What "The Book of Taliesin" tells us about the Enemy
Aug 17, 2022 16:13:49 GMT
drleevezan, Aristide Twain, and 2 more like this
Post by doctornolonger on Aug 17, 2022 16:13:49 GMT
Previewing something I plan to post on Tumblr eventually…
A week back someone asked me about who wrote what in The Book of the War, and I was looking over my personal notes* when I realized, wait a second, what did Helen Fayle write? Like several other contributors to the Book, it was her only official contribution to FP or Doctor Who, but she had also helped lead the classic wave of charity collections, editing the inestimable Perfect Timing 2 and contributing stories to a number of other renowned anthologies.
So I did a deep dive. And what did I discover? Helen rocks. Most of her fanfiction was set in a shared universe she dubbed the "Book of Taliesin cycle", a reimagining (or reiteration?) of Doctor Who inspired by Battlefield and Celtic mythology. I've rehosted three of these stories on my blog – "Nine Queens", "Listen, Learn, Read On", and "Farewell" – but many of the rest are available (thanks to the Wayback Machine) on Fayle's FFN profile and SFF.net page. Imagine my surprise when I read the first line of that SFF page:
What FP and War references?! Well, I'm not finished reading yet, but "Nine Queens" is explicitly inspired by Alien Bodies; "Farwell" begins with a paragraph from Interference; and then we get to descriptions like this:
! Spoiler alert: it's the same as the answer hidden in The Book of the Enemy!
The Book of Taliesin is clearly an under-mined rabbit hole of nearly-official FP lore, but as it happens, it didn't actually answer my question about what Fayle wrote in The Book of the War. That answer came from (surprise surprise) ye olde fora, where Ms "HFayle" has chatted with an author's-eye-view about most of the "History of Earth" entries, including Burton, Byron, the Families of the Star Chamber, the Musical Offering, and the Mal'akh. These happen to be my favorite section of The Book, so it's been great to get a peek behind the curtain. She also dropped a tidbit about how one of her rejected BotW entries showed Shelley faking his death and joining the Faction! The more you know
* You can view my updated notes with full sourcing on the Wiki.
A week back someone asked me about who wrote what in The Book of the War, and I was looking over my personal notes* when I realized, wait a second, what did Helen Fayle write? Like several other contributors to the Book, it was her only official contribution to FP or Doctor Who, but she had also helped lead the classic wave of charity collections, editing the inestimable Perfect Timing 2 and contributing stories to a number of other renowned anthologies.
So I did a deep dive. And what did I discover? Helen rocks. Most of her fanfiction was set in a shared universe she dubbed the "Book of Taliesin cycle", a reimagining (or reiteration?) of Doctor Who inspired by Battlefield and Celtic mythology. I've rehosted three of these stories on my blog – "Nine Queens", "Listen, Learn, Read On", and "Farewell" – but many of the rest are available (thanks to the Wayback Machine) on Fayle's FFN profile and SFF.net page. Imagine my surprise when I read the first line of that SFF page:
A big thank you to Lawrence Miles for allowing me to keep the Faction Paradox and War references in the fiction, thus allowing me to keep this series of at least marginal interest to Doctor Who fans.
What FP and War references?! Well, I'm not finished reading yet, but "Nine Queens" is explicitly inspired by Alien Bodies; "Farwell" begins with a paragraph from Interference; and then we get to descriptions like this:
The Shape of Fire - Thanks to Simon Bucher-Jones for allowing me to play with his version of what the "Enemy" might have been.
! Spoiler alert: it's the same as the answer hidden in The Book of the Enemy!
The Book of Taliesin is clearly an under-mined rabbit hole of nearly-official FP lore, but as it happens, it didn't actually answer my question about what Fayle wrote in The Book of the War. That answer came from (surprise surprise) ye olde fora, where Ms "HFayle" has chatted with an author's-eye-view about most of the "History of Earth" entries, including Burton, Byron, the Families of the Star Chamber, the Musical Offering, and the Mal'akh. These happen to be my favorite section of The Book, so it's been great to get a peek behind the curtain. She also dropped a tidbit about how one of her rejected BotW entries showed Shelley faking his death and joining the Faction! The more you know
* You can view my updated notes with full sourcing on the Wiki.
