B5 Questions: Asked & Answered, Part 1

[singlepic=115,150,,,left] OVERVIEW OF THE ASKED & ANSWERED SERIES

It’s true. The creator of Babylon 5 answers 5,296 fan questions covering every aspect of the show in over 100 categories in this new Babylon 5 book series.

J. Michael Straczynski answered these questions as they surfaced over a period of 18 years as part of an online experiment he started in 1991 and continues to this day.

This makes Asked & Answered something that has never been done before with a television show: an oral history IN REAL TIME. No revisionism. Nothing forgotten. No detail spared.

Because this dialogue with fans starts in 1991, it pre-dates the production of the Babylon 5 pilot, so you’ll discover JMS’ complete vision for the series, many aspects of which never made it to the screen.

Even better, these questions and answers include interactions on AOL Bulletin Boards, GEnie Forums, the moderated usenet group, CIS Discussion threads and Chat Transcripts, some of which are not available in archives anywhere.

In addition to Babylon 5, Asked & Answered includes JMS’ responses to personal questions about his life, politics, love, religion, writing and more. These responses are grouped with a related B5 topic showing fans – for the first time – the provenance of the Babylon 5 philosophy and culture. All that plus JMS’ real life stories behind the stories.

To make this the ultimate source, it took 2½ years and a crew of four B5 experts – in addition to J. Michael Straczynski – to compile, categorize and edit.

WHY THIS SERIES IS TECHNICALLY 5 PARTS AND NOT 5 VOLUMES
Because Asked & Answered is essentially one very long document, we’ve divided it into 5 parts. Each part is one book and there are 5 books altogether, each of which will be launched separately. (Part 1 was released on May 13, 2009 and is the only part to be released so far.)

Together these 5 books – the complete Asked & Answered series – will total approximately 2,000 pages. To honor the fact that Asked & Answered is one document, the pages in each volume are number sequentially starting with the next page number from the previous volume. For example, Part 1 ends on page 385 and Part 2 begins on page 386. So that you can identify each part at a glance, the text on each cover is a different color. Note that Part 1 is red, the same color as the first Babylon station, and Part 5 is blue, the same as the fifth Babylon station.

WHY SHOULD I GET THE ASKED & ANSWERED SERIES IF SOME OF THE DATA IS STILL ONLINE?
The goal of this series is simple: offer a document to fans for whom canon is everything and therefore would want a printed record of the most important JMS messages in one place, grouped into categories and presented in the order they were written. In other words, the opposite of the online experience.

DOESN’T THE TWO COLUMN LAYOUT PAD THE CONTENT WITH WHITE SPACE
All of the books in the Asked & Answered series average 115,000 words. For context, the average novel or non-fiction book is 90,000 words or less. Volume 11 of the 14 volume series, which had the longest introduction at 70 pages, totaled 84,000 words.

WHY NO KINDLE OR EBOOK EDITION?
Contractually we can’t do electronic versions for the time being.

HOW IS ASKED & ANSWERED ORGANIZED?
All questions are organized by topic, then by category and then by date. This triple level of organization on 100+ categories aggregates the B5 canon in a way never seen before. We also include a 2 page production timeline at the end of each book to cross-reference to the message dates.

TOPICS COVERED IN PART 1

All this and more than 200 questions just about CRUSADE, with topics covering the crew, characters, casting, music, TNT and more in addition to specific questions about the 13 episodes.

Plus an introduction by J. Michael Straczynski welcoming fans to this ground-breaking book series.

JMS Scripts, Books and More