I would have preffered to read this in one sitting, if I didn't have a lot I needed to do. I have been looking forward to this novel for a long time and felt it worth the wait. This novel is about Bester and Garibaldi. The Telepath War is over, Bester is a hunted war criminal, and he goes to Paris to hide out. But once there he doesn’t so much hide out as create a better, different life. He becomes a book critic and falls in love with a mundane. He fantasizes that he won’t have to be Bester ever again. He, the most evil man on television, becomes sympathetic. (Which makes perfect sense in the B5 universe where everyone changes: Delenn, Sheridan, G’Kar, Londo, Lennier, Ivanova, Franklin, Garibaldi, why not Bester?) The chase after him is so like Demolished Man that I’m not sure whether it’s homage or plagiarism. But Garibaldi finally does find him and in his last act as security chief realizes it’s more important that everyone who was wronged by Bester have their day in court.

“I first came to Paris when I was fifteen. Fifteen. Do you remember how much potential you had when you were fifteen? How many things you had in you, how many buds just waiting to bloom if the right rain came along? I fell in love with this city then. What did I do about it? Nothing. I went on to waste everything important that was in me, squander it, sacrifice it to the gods of success, while everyone I loved and cared for died.
“That happens to everyone, I suppose, but most people fill those gaps in their lives, make new friends, take new lovers. I didn’t. If I had made a deliberate plan to become a heartsick, lonely old man I couldn’t have done it better. Then one day, I saw it. I faced the truth, and I came back here, and I walked until I saw something interesting. Here. I didn’t know it, but I fell in love with Louise the instant she spoke to me. How could I know? I had forgotten what love was. I couldn’t even conceive of it. Now…”

Oh and this version has the first 8 pages of Peter David’s Centauri trilogy! ( )

http://www.jensmans-welt.de/2006/03/0... ( )