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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good story grafted into B5 universe, March 8, 2003
As I type this there have been about 15 novels published that are set in the B5 universe. This is one of the first nine, a series initially released by Dell but now being rolled out, one by one, in rerelease by Del Rey's Ballantine series."Blood Oath" takes place mostly on the Narn homeworld, a place not often seen during the TV series. It is set somewhere around the end of season 1, during which time the show had focused on the species' recent history of war with the Centauri and the hatred between the two worlds. The author can therefore be forgiven for painting the Narns as barbarians rather than the sophisticated spiritual culture we see from them later on as the primary Narn character G'Kar developed and grew. And the story told here is really a good one. The images painted by the author are often vivid and memorable, and the story believable and easy to follow. He seems to fall down in the action sequences, though, to me, as I often didn't feel the intensity of such scenes. But the real problem with this book is the characterizations of familiar B5 characters. Again, it was early in production of the show, so we now know these individuals far better than anyone but series creator J. Michael Straczynski did at the time, but it's really jarring to see known and beloved characters saying things that are totally out of voice from what we would expect, in terms of phrases, relationships, idioms, etc. Ultimately it feels like the author had a great story and, when given a contract to write a B5 book, slotted the series characters into a general outline he already had, adapting his outline somewhat to fit a vision that otherwise works well. He is clearly not as familiar with the characters as one would like. It's worth reading because it truly is well written as a novel, but falls far short as a part of the B5 universe otherwise.
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by Lois Tilton
by John Vornholt
by Jim Mortimore
by S. M. Stirling
