I hearby apologize to Peter David for accusing of not bringing anything new to the Centauri table; I had forgotten the story of Emperor Karn, which was new, and works well as a bit of Centauri history.
Londo's and Vir's dialogues. David in both his other tie ins and in tv episodes excells at witty banter (if he reigns it in and doesn't go overboard into slap stick) with the occasional character revelation, and it shows.
Bringing Mariel back. Like Timov, she was a character David had created, and so I was hoping he would back in the day. Of course, given what he eventually did with Mariel I wish he hadn't, but strictly in this section of the book, we're good. I can see her becoming a spy, female amoral characters with brains are rare, and I like the neat detail of Mariel warning Lione not to underestimate Timov (and her awareness that Timov actually has non-hostile feelings for Londo)
The bad:
The only purpose for the random canon change in declaring that TWO YEARS passed between "Objects in Motion" and "Objects at Rest" seems to be so that Vir can prevent a Sheridan assassination. He couldn't have done that during a Sheridan visit on B5?
Critique to JMS rather than Peter David: if the Drakh can use Londo to smuggle a Keeper into the Sheridan Household on Minbar, why on earth not have the wretched thing attach itself to Sheridan and Delenn right there instead of waiting for fifteen years and the kid? Because why should the kid matter to the Drakh anyway? President of the Alliance and Anlashok aren't heredical positions the last time I looked. Here we run into the problem of JMS applying Tolkienesque fantasy narrative tropes to what's supposed to be a sci fi story featuring advanced societies again.
Durla and his Hitler Youth. Just in case we miss it, we even get a dialogue reminder that the Centauri are just like Weimar Germany. Err, no. (Coming from a German.) Going for Nazi parallels is just so bloody lazy and easy, and in this particular universe also repetitive because we've done the fascism gig with Clark and NightWatch already. It's been said before by others and more eloquently: a more sensible historical parallel to draw with Durla would have been Sejanus, the Pretorian prefect under Tiberius who was the most powerful man in Rome for a while. It would even have fitted with the developing Mariel subplot, given Sejanus had an affair with Tiberius' daughter in law and niece and was hoping to marry into the imperial family.
The hm:
Kane the technomage. From a purely objective pov I can see the point in bringing the technomages back. They play a role in the larger B5 universe thanks to Crusade, and Geometry of Shadows certainly provided canon backstory with Vir and a reason why they should remember him.
But. Subjectively, I can't stand them. I'm not rational about this, I know. But I hate them and their smug know it all superiority. I think I disliked them even before Galen in Crusade became my least favourite character on that show, but certainly my unending Galen hate doesn't help me here. Bloody technomages.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-07-22 06:23 pm (UTC)I hearby apologize to Peter David for accusing of not bringing anything new to the Centauri table; I had forgotten the story of Emperor Karn, which was new, and works well as a bit of Centauri history.
Londo's and Vir's dialogues. David in both his other tie ins and in tv episodes excells at witty banter (if he reigns it in and doesn't go overboard into slap stick) with the occasional character revelation, and it shows.
Bringing Mariel back. Like Timov, she was a character David had created, and so I was hoping he would back in the day. Of course, given what he eventually did with Mariel I wish he hadn't, but strictly in this section of the book, we're good. I can see her becoming a spy, female amoral characters with brains are rare, and I like the neat detail of Mariel warning Lione not to underestimate Timov (and her awareness that Timov actually has non-hostile feelings for Londo)
The bad:
The only purpose for the random canon change in declaring that TWO YEARS passed between "Objects in Motion" and "Objects at Rest" seems to be so that Vir can prevent a Sheridan assassination. He couldn't have done that during a Sheridan visit on B5?
Critique to JMS rather than Peter David: if the Drakh can use Londo to smuggle a Keeper into the Sheridan Household on Minbar, why on earth not have the wretched thing attach itself to Sheridan and Delenn right there instead of waiting for fifteen years and the kid? Because why should the kid matter to the Drakh anyway? President of the Alliance and Anlashok aren't heredical positions the last time I looked. Here we run into the problem of JMS applying Tolkienesque fantasy narrative tropes to what's supposed to be a sci fi story featuring advanced societies again.
Durla and his Hitler Youth. Just in case we miss it, we even get a dialogue reminder that the Centauri are just like Weimar Germany. Err, no. (Coming from a German.) Going for Nazi parallels is just so bloody lazy and easy, and in this particular universe also repetitive because we've done the fascism gig with Clark and NightWatch already. It's been said before by others and more eloquently: a more sensible historical parallel to draw with Durla would have been Sejanus, the Pretorian prefect under Tiberius who was the most powerful man in Rome for a while. It would even have fitted with the developing Mariel subplot, given Sejanus had an affair with Tiberius' daughter in law and niece and was hoping to marry into the imperial family.
The hm:
Kane the technomage. From a purely objective pov I can see the point in bringing the technomages back. They play a role in the larger B5 universe thanks to Crusade, and Geometry of Shadows certainly provided canon backstory with Vir and a reason why they should remember him.
But. Subjectively, I can't stand them. I'm not rational about this, I know. But I hate them and their smug know it all superiority. I think I disliked them even before Galen in Crusade became my least favourite character on that show, but certainly my unending Galen hate doesn't help me here. Bloody technomages.