Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski, Vol. 2

Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski #2

by J. Michael Straczynski

• And the Sky, Full of Stars
• Signs and Portents
• A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 1
• A Voice in the Wilderness, Part 2
• Babylon Squared
• The Quality of Mercy
• Chrysalis ( famous first-season finale)

This volume also contains:

• A brand new 57 page, 15,000 word introduction and commentary written exclusively for this volume! (That’s two thousand words longer than volume one.)


• 37 pages of memos describing for the first time the design of B5's guns, links, and the alien sector...the creation of new regular characters later omitted from the series (The Boss and The Mysterious Mr. Jones).

In a special feature, the memos also include story development notes and recently-rediscovered premises for such lost season one Babylon 5 episodes as The World Below, The Resurrectionist, The Commander’s Hour, In Their Image, Debt of Honor, Target Unknown and many, many more!


• 8 pages of B&W photos of cast and crew taken by Straczynski, drawn from his personal archives, seen here for the first time.

Genres: Babylon 5, Science Fiction, Reference, Fiction

467 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Joseph Michael Straczynski is an American filmmaker and comic book writer. He is the founder of Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Studio JMS and is best known as the creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998) and its spinoff Crusade (1999), as well as the series Jeremiah (2002–2004) and Sense8 (2015–2018). He is the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison.
Straczynski wrote the psychological drama film Changeling (2008) and was co-writer on the martial arts thriller Ninja Assassin (2009), was one of the key writers for (and had a cameo in) Marvel's Thor (2011), as well as the horror film Underworld: Awakening (2012), and the apocalyptic horror film World War Z (2013). From 2001 to 2007, Straczynski wrote Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man, followed by runs on Thor and Fantastic Four. He is the author of the Superman: Earth One trilogy of graphic novels, and he has written Superman, Wonder Woman, and Before Watchmen for DC Comics. Straczynski is the creator and writer of several original comic book series such as Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, Dream Police, and Ten Grand through Joe's Comics.
A prolific writer across a variety of media and former journalist, Straczynski is the author of the autobiography Becoming Superman (2019) for HarperVoyager, the novel Together We Will Go (2021) for Simon & Schuster, and Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (2021) for Benbella Books. In 2020 he was named Head of the Creative Council for the comics publishing company Artists, Writers and Artisans.
Straczynski is a long-time participant in Usenet and other early computer networks, interacting with fans through various online forums (including GEnie, CompuServe, and America Online) since 1984. He is credited as being the first TV producer to directly engage with fans on the Internet and to allow viewer viewpoints to influence the look and feel of his show. Two prominent areas where he had a presence were GEnie and the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.

Reviews

[Lieblingsbuch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as entertaining to read as the last volume. I found it interesting that Straczynski mentions that he likes to try to write like Mark Twain. That he wants to fully plot out the story in his ead before beginning to write. I find this impressive for a novel, though he was just writing individual television scripts, so that's probably easier to keep straight in your head. I'm just impressed because I would completely forget everything and then upon trying to write the ideas down, I wouldn't be able to help but start writing scenes and dialogue out before finishing the plotting.

[Jim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Season 1 of Babylon 5 has the fewest number of episodes written by JMS himself. This volume covers the back half of season 1. He tells us about the buildup of the story arc and the desire to cast Walter Koenig as Knight Two inAnd the Sky, Full of Stars. Unfortunately, Koenig was unable to be in that episode, so we ended up with Koenig as PsiCop Alfred Bester, who turned out to be one of the best recurring characters in any series .... ever!

Another great thing is the attention to detail seen in the memos in the back of the book. Small details, like the desire for there to be a reloading mechanism on the PPGs did not escape JMS. Over and over again, he tells us (without actually coming out and saying it) that in Babylon 5 he was seeking to avoid all of the illogical leaps made in most science fiction an d create the most realistic future world possible.

Another volume well worth reading for anyone interested in the making of television or this series in particular.