azarias: (Default)
azarias ([personal profile] azarias) wrote in [personal profile] aria 2010-06-18 03:14 am (UTC)

B5 has some exceptional tie-ins. The numbered novels are just your bog standard non-canon adventures, for the most part, but the canon novels are great fun.

You should at minimum read To Dream in the City of Sorrows. It's the story of what Sinclair does on Minbar, and what Catherine does after we last see her on the show. It's a large part of why I love the Rangers as much as I do -- all my B5 Mary Sues that I won't let see the light of day wind up Rangers at one time or another.

The Telepath trilogy is excellent. It's by Peter David, and it's good Peter David where he's restrained by an editor and not allowed to go off on his own Gary Stu fantasies, and it's Bester's tragic past. Caroline is not the beginning or end of his tragedy. She's just a logical consequence.

The Centauri trilogy is also by PAD, and it's mostly Vir's tragic future. The canonicity of it is kind of weird these days, though. JMS seems to have retconned a lot of things in his head, judging by The Lost Tales. Honestly, I prefer how it works out in the Centauri trilogy. I'm not a Lost Tales fan in the least. Personal taste.

The Techno-mage trilogy and The Shadow Within are ... well, they're very interesting tie-ins. Honestly, the author's style is so painful to me that I just skim them. It's worth looking up a summary, or giving them a shot to see if your tolerances are better than mine. You do get gems like Morden's backstory, and an idea of just how creepy Shadowship-Anna is. You think she's creepy in the show? Wait until you read scenes from her point of view.

My tragic backstory is that, as a result of that skimming, I'm the only person in the world who wants crackfic about Ivanova and Morden being forced to have lolzy adventures together. The only fic in existence even close to that is this one, which I highly recommend and cherish despite not being crackfic and the adventures being, for the most part, srs bzness.

Post a comment in response:

If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

If you are unable to use this captcha for any reason, please contact us by email at support@dreamwidth.org