I picked up this book for a couple bucks somewhere because I had heard it was one of the few decent books in the B5 novel series. As it turns out, "decent" is a pretty good word for it - I enjoyed reading it, but ultimately it's pretty forgettable. It was fun to learn more about Jeffrey Sinclair, a character I would have liked to have seen more of on the show.

I though the book's weakest point was its lack of a cohesive central arc. While it's often hard to give characters a good storyline without tampering with canon, there was a ready-made story here: the progression of Sinclair's character from where we left him in Season 1 ("Nothing is the same anymore") to the guy we saw in Season 3 ("the arrow that springs from the bow"). There was some of this in the novel, but nowhere near as much as I expected. The main purpose of the book seems to be to explain away various slight discontinuities in the series, which was handled well and was more fun than it sounds. Drennan has a good enough understanding of the characters that there were few problems in that department. I was intrigued by what she did with Rathenn - her characterization of him doesn't quite fit the impression I got from the show, but it doesn't actually contradict what's shown either, just extrapolates in a different direction.

I'd reccomend this to fans of B5 who have time for some light fluff reading on their hands. As long as you don't expect too much from this novel, you'll probably have fun reading it. ( )