The Book of the War (novel)

 was the first novel in the Faction Paradox series of novels.

Publisher's summary
The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage... assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past...

The Core Entries

 * The Spiral Politic
 * The Great Houses
 * The House Military
 * The Celestis
 * Faction Paradox
 * Inset: The Faction Paradox "Family"
 * The Remote
 * Lesser Species
 * Yssgaroth

History of Faction Paradox

 * The Anchoring of the Thread
 * Armour (Faction Paradox)
 * Audience of the Ruling Houses
 * The Caldera
 * The Eleven-Day Empire
 * Fashion Paradox, London
 * The Gregorian Compact
 * History
 * The Imperator Presidency
 * Intervention
 * Protocols of Linearity
 * Loa
 * London (Eighteenth Century)
 * Godfather Morlock
 * House Paradox
 * Recruitment (Faction Paradox)
 * Ritual (Faction Paradox)
 * The Act of Severance
 * Sombras que Corta
 * The Stacks
 * Father Stendec
 * Tower Hill
 * The Unkindnesses
 * New Palace of Westminster

The History of Earth

 * The Analytical Engine
 * The Book of Enoch
 * Captain Sir Burton
 * George Gordon, Sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale
 * Ada Byron
 * Canon per Tonos
 * The Clockwork Ouroboros
 * The Eleven-Day Empire: The 1834 Attack
 * Ghost Clusters
 * The Grand Families
 * Grindlay's Warehouse
 * Grotesques
 * Karachi
 * Liber Sanguisugarum
 * Mal'akh
 * The Maltese Incident
 * The Mountains of the Moon
 * The Musical Offering
 * Napoleonic Era
 * The "Princess of Parallelograms" Letters
 * The Shelley Cabal
 * The Society of St. George
 * John Hanning Speke
 * The Star Chamber
 * The Walking Dead
 * House Xianthellipse
 * Robert Scarratt

The A-Z of the War

 * House Strategist Entarodora
 * The "Monsters" Coda
 * Xenoprediction
 * "You" Diversions
 * The "Probability" Doctrine
 * Confusion
 * Utterlost
 * Zero Time
 * Gravity Spiders
 * Time-thickening
 * Apportation
 * Women (Dressing Up As)
 * Nechronomancers
 * HEM (Highest Entropy Matter)
 * Ordifica
 * Intercreationals
 * Leviathans
 * Quintessence
 * Redemption Cult
 * Forced Regen Missions
 * D-Mat
 * Burlesque Devices
 * "Killerbots" (Autonomic)
 * Vaccinations (Temporal)

Houses and Orders

 * Jungle Children
 * Hauserkinder
 * "Justine's Story"
 * House Arpexia
 * Babels
 * Casts
 * House Catherion
 * House Ixion
 * Lethean Campaign
 * Order of the Weal
 * Chatelaine Thessalia
 * War Predictions: Chatelaine Thessalia
 * Zo la Domini

The History of the Homeworld

 * Closed Session (of the Ruling Houses)
 * Dronid
 * House Dvora
 * The enemy
 * The Faraway Declaration
 * The First Message from the Enemy
 * The Head of the Presidency
 * The Homeworld
 * House Lineacrux
 * The Nine Homeworlds
 * Noosphere
 * The Presidency
 * Protocols of the Great Houses
 * Regen-Inf
 * The Ruling Houses
 * Sex
 * Space (Five Famous Battles)
 * Timeships
 * Laura Tobin
 * Academician Umbaste
 * The War King
 * Inset: The War King's Inaugural Address
 * Carmen Yeh
 * Appendix III: Carmen Yeh's "Fantastical Travels in an Infinite Universe"
 * Compassion

The History of Posthumanity

 * Earth: History
 * Posthumanity
 * Praxis
 * Siloportem
 * Time-Travel: Posthuman
 * War Predictions: The Rivera Manuscript
 * Appendix IV: Notes on the Rivera Manuscript

The Academician's Story

 * Academicians for Game Logic
 * Academician Devonire
 * Grandfather Paradox (Representations)
 * The Grandfather's Arm
 * Kaiwar
 * Paradox Anxiety
 * The Thousand-Year Battles
 * Waves of the House Military
 * Appendix I: The Beginning of the War (A Chronology)

The Non-History of the Celestis

 * Anarchitects
 * Chaotic Limiter
 * Conceptual Entities
 * Fluxes
 * Gargoyles
 * Meme
 * Mictlan
 * Order of the Dragon
 * The Ottoman Purges
 * Sacrifice
 * Shifts

The Shift's Story

 * Beshielach
 * Dating War Era Events (Difficulties)
 * The Greater Autrobulan Franchise
 * The Lords Celestial
 * Memeovore
 * Planetesimals
 * Personality Reboots
 * Worldofme

The City of the Saved

 * City of the Saved
 * The Timebeast Assault
 * Former Citizen Verrifant
 * House Mirraflex
 * Lady Armourer Mantissa
 * Het Linc
 * Secret Architects (of the City of the Saved)
 * Uptime Gate
 * Amanda Legend Lefcourt
 * Gargil Krymtorpor
 * Ghetto of the Damned
 * Lord Foaming Sky
 * Order of the Iron Soul
 * Cousin Pinocchio
 * The Rump Parliament
 * Father Timon
 * House Halfling
 * The Piltdown Mob
 * Sons of Tepes

The Impaler's Story

 * Tirgoviste
 * Ulterior Worlds
 * Vlad III of Wallachia
 * Wallachia
 * Djinn
 * The Edimmu
 * Gragov
 * Lord Halved Birth
 * Investigators
 * Investigator Thirty-One
 * Mark of Indenture
 * The Poenari Relic
 * Grigori Efimovitch Rasputin

The Thirteen-Day Republic

 * Cousin-Thrice-Removed Anastasia
 * The Cult of Celebrity Death
 * Father-Twice-Removed Dyavol
 * The House of Lords
 * The Malachite Room
 * Cousin-Once-Removed Nadim
 * Cousin Octavia
 * The Red Burial
 * Removal of Members
 * The Thirteen-Day Republic
 * Battle of Valentine's Day
 * The Winter Palace
 * Witch-blood

Labyrinths

 * Biodata
 * The Diaspora
 * Eremites
 * Faction Precursors
 * Mrs. Foyle
 * The House of the Rising Sun
 * Labyrinths
 * The Remonstration Bureau
 * Voodoo Charter
 * The Venue Accords
 * Weaponstores (Remote)

The Ghost Dance

 * A'daltem Ano'nde
 * Cousin Belial
 * Catch-the-Bear's War Bonnet
 * Ghost Shirts
 * North American Warrior Tribes
 * Nunaha'wu
 * Open Doors
 * Pai'ngya
 * Peyote Dream Runners
 * Sand and Snow Ammunition
 * Tenskwatawa
 * Appendix II: From the North American Journals of Cousin Belial

The History of the Remote

 * Anchormen
 * The Broken Remote
 * Fallahal
 * The Jallama Reed Transmissions
 * The New Young Gods
 * Remembrance Tanks
 * Shadow-Masks
 * Simia-KK98
 * The Viewers and Listeners Protocols
 * Wovoka

Faction Hollywood

 * Michael Brookhaven
 * Brookhaven's Follies
 * Christopher Rodonanté Cwej
 * Cwejen
 * Faction Hollywood
 * The Fat
 * The Gauntlet
 * GCI Processor
 * Hollow Spectaculars
 * Inset: Brookhaven's Ghost Kingdom: The Six Central Characters
 * The Hollywood Bowl Shooting
 * The House of the Seven Gables
 * The Mount Usu Duel
 * "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"
 * The North Los Angeles Cabal
 * Order of the White Peacock
 * Production Hell
 * "Through the Eye of Eternity"
 * Chad Vandemeer

The End

 * "Briefings"
 * Humanity
 * Nanotechnology
 * Parablox
 * Ronald Bela Nevitz
 * Time-Travel: Biodata Principle
 * The Younger World Story

Coda

 * House Lolita
 * House Tracolix

Continuity

 * The Shift was a liquid life-form before it was transformed into a shift; it then received the Mark of Indenture and was enslaved to the Celestis. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
 * An interventionist member of the Great Houses was believed to have died as the fighting began on Dronid. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
 * Homeworld weapons like babels and casts were used on the planet Lethe. (PROSE: The Parliament of Rats)
 * Chris Cwej was recruited as an agent of the Great Houses. (PROSE: Dead Romance)
 * A Homeworld colony was located on Simia KK98. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, Dead Romance)
 * The Faction Paradox created the Remote on Ordifica. They reproduce through Remembrance Tanks. (PROSE: Interference)
 * Grandfather Paradox was imprisoned on the Great Houses' prison. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet, Interference)
 * House Mirraflex was an illustrious Great House. (AUDIO: The Conscript)
 * Investigator One was the Celestis' head field agent. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
 * Compassion was the first and only 102-form timeship. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
 * The Homeworld is ruled by Great Houses. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
 * House Lolita is an up-and-coming force in the War. (PROSE: Toy Story)
 * The Mal'akh are connected to humanity's noosphere. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * Multiple Homeworlds were constructed during the War. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Taking of Planet 5, The Shadows of Avalon)
 * The leader of the Homeworld during the War used the title War King. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
 * The Star Chamber ran secret operations in Great Britain and around the world. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * The Yssgaroth fought a war with the Great Houses at the beginning of history. (PROSE: The Pit, TV: State of Decay)
 * Stendec wanted to put a menagerie in the Eleven-Day Empire's version of the building on the Strand which housed a zoo in the 18th century and famously had an elephant winched to one of its higher stories. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)