As the five year run of the Babylon 5 television series drew to a close, a series of made-for-TV movies were released, the second of these was Thirdspace, and this book is the novelisation of that. The movie was pretty good, but the book far outshines it.
Written by Peter David, who has deft touches for Science-Fiction, characterisation and Comedy, this presents what could be the darkest tale of the series.
The story goes that a fighter squadron from Babylon 5, the Diplomatic Space station of the story, discover a giant artifact floating in hyperspace, the dimension used for long distance space travel. This huge object is towed back to Babylon 5, where the crew begin to investigate it, and are soon joined by experts from the Archaeological firm, IPX.
As the story prgresses strange things begin to happen across the station, nightmares, hallucinations and what seems like possesions.
The novel features more of the regular characters than the film, and none are wasted, especially the Minbari, Lennier, whose actions during the concluding entry are so firmly in character it's hilarious.
David keeps up a solid pace, and I managed to get through this book pretty fast without realising the time I'd spent reading it, and his allusions to H.P. Lovecrafts Cthulhu Mythos are not wasted, and are certainly more firm footed than the way things fell together for the movie.
Well worth a read if you're a fan of the series because David carries the feel of the series across to written form extremely well. If you're not a fan, then odds are you'll still enjoy it, but won't get the same enjoyment out of it.