As one star rises, another must fall...
Peter David is an exceptional writer. I'm sure J. Michael Straczynski was heavily involved in the creation of the main story, but David brings to life the extraordinary events with so much style, warmth and genuine fondness and respect for the characters that for me he must receive the most credit for this series that fills in so many of the gaps that the TV series wasn't able to explore.
Towards the end of the book as events from the B5 TV series and especially the TV movie `In the Beginning' are heavily referenced, the story becomes a little more predictable than the earlier constantly surprising events of previous books, but that's to be expected I guess for anyone who's seen Babylon 5 on television and it's not meant as a criticism of this superb story. If anything this only enhances the story by adding so many layers and bringing so many strands together, so that loyal fans are finally rewarded with a complete picture of the tumultuous years that followed the careful creation of the Interstellar Alliance with John J. Sheridan as its President.
The only criticism I can make of 'Out of Darkness' is the poor characterisation of John and Delenn's son David, who is portrayed simply as an archetypal teenager and little else. Despite being a unique hybrid in the B5 Universe of Human and Minbari his description extends only so far as that he's gifted with the charisma of his father and the intelligence of his mother, which I found to be very weak. But he is the exception in this story and any further elements of either character or plot would be absolutely impossible to criticise. Some of the characters who stood out for me particularly in this story would be Mariel who is ultimately an unexpectedly tragic figure, Vir, who is a man transformed and who flourishes as he finally makes a stand against the many atrocities committed in his friends name and of course Londo, who continues to flail under the close scrutiny of his Drakh keeper. This I found to be the perfect symbolism for this story- as one star rises, another must fall. Superb.
