Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “Personal Agendas” by Al Sarrantonio

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

Personal Agendas by Al Sarrantonio

Personal Agendas takes place just before the story of “Falling Toward Apotheosis” from the TV series (Season 4, Episode 4). The placement here on the timeline means that it has a somewhat stronger connection to the show than some of the other novels so far.

The story centers around 5 main threads. The first is a group of Narn lead by L’Kan trying to infiltrate the Centauri homeworld to liberate G’Kar. The second features G’Kar and Londo Mollari plotting to save Narn and Centauri together. Third, Sheridan and Delenn attempt to thwart some arms dealers. Fourth, a group from Babylon 5 are also attempting to rescue G’Kar. Finally, fifth, Vir is fending off an upcoming wedding with a Centauri woman who hates the Narn.

There’s a lot going on in this 212 page novel, in other words. And, the good news is that most of it works pretty well. The Sheridan/Delenn plot is, in my opinion, the weakest by far part of the novel. It has almost no connection to anything else going on and doesn’t really do much for the characters, either. It seems to have been thrown in so two more main characters could make an appearance. Vir’s interactions with Lyndisty are a nice diversion thrown in between what otherwise amounts to a bunch of action and nefarious plotting. G’Kar and Mollari’s voices show up loud and clear throughout the novel; I found their interactions entirely believable.

The main problem with the story is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense as a tag on to the episode it’s supposed to precede. Almost none of the plot points tie into that episode, and if pushed too far, the book would seem to undermine some of the dramatic tension we get in the TV series. That said, if one reads it as what it largely is: a fun romp featuring the main characters that could have happened even if it wouldn’t make much sense for it to have happened (there’s a mouthful), it is pretty enjoyable. Several characters are depicted spot on. Even Garibaldi gets some classic one-liners. It’s a well-paced novel, so even though readers know basically none of it matters to the series it maintains interest all the way through.

Personal Agendas is one of the stronger Babylon 5 novels in the original Warner Brothers run. The characters actually feel like they do in the show and the plot, while essentially a throw-away, ties in to the series in believable ways. Recommended for Babylon 5 fans.

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “In the Beginning” by Peter David

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

In the Beginning by Peter David

Novelizations of movies aren’t often great. They’re often just cash grabs for the novelty of having a book in hand to tell the story. Peter David, however, is no hack. He’s written a number of Star Trek novels I quite enjoyed, and I was excited to see what his take on this Babylon 5 film would be. In the Beginning is largely a 1-to-1 retelling of the movie, but David adds in a bunch of detail and asides that make it feel very much like a Babylon 5 story is being told. Honestly, I enjoyed it even more than the film.

The story of In the Beginning is that of Mollari as Emperor telling some children what happened in the Earth-Minbari war, which would of course set up numerous later events and lead to many of his own self-inflicted problems. Like the movie, it’s all told from his perspective. Because this is a novel, however, David is able to keep the entire story in the voice of Mollari. Yes, the movie does much of this as well, but David adds more comments from Mollari, along with internal rationalizations of what he’s saying. All of this adds depth of character to the story that already has plenty going for it.

There’s no question that Mollari is among the most interesting characters in a cast of greats on Babylon 5. This book reads just as though you, the reader, are having the whole story being told from his perspective. Again, the film attempts this (and largely succeeds), but the novel turns it up a few notches. I can’t tell you the number of times I chuckled appreciatively at something that was absolutely on point for Mollari as a character. Chapter after chapter revealed additional insights not only into the main characters of the show, but into Mollari himself. I found myself looking forward to seeing what comments David might put into Mollari’s mind or mouth as he continued the story. It’s just a fabulous way to read about Babylon 5. Honestly, I’d love to have more novels written like this–just Mollari (or another character) retelling various events with commentary.

In the Beginning is definitely the best of the Babylon 5 novels I’ve read so far. It not only retells the story of the movie, but it expands upon it and fills in background in numerous delightful ways. Peter David’s novel absolutely captures the feel of Babylon 5 the whole time, and it is worth the read for any fan of the series.

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “The Shadow Within” by Jeanne Cavelos

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos

The blurb for this one promises some insight into the series that can’t really be found anywhere else. The novel follows the story of John Sheridan and his wife, Anna, before the TV series begins. Thus, we are to see scenes of John on the Agamemnon and his wife exploring archaeological finds that we know will lead to the shadows. Mr. Morden also looms large, as he’s on the expedition with Anna.

This plot setup is enough to vault the novel into a point of interest, as it allows the author to effectively have free say with the past of characters we care about while possibly explaining some of their motivations and background in ways we’ve not yet seen. Cavelos largely takes advantage of that, providing some believable background into characters we enjoy–or enjoy hating.

John Sheridan’s background, unfortunately, is a bit boring, however. Yes, some things go down on the ship and he even saves a bunch of lives, but it all feels a bit pedestrian while reading it. I found myself wanting to push through the Jon scenes to get to the ones featuring Anna. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but one would think seeing Sheridan as a war hero should be more exciting than it is.

The scenes with Anna largely deliver. Part of that is because we don’t have a great sense of who she was before the show yet, and so Cavelos can play with her character both in development and in what she encounters throughout the novel. I quite enjoyed the portrayal of Anna, and certainly her encounters with Mr. Morden are of interest to any fans of the show. What really sealed it for me was the ending, which basically takes us to where Anna starts in the show. It’s chilling and exciting–something we haven’t really encountered in the other novels to this point. There’s also a look at Ambassador Kosh and, briefly, what he might have been up to as a few major events played out.

The Shadow Within is among the best of the first run of Babylon 5 novels. It provides background for characters of interest on the show and even glimpses of what can explain some later interactions. Unfortunately, a good portion of the book falls flat due to not being engaging. Overall, this one is at least worth the read for fans of the show who’d like to have some additional story about major events that predate the show.

All Links to Amazon are Affiliates

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name” by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name by Neal Barrett, Jr.

The premise of this (so far best-named) Babylon 5 novel is that there’s a big magical space snake thing that causes bad dreams and the people on Babylon 5 have to deal with and/or fix that.

The problem with this book is that so much of it is dreams. I’m sure I’m exaggerating here, but it felt as though a third of this book was just sitting in people’s dreams. I guess that wouldn’t hugely matter, if the dreams had relevance for Babylon 5 more broadly. Technically there’s some character development in these dreams, like a comedic/serious scene with Lennier, but it doesn’t go very far.

A huge amount of this book is focused around those dreams as well. Basically that’s the whole story here:

Everyone on Babylon 5: There’s dreams, let’s deal with them by rioting.

Garibaldi: No, don’t do that.

Everyone: Oh, okay.

Alright, I oversimplified, but that summarizes most of the plot that isn’t dreams. Yeah, they have to deal with the space alien thing, too, but at some point I just stopped caring. The good points here are the title and the occasional flash of seeing a favorite character acting in a just-right way. There’s so little by way of main plot here that it becomes difficult to even want to get into it. The dreams have no real investment on the part of the reader. We know they’re dreams, and that they’re not even building character in most cases. They’re just fluff that serve little purpose other than to pad the length of the novel.

The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name is another mediocre Babylon 5 novel. Honestly, I think reading it and just skipping over all the dreams in the book may give it the chance to be more enjoyable, but as I think about doing that, I realize how little plot there is apart from them. It’s just an okay read.

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “Accusations” by Lois Tilton

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

Accusations by Lois Tilton

Accusations is the second Babylon 5 novel, and, like the first, it’s an imperfect experience. The core plot here is about Ivanova and Garibaldi solving a murder mystery on Babylon 5. That’s certainly a plot that one would expect to be within their purview, and Lois Tilton does a good job integrating enough twists and turns to let this be the central plot for the whole novel.

The writing isn’t half bad, either. Tilton captures Ivanova’s role fairly early on, and I enjoyed the tie-in at the very end of the book that basically bookends the novel with standard Babylon 5 operations. There’s a complexity to Ivanova’s portrayal here that makes it engaging. However, the problems with the book begin with Ivanova as well. She ends up at one point letting Talia Winters scan her, something that would never have happened with the Ivanova we know from the show, especially from later seasons. Accusations was published in 1995, so sometime during Season 2. But that makes it difficult to look back on with the knowledge from later seasons that negate this somewhat key scene.

If you’re willing to ignore such problems reconciling this book with the later series–something a reader could probably do by assuming the scan happened and Ivanova somehow convinced/coerced Winters to not tell too much afterwords–you’re going to get good mileage out of this novel. Tilton’s prose sometimes captures the conversational style punctuated with humor that the show does so well. At other times, it can fall flat. But for a tie-in novel, her writing does the job.

I do have to ask: Why is G’Kar even on the cover? He barely even appears in the book–so little that I’m questioning if I even remember him showing up or if I’m conflating it with the first book in my head. I was hoping he’d have a role in some of the plotting happening on the station. But he doesn’t, and neither do any other alien characters. This is a story almost entirely about Ivanova, Winters, and Garibaldi, with a cast of other humans thrown along for the ride. That doesn’t necessarily make this a bad novel, but it does take away some of the feel of Babylon 5. On the other hand, this hyper-focus on humans means that we get some insights into how far force, human corporations, and some workings of the politicking happening behind the scenes. It’s not a lot, but it is interesting to get just a glimpse into some background there.

Ultimately, Accusations is a decent read for fans of Babylon 5. It captures Ivanova’s character well–apart from the major flub discussed above–and mostly captivates readers with an interesting mystery plot at its core. There are also revelations about human forces shaping into potential for later conflict in the TV series, as we saw in later seasons. The book is an imperfect but satisfying read for fans, especially if they’re inclined to be forgiving when reading tie-in novels.

(All links to Amazon are Affiliates.)

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

Reading the Babylon 5 Novels: “Voices” by John Vornholt

Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.

Voices by John Vornholt

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure initially if I would be buying all the Babylon 5 novels or if I’d just try to read the ones that are officially considered “canon.” I figured I may as well get them all, because I loved the series so much. Voices is part of the first batch of Babylon 5 novels that was released, and only a few of these first 9 novels are considered “canon.” Voices is not one of those novels. I’m not one who gets all tied up in insisting upon only canon matters (I enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the now-“Legends” Star Wars novels and reviewed… a lot of them). But I want the in-universe books to make sense and be fun.

Voices did each of those… at times. The core of the plot is that some bomb goes off as Alfred Bester, the awful telepath we know and love to hate from the series, is planning a convention on Mars. Instead, because of this bombing, the convention of telepaths gets moved at the last second to Babylon 5, much to the chagrin of Girabaldi and Ivanova in particular. This is set in the time when Talia Winters was still on station, so she gets caught up in the mess, especially when another bomb goes off–this time on B5.

The first half of the novel is honestly great. It reads just like another episode of Babylon 5 set within that time period. You can truly see the characters on screen doing everything described, and it makes sense. I especially loved Girabaldi being flustered at having the whole Psi Corps convention dumped into his lap for security. It was spot-on for the handling of him as a character.

The second half of the novel is, however, not great. Suddenly, characters go off in ways that are totally different from what you’d expect from their established personas. Talia Winters, in particular, loses much of her mystique and calm characterization. Girabaldi becomes much more whiney and less decisive than it seems he should be. Even the Psi Corps people seem to lose their way, acting strangely complacent towards station security at times, and going absolutely wild at other points. The plot goes a bit off the rails as well, as we get several larger threats introduced and dismissed seemingly with ease.

What I was left with, then, was a feeling of disappointment. The promising beginning of the book didn’t get the expected payoff. I did enjoy spending more time with the characters I’d come to know and love, but then they started to act in unbelievable ways. There’s also a few gaffes, such as saying the surface of Mars is 200-300 degrees when the temperature on Mars rarely even approaches 0 from below. It’s not a huge deal–Babylon 5 is space opera and not hard science fiction–but it was enough of a blip that it distracted me. Thanks to The Babylon File (volume 1), I read that Vornholt said that the novel “could have benefited from a few more days of research” (383). It probably could have also benefited from a bit more editing to jettison several unnecessary threats and focus on the main plot.

Voices is an okay work of tie-in fiction, but it violates one of the cardinal rulse of such fiction: it loses the feel of the on-screen characters readers have come to love. I’d be curious to know what other Babylon 5 fans thought of the book.

(All Links to Amazon are Affiliates.)

Links

Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.