A book (series) from a show that got canceled
But people still love Firefly.
A month ago marked 20 years since Joss Whedon’s Firefly got canceled by FOX, because it was a western on FOX.
Fans have demanded more and more over the years, so much so that the program ultimately got to conclude with a movie in 2005. Like the show, the movie underperformed at the box office and did better once it wasn’t around anymore. FOX and Whedon took the hint after that.
The fans could make all the noise they wanted, if they didn’t get enough people to show up with money it didn’t matter.
If anything, Firefly came out at the wrong time. Nowadays studios will fund all kinds of horse$#!t regardless of—or even in spite of—how few people want it. But I digress.
Firefly has had a series of comics and graphic novels in the last decade or so, and the art is good, but after reading three or four of them I personally decided to swear them off, only because they were ruining the legacy of the show.
One of the great strengths of Firefly is that it’s so short. It’s easy to get in, get out, enjoy the property, love the characters, share in the misery that it was cut too short, and move on with your life.
That being the case, one wonders why I’d bother reading any new novels about it. Well, that part is simple: they’re free.
Also they’re written by the same author, narrated by the same narrator (who does a really good job of imitating Nathan Fillion), and Whedon consulted on them so they wouldn’t break canon.
I still think there’s a risk that they could ultimately damage Firefly by being too much of a good thing, so I’m going to go slow with these. A couple of years ago I read BIG DAMN HERO, a Mal-centric story, where he gets captured and put on trial by some old Browncoats for supposed war crimes back when he was a Sergeant.
It’s a compelling premise, even if the results aren’t super mind-blowing. When you’re in the mood for more Firefly, and you want a little more of Mal’s backstory without giving the entire thing away, it’s worth the read.
This last week I checked out THE MAGNIFICENT NINE from my library. This is a Jayne-centric tale, and as the title suggests it’s a mashup of SEVEN SAMURAI and the Heart of Gold episode from the original show. Jayne gets a call from an old flame to help some innocent farmers out on a backwater planet, and while he’s there, he discovers that he (might have?) knocked this woman up, and now has a daughter. This one was good because we see Jayne in a role we haven’t gotten before, namely a paternal one. As with all Jayne stories, it’s moving, in an unexpected way.
There are predictable twists and turns in the whole thing, based on the strengths of each character. Wash is gonna fly well, Kaylee is gonna fix the ship, Zoey is gonna shoot someone, Book will give wise advice at a key moment, and Inara will make a diplomatic contact from her professional whoring that will come in handy. River drops odd bits of wisdom while Simon patches up the injured. Mal gets sidelined a little in this one, which is good, he kind of needed to be out of the way and it worked for this “episode.”
Overall it’s an adequate entry in a sufficient series. Reliably good and short, and I’ll get around to the next one when I need a palette cleanser. See if your library has them.