Babylon 5: Legions of Fire: #1 The Long Night of Centauri Prime by Peter David
It took only the n-th rerun of Babylon 5 for me to finally pick up this first part of the Centauri-Prime-trilogy...
... and I'm glad I finally did. "The Long Night..." picks up from Londo's coronation to Emperor up till 2267. It shows how Londo's keeper and the Drakh influence him and Centauri politics, how they turn the Centauri Republic into some form of police state (even with some parallel to Hitler's Youth), how Londo internally rails against this but is powerless to actually interfere. And the book ends on a bleak note: Vir and Londo's wife are essentially exiled because they came too close to discovering what's going on, leaving Londo even more isolated with only Reefa's daughter Senna as some kind of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. But how long will that last inkling of light be allowed to last - especially if it leads to Londo being recalcitrant?
Londo never was one of my favourite characters in the series, but David manages to breathe life into the background of events that were depicted in the series and/or the movies, such as Londo's leaving the urn with a keeper for Sheridan's son on Minbar. And he even lays the groundwork for the Shadow-weapon that's deployed later on as revenge already. Somehow, the most cruel part is that the Drakh, except for Londo whom they control via the Keeper attached to his neck, everyone else on Centauri Prime just plays into their hands with their ambition, hurt pride and jealousy. Isn't that kind of a parallel to how things often work in politics in the so-called real world?
Definite recommendation here - I'm looking forward to the next part.
