Hello everyone,
I’ve been gone for a long, long time, but I’m gearing up for a big comeback.
Over the next several weeks I will be running a series of articles on the strange history of the Faction Paradox audio dramas, featuring a critical overview of the series, transcribed interviews with directors, and audio excerpts. Faction Paradox isn’t a typical sci-fi audio serial. While it isn’t flawless or easy, however, it is as beguiling as it is bewildering. If working your way through a dense thicket of rich characters, intricate ideas, and surprising touches of genuine emotion sounds enticing, I highly recommend you tune in.
Faction Paradox originally started as a supporting player in the Dr. Who novel Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles. In later years, Miles would wean this anarchic, time-traveling voodoo cult / criminal organization away from its Dr. Who roots. Although Miles retained some concepts from the show under new names and auspices (the Time Lords became the Great Houses, timeships replaced Tardises, etc.) and reintroduced licensed villains (the Sontarans, Sutekh), Faction Paradox has since emerged as a genuinely unique and self-sustaining fictional creation. Miles and other writers have advanced and expanded that creation through a line of novels, comics, and audio dramas.
The next several weeks will be devoted exclusively to the Faction Paradox audio dramas, but today I want to ground that in a brief primer on commercial Dr. Who audio drama spin-offs. In particular I want to introduce the “Big Three” spin-off companies to readers: BBV, Big Finish, and Magic Bullet. Again, this is just to provide a context for the articles that follow: it is not an exhaustive account. I will in all likelihood discuss these companies and their works in more depth later.
