After Babylon 5 ended, there were a spate of official, canonical short stories published, mostly written by series creator Joe Straczynski himself. These stories have never been reprinted, nor collected, and given the general lack of media interest in B5, they're unlikely to be anytime soon. I have all the stories, but for obvious legal reasons I can't simply post 'em here. As a service to fans who might be driving themselves crazy trying to find these particular straws in a needle-stack, I offer an overview, review, and my observations. It's not much, but it's what I've got.

Today we look at a short story written by Babylon 5 creator Joe Strazynski himself, telling the further adventures of Lyta and G’kar.

PLAY BY PLAY

Six weeks after leaving Babylon 5, G’kar and Lyta are still both dodging unwanted attention, but G’kar is doing a particularly bad job of it. He’s trysting with any female who has even reasonably compatible anatomy. After bedding an alien princess, G’kar finds himself in a major brawl. He and Lyta elect to leave the planet Durk 3 in a hurry.

What a difference half a season makes! Just twelve episodes ago - heck, just six episodes ago - this story would have sucked. It’s solidly C-grade at best, but the way it’s handled - particularly the Sheridan stuff - bumps it up to B-minus effortlessly, despite the workmanlike plot. The show knows who and what it is now, and suddenly, finally, it’s a joy for me to introduce it to you.

PLAY BY PLAY

A-Plot:

I love Larry Niven. Well, actually, not Niven himself, really I love his writing. Well, not so much his writing in toto, but I really do love his Known Space stories. Though he's got the occasional interesting story that's unrelated to Known Space, most of his other writing is less..uhm...Well, not 'bad' exactly, it just doesn't appeal to me. And with one or two exceptions, his co-authored books (Mostly written with Jerry Pournelle, and the newer "Fleet of Worlds" books) don't appeal to me either. So I guess 'I love Larry Niven' is a bit of an overstatement, huh?