Balance of Power

Zine
Title:	Balance of Power
Publisher:
Editor:
Author(s):	Jennifer Lyon, A. Manley Haight,and Sue Phillips
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	1996 (print), 2008 (online)
Medium:	print zine, fanfic
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Babylon 5
Language:	English
External Links:	Balance of Power (accessed November 12, 2019) archive link
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Balance of Power is a slash and het Babylon 5 novel by Jennifer Lyon, A. Manley Haight,and Sue Phillips.

The pairing is Sinclair/Delenn/Sheridan.

From One of the Authors

I co-wrote this story with two other people; Jennifer Lyons and Sue Phillips. This story also had the dubious distinction of being mentioned by name (along with the names of the three authors), as well as actually quoted, in a sidebar article about slash fic in the April/May 1999 issue of Cinescape magazine. I personally hold that publication in low regard. The editor attempted to contact us but we declined to speak with her, mainly to continue the unspoken vow that slash writers take to keep slash fic as discreet as possible, and out of the mainstream media.

Fan Comments

1996

I wondered whether the Net had any Babylon 5 slash so, after trolling thru a dozen or so web sites via Alta Vista, I made my electronic way to a web site that's called Satrycon a GoGo at http:// www.ar.com.au/~jrlddler/slash.html. Among lots of other topics. It listed a link to Slash Fiction on the Net which sounded promising. Slash Fiction on the Net pages had a dozen or so shows listed; the largest section was for Due South. Much as I like that show, my interest doesn't go further.

B5 has two stories listed: the shorter one was a Sinclair/Garibaldi story "The Gift" which was adequate. The other story was "Balance of Power" by Jennifer Lyon, A. Manley Huff & Sue Phillips. I skimmed several pages and it looked promising so I printed it out. Fifty-five pages later it finished with a file size of 187k.

I started reading BoP at home later and then continued until I'd finished. Wow! for someone who has only been writing B5 for several months, although she's written in other fandoms, the intense interactions they imagine between Sinclair & Sheridan then later between Sinclair, Sheridan & Delenn are very vivid and powerful.

Londo is the plot's catalyst when he decides to seriously annoy Sheridan after an argument by remarking that he's earlier seen Delenn & Sinclair talking intimately in the Station's garden. Afterwards Londo considers "Perhaps the minor amusement of what ever happened next was not enough to offset the higher docking fees...but one must take one's pleasure where one could, yes?"

Sheridan's reaction is swift: "Damn him if he was going to just stand around & do nothing while Sinclair returned to his old territory to reclaim something that was not his anymore." Confronting them both in her quarters, he realizes that Londo has lied to him, as usual. Talking with Sinclair later in his quarters, Sinclair suggests that Londo should be repaid for his trouble and they gleefully toast their temporary truce.

Later Garibaldi mentions that the Centauri have a strong taboo against same-sex then "Sheridan looked at Sinclair 'you thinking what I'm thinking?'... Come to think of it, when did subtlety every get thru to Londo? How do you feel about full bore in-his-face?" The necking scene they stage for Londo by & in the elevator Garibaldi later describes to Marcus as "...like watching a pair of wolves circle each other. I wasn't quite sure if they were fighting or kissing."

Later in his quarters, Sheridan "Couldn't get the smell of Sinclair's body out of this thoughts, the taste of his mouth, or the look in his eyes when they parted" and goes to Sinclair's quarters. "Messiah or not, I remember you from the Mars riots. Lieutenant Commander Sinclair and you're just a man....And men have needs....Two years since another human hand has touched you like this. Someone who knows how to touch you...This station is mine Sheridan spat...Delenn is mine. Another thrust. And you are mine."

Since they pulled Delenn into their practical joke as she'd be the perfect one to begin it by conning London, she went looking for them afterwards as hours passed and she heard nothing about results. Her reaction when she finds them in Sinclair's quarters stuns even Sinclair who knew that the "Minbari attitude towards sex is different." There is also Ivanova's reaction to seeing Sinclair & Sheridan in bed a day later when she came to remind Sinclair of a diplomatic reception they are all to attend later that evening.

The three writers have an excellent feel for the characters' actions and a wonderful sense of how they speak to express their own viewpoints and personalities.

1997

Balance of Power. You forgot to mention that the authors have a Sinclair who actually a) sounds like himself and b) has a valid psychological reason for his shenanigans with Sheridan. And Sheridan isn't quite the alpha apeman he sounds like from isolated excerpts; he knows he's being a territorial jackass and feels a *little* bad about it, but not quite enough to stop. Which accords with my ideas of Sheridan. I found the whole thing quite surprisingly erotic. It's good slash of the sort that pulls the characters a couple of degrees out of true in order to get them together - as opposed, say, to a slashing that's actually indicated in the show, like Sinclair/Garibaldi - but with only a slight suspension of disbelief I'll buy it.

I can't suspend my disbelief enough to accept the description of Captain John Pillsbury Doughboy as a lithe panther (swag-bellied lion, maybe) but obviously some people can write 'Sinclair had never seen so beautiful a man' and mean it. Suspect they would have drooled over that other smooth-fleshed well-fed farmboy, JT Kirk, as well. And unfortunately the erotic high of S/S was undercut in spades by the following threesome with Delenn. It was emetic. People who aren't comfortable writing about female genitalia shouldn't do sex with females. Lots of talk about Sheridan's cock and Sinclair's ass

(Sinclair as uke- oh no oh no it can't be true I'll die if it's true ooohhh) but Delenn is described only as a sensation around the aforesaid cock - a hairless sensation at that. Feh.

If I had any guts, or all the time in the world, I'd put in my complete opinion of "Balance of Power," since I've now read it courtesy of [J] and, I gather, a fair lot of tedious downloading, for which I thank her publicly. Being short on the time to assemble a critical analysis, I'll just say that your original recommendation of it wasn't wrong, much though I feared otherwise. Sheridan knows he's being an ass and tries to correct for it; Sinclair is moderately human; Delenn is a person more than an object; and while it's no better than it should be, it's distinctly no worse - better than average in fandom. I'll leave further comments up to [J], who's had more time to absorb it.