Customer Reviews

Babylon 5: A Call to Arms

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I think this was a good movie turned into a good tv-movie. The only problem I think is that it need a little more information about the Drakh. Give a little more info I what they have been doing for the past 5 years. Still a good book.

I have to say that this book is great, unlike what I did with Thridspace I read this book after I saw the movie. It is a quick read and if you are a hard core fan of Babylon 5 you will eat this one up like cadny. I knew that there were some things about the Drazi and because of that I zero into that thing. But what they didn't tell me was the little thing about Dureena while she was on the station. Do you a favor or a treat go and buy this book.

The only reason I decide to read a movie novelization is to see what additional material(internal dialogue, additional scenes) the author injects into the project. Peter David did a great job with "In the Beginning" of expanding on the film and really giving us material that could've been there if not for time constraints.

Sheckley brings nothing interesting into "A Call to Arms" that enhances the story and much of the inner dialogue doesn't even seem like the characters.

You might as well just watch the movie again if the basic story appeals to you.

The book is better than the movie. I had not watched the movie and chose to read the book first. I have followed the series and own all the books except River of Souls and must say that this book is a nice addition to my catalog. If you're a die hard fan, or a novice familar with the story then you will probably enjoy this book. If you are new just know that it is not a stand alone book. Without references, buy something else. Unfortunately since it is towards the end of the franchise you don't get to know everything that happens because there really isn't any follow-ups. I'm looking to purchase the spin offs soon but as of now this is the final book to the series that I am aware of. Again if you're a fan or familar go ahead and purchase it. If not then don't.

This only gets two stars because it at least is drawn from a very good tv movie. Otherwise it wouldn't even get that.

While the tv movie was excellent, the book was a disappointment. At least with many of the other novels, you got a richness and added depth to the story - Peter David's work is one great example.

Sheckley, by comparison, adds nothing. I got the impression that he took a script for the movie and just reworked it into a novel. A bit of description here, a line or two there, some, like some bits about the technomages, pilfered straight from the B5 technomage episode, only delivered clumsily as an attempt at narrative exposition.

If anything, it reminded me of when I was an immature kid in jr. high, and pressed for time made the big mistake of copying the World Book description of the brain for a paper, only changing it a little bit to try and call it my own. The result was clearly a poor copy of the original. And so is this book. If he had found a program that could take a script and alter and replace the script directions with "he said"s and reworked descriptions, it couldn't have been any worse.

It might be worth getting if you want to have a full set of B5 books, but I can almost guarantee, you'll only read it once.

Peter David's books, on the other hand, can be read again and again.

If this is the book of the film, god knows how bad the film is. I worship B5 but being in Britain we have not seen the TV version. This was a terrible hactchet job of hashed together bad ideas that lead nowhere. Thirdspace was very good, but this is awful.

This book was great. The authors did a great job on this book. Never before did I realize how much I like the B-5 series untill now. This book rivals that of the Star Trek series and Star Wars!

Wow, this was bad. Sheckley has written some good stuff in his time, so I can only assume that he needed the money in a hurry and wrote this over a weekend. It's pretty much JMS's shooting script in novel form - there's certainly no character or plot insights (contrast this to Peter David's novelization of "Thirdspace", which was a mediocre TV movie, but a much better book). It's not been carefully edited, either - there are many places where word choice is poor, and a sentence or two that really are redundant. It's about the level of work one might expect from a moderately-talented highschool sophomore.

Collectors of B5 books will want this, but I'd recommend others get the video - it's much better on film.

IMO this was the second best of the B5 books (The best being book one of the Psi Corps trilogy.) Besides providing interesting backstories for several of the characters introduced (Anderson, Dueena and others), there were some delightful insights into the lives of Sheridan and Garibaldi at this point in the B5 saga. For me, the chapter where Michael "seeks professional help" to determine the state of Sheridan's mind was worth the price of the book.

This novel is solid and workmanlike, with absolutely nothing embarrassing or even mediocre about it. That said -- it left me somewhat cold through its general lack of real style. In that sense it falls short of the standard set by "The Shadow Within", "To Dream in the City of Sorrows", "Dark Genesis", "In the Beginning" and "Thirdspace", the extremely well-written B5 novels that preceded this one.