Customer Reviews

Thirdspace (Babylon 5)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most of the B5 fans I know were disappointed in the Thirdsapce movie. (It didn't compare well to the incredible effort of In The Beginning.) However, Thirdspace is actually a pretty nice story that comes out much better in the print version.

Things certainly make much more sense, at least.

I do notice a distressing similarity to "The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name" (novel 5) -- they're by no means the exact same story, but they are similar.

The movie was good, much better than "River of Souls", but the books was incredible. Peter David has a way of writing that is absolutely incredible.

I love Peter David, and I love B5, so the two combined is very cool! If you are picking which B5 books to read, pick this one, In the Begining or To Dream in the City of Sorrows. They are just as good as the show/movies. If you saw the movie of this and liked it, read the book too, it has more than just what was in the movie!

Based on the second TV movie based on the hit tv show, Thirdspace follows the pacing logic of a good horror novel: it starts out slowly, builds up, and the concludes in a dizzying climax. The best way to discribe it is to think of the brilliant movie Event Horizon, but influenced by Lovercraft (as EH was obvious styled after Clive Barker.) When Ivanova and her squad discover a giant relic floating in hyperspace, little does anyone realize the trouble it will cause. So Ivanova, Captain Sheridan and Security Chief Zack Allen find themselves fighting for their survival amoung the chaos that has been unleashed from the hellish dimension known as Thirdspace. Entertaining read, with enough flare to make you wait for the movie.

Del Rey is showing Dell how the series of Babylon 5 books should have been done. Let's hope that the originals scheduled to start coming out this fall can keep up the quality of "In the Beginning" and "Thirdspace".

Peter David has a real feel for the characters within the Babylon 5 universe - he did, after all, write a few episodes - and it shows. The story is not an original by him, since it is the novelization of a screenplay, but he handles it very well. A very good movie can make for a very poor novelization if slavishly "adapted" - thankfully, Peter David has made a very good book based on what I hope will prove to be a very good movie.

This book is an obvious improvement to most of those that came before. Of course, that's what comes of being adapted from a screenplay, and not cooked up in the mind of someone writing from outside the entire B5 frame of reference (ie "Clark's Law"). The only drawback to the entire book were the silly and increasingly annoying foreshadowings which tease the reader with great horrors to come. Apart from these, though, it was quite rewarding, and worth a five star mention.

This book definitely is an improvement over most of the early Babylon 5 novels. However, for anyone familiar with the science fiction of Peter David, this book is a let-down. The dizzying complexity of sub-plot upon sub-plot upon sub-plot mixed with the hackneyed "little did they know" and "unbeknownst to (X-character)" foreshadowings grated on my nerves. Also, this story is a stand-alone, having no real connection to the B5 story arc.

If you are familar with Peter David's brilliant comedic Star Trek novels "Rock and a Hard Place" and "Q-in-Law", you'll be disappointed. This novel is more closely related to David's "Q-Squared".

If you want to read a superb B5 novel by David, I recommend "In the Beginning", a novelization which actually surpasses the B5 movie in characterization and style. You'll be glad you read it, and better off passing "Thirdspace" by.

Babylon 5 is the best show ever made! The depth of which J. Michael Straczynski has created is far beyond all other Sci-Fi series or books I have ever heard of. He is Genius.

This novel is a quick mover and the type of novel that you can eat somewith or drink with. The type that you read when you want to have a good time and have fun with it, unlike David's novel, In The Being that was more serious and emtioal. In this one, you don't after reading ready emtional drain and a little born. In this one you have fun readying it and you want to read more and more of it until you are tried or it is over with. It like a saturday maintie movie, with no real message from it, it just there to make you[The Reader] have fun.