Mountains are Higher at Home”
is also a very strong story, an emotional tale of a warden species come to
Earth to protect humanity from its own environmental devastation. If I had any criticism of the collection I’d
say that although the stories are themselves excellent, the linking narrative
while well-written does not really hold them together. Overall though a brilliant short-story
collection.
If a
printed copy of this title is purchased direct from the publisher Obverse Books
http://obversebooks.co.uk/ then a free download of the
electronic version of the book is also provided.
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