Babylon 5: Across Time and Space: The Chronologies of Babylon 5

Babylon 5: Nonfiction books

by Terry Jones, I. Marc Carlson

* Contains two complete Terry Jones' Babylon 5 Historical Database (parts of which were previously published in the now-defunct Official Babylon 5 magazine) and I. Marc Carlson's "Time Line of the Babylon 5/Crusade Universe."* Together these two documents are the only sources that give you a complete picture of the Babylon 5 universe and how it fits in the history of the world* Contains important Babylon 5 canon buried in the novels, comic, books and short stories.* Up to the minute -- includes "The Lost Tales".* Includes information that has not been published in a decade from out-of-print publications such as the Official B5 magazine.* The ultimate Babylon 5 reference because it weaves the entire B5 universe into a cohesive narrative.* Includes data from all televised episodes of Crusade and some that weren't even produced.* Includes an introduction by Fiona Avery, reference editor for Babylon 5 and Crusade (and writer of 3 Crusade episodes).

Genres: Babylon 5, Science Fiction, Fiction

413 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

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Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading pieces of the narrative that exist outside of the television show in books, comics, and short stories that are hard to find. I appreciate the effort put into assembling the two chronologies that make up this book, but I think they could have used some more polishing. I'm sorry to be a stickler for grammar, but pervasive problems with dangling modifiers were irritating and sometimes confusing.
Terry Jones's chronology contains extensive detail, but often lacks important facts. At times, it explains the lead-up to and some of the fall out from an event without actually explaining how the event turns out (e.g. The Starfire Wheel business that resolves the Minbari Civil War: it states what Delenn and Neroon agreed to before entering the Starfire Wheel and then states that Delenn recovers from her injuries, without telling you the actual state of affairs produced by the event). Jones also has a tendency to use lines from dialogue in the show, which gives his work an inconsistent tone. In contrast, I. Marc Carlson's version is much more concise and a little more consistent in tone, so I think I prefer it.
One thing that frustrated me about both timelines was the editorial decision not to differentiate between the titles of sources by form. Because I'm very familiar with the episodes, I would like to be able to skim the timelines for information that appears in books, comics, etc., which isn't easy to do when all titles are simply italicized.
On the whole, it was nice to see how well the interweaving stories managed to synch up. There were very few actual timeline problems, so kudos to J. Michael Straczynski for keeping everything straight!

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strictly speaking, this is simply a reference work which presents independently created chronologies of the events depicted and/or mentioned within the Babylon 5 universe. It certainly helps put the greater moments of the series in perspective, but in many ways would only be truly useful to someone performing a scholarly study of the series.