Babylon 5: Book 3 Blood Oath
                    Author John Vornholt
             Boxtree/Channel 4 œ4.99 paperback
                      Reviewed by Sue

G'Kar is dead! Yes, it's official. He had been recalled urgently
to the Narn Homeworld and as his personal transport was taking off
from Babylon 5, there was a massive explosion and it - and he -
was gone. When evidence is found in his apartment of a Shon'Kar, a
blood oath, taken against him by the daughter of the Du'Rog
family, it seems obvious what happened. Her father had been set up
by G'Kar so that he could fulfil his political ambitions and take
Du'Rog's place in The Third Circle, an important Narn council. As
a result, Du'Rog's family lost their social standing, something
very important on Narn, and was effectively destroyed in G'Kar's
greed for advancement.

A memorial service is held on the station, then Garibaldi and
Ivanova are told that they must go to Narn as the official Terran
delegation in order to pay their respects to the Narn government
and G'Kar's widow. Na'Toth and a short friendly Earthman called Al
Vernon go with them. Vernon had suggested to Garibaldi that he
could be of great help on Narn because he understands their
customs, in fact he is actually married to a Narn female.

So, the four of them are given passage on a Narn ship which is
heading that way. But before they reach the planet they discover
something that the reader has known since page 29 (and which
you've no doubt guessed) which is that, of course, G'Kar is very
much alive and well. Moreover he is determined to kill the people
who have taken out the Shon'Kar on him before they can make
another attempt on his life and he is hoping that faking his death
will give him the time he urgently needs - not to mention an
element of surprise!

The Narn Homeworld is a forbidding place to all except Narns with
temperatures varying from freezing cold to blood-boilingly hot
during the course of a day. Hekba City and its surroundings have
areas where it isn't safe to go because law and order are
virtually non-existent and others where humans are merely looked
on with suspicion. Built on cliffs, there are rickety bridges to
cross over incredibly deep chasms to get from one part of the city
to another, and lifts which plummet from one level to another, not
the sort of place to go if you have even a slight case of vertigo.
How can G'Kar and his companions stop Mi'Ra Du'Rog from fulfilling
what she sees as her destiny - killing him?

This book didn't grab me at the start, but I was soon drawn in. It
was obvious from the beginning that G'Kar wasn't dead, he's one of
the main characters! But the way the story unfolded was very well
devised. The reader can have sympathy for both G'Kar and Mi'Ra,
and not want either of them to lose face. The descriptions of the
Narn Homeworld were excellent - I alternately sweated and froze
with Susan Ivanova as she tried to cope with the variations in
temperature and felt her fear as she crossed a swaying rope bridge
over a plunging chasm. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the Narn
homes, their architecture and decorations making much use of
beaten metal and blood red fabric with orange and brown tiles on
the floor.  I hope that we will also visit the Mimbari and
Centauri Homeworlds in other books and see how they live.

The conclusion of the book is very satisfactory and the final
confrontation is edge-of-the-seat stuff - inconvenient for me
since I was reading it on a bus! Great stuff - if you have any
interest in the Babylon 5 series, do read it. My only moan would
be the large number of typos in it, the best being Londo Mollari
being briefly renamed London!












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