When word first began to spread that a brand new science fiction series that wasn’t Star Trek (of which, I should hasten to add, I was and remain a fan) was in the works, no doubt there was a lot of incredulousness about it’s chances. But the creator of this show, J. Michael Straczynski (better known on the Internet as JMS), argued passionately for it. He promised an epic scope such as had never been before in genre television in the U.S., with a five-year arc played out in a novel-like fashion with each season corresponding to a part of classic dramatic structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. It was incredibly ambitious, and seemed to good to be true ... but it wasn’t, for the most part, as JMS delivered on just about everything he promised.

Babylon 5 faced a rocky road to begin with, as JMS tried to find support. He actually pitched it to Paramount, who passed after spending a judicious time sitting on it… only, strangely, to have Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—set on a space station that served as a nexus of trade and diplomatic contact, featuring a once-subjugated race rubbing uncomfortably-close with its former conquerors, and so on—announced and put into motion with a great deal of money. Some, in fact, came to think that Babylon 5 was "inspired" by DS9, rather than the other way around, because DS) premiered before B5’s pilot—but that was just funding and backing talking; DS9 was put together with remarkable alacrity.

Fantasy Flight Games, publishers of the A Game of Thrones CCG and boardgame, have put together a very impressive collection of art and artists in this first and hopefully not last visual companion to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Much of the art comes from the CCG, but they have also reprinted art from other sources, such as Meisha Merlin’s & Subterranean Press’s limited editions of the first three books and the cover art for the regular editions, as well as commissioned quite a few original pieces. The list of artists include names such as John Howe, Charles Vess, John Schoenherr, Stephen Youll, Jim Burns, Don Maitz and many, many more. Some of the art is great, much of it is very good, and even the art drawn from the CCG is on the whole of a pretty good quality.

First, an important piece of information to remember about this book is that it does not contain a number of the major point of view characters from earlier novels: Jon Snow, Daenaerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Davos Seaworth; these characters will feature in the next novel, A Dance with Dragons. Readers opening this book with the hopes of reading about these characters directly will be disappointed, but there’s no real reason to be disappointed as this novel is a success.

Focusing as it does on events south of the Neck (particularly King’s Landing and the Riverlands) and some interludes in the east (that firecracker, Arya Stark, has a few chapters), the novel is thematically the tale of what happens when the centre cannot hold and everything seems to fall into a malignant, ugly chaos. Those trying to hold the pieces together—such as Jaime Lannister—are faced with the crows who descend on this rotten feast, not least among them being the scheming and vindictive Cersei.

If you are a fan of any one (or all) of the writers involved in this fascinating collaboration, this book is quite simply a must-read, even though it is very different from anything they have produced on their own. And if you’re not a fan, you should probably try it anyhow, because The Golden Key is a truly good and original book, far removed from your standard fantasy. It also features one of the cleverest covers (painted by Michael Whelan) I’ve ever seen.

The setting is a fascinating alternative Europe, the duchy of Tira Virte, where every event of importance is immortalized through a painting and where the mixed-blood Grijalvas both profit from and suffer under their very special Gift. For where others can simply record what is in their paintings, some of the Grijalva men can actually paint what will be, affecting and not merely copying reality with their paintings. But the price is high, for the same blood which gives them this Gift also weakens them, leading many of them to die young and fewer and fewer to be born each year.

A remarkable new entry into the fantasy genre, Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon is the first of ten planned books which will make up his Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Throwing the reader straight into the action, Erikson shows the sensibilities of a trained archaeologist-anthropologist (which he is) in the easy, realistic way in which he builds up geography, culture, history, and politics. Following several different plotlines, sometimes the work is reminiscent of Glen Cook’s fine Black Company series, sometimes reminiscent of Moorcock’s famous Elric stories, and sometimes even reminiscent of Brust’s Vlad Taltos series of novels.