Some weeks ago, I reviewed “After Things Fell Apart…” by Ron Goulart, calling it one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, and, in fact, better than several of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. In trying to find more information about it to write the review, I discovered that it was actually the first installment in a series called “Fragmented America.” Excited, I quickly tracked down a copy of “Gadget Man,” the second in the series. I tore into it, expecting more of the same, and quite eager to get more of the same, since the previous book was so darn good.

In the second half of the season, we hit a stride that is more-or-less typical for the main sequence of the series, and we hit a format that’s not *exactly* typical, but it’s kind of their go-to comfort zone when they need to show a lot of balls in the air. If I were going to pick an episode as the one where Straczynski’s “Original Concept” of Babylon 5 (Which came to him in the shower in 1988) BECAME what we now think of as Babylon 5, I’d say this was the best candidate for the point of transition.

It’s now June 2259, and Sheridan has been on the station six months. He’s expecting General Hague to make a low-profile visit to the station, but even so he’s getting antsy. When Invonova reports some odd appearances and disappearances on the fringes of the shipping lanes, he jumps at the chance to get in a little flight time, and heads out with some of Zeta squadron.

One of the more noteworthy things about B5 was its relative egalitarianism. In the era when it ran, pretty much everyone on every space show was an officer and a gentlemen from an idealized society in which everyone had a perfect education, freedom from want, full intellectual stimulation, and in which nobody (To paraphrase a Ferengi) ever seemed to have to go get the chairs. In other words, no one ever seemed to have any work beyond punching buttons, or occasionally walking drinks to tables. And their ain’t no money.