Well I’ll start of by saying I’m a browncoat. Or said another way, I’m a Firefly fan. What’s Firefly you ask? It was a TV show on FOX in 2002 that was canceled before it finished its first and only season. Only 14 episodes of Firefly
were made. Then after a few years the impossible was done and Universal made a movie called Serenity
.There have been many fan made items created about Firefly. Most are different forms of fan fiction or fanfic. I myself don’t think too highly of fanfic. Why would I be interested in someone else’s daydream about the characters. Now there probably are lots of fanfic stories on the web. Firefly is popular with fan made comics. Most are pretty lame. There are offically licensed comics. Those Left Behind
and Better Days which is still in the process of being released. Then there is filk, or fan songs. Listening to them, you can tell most are amateur made and they suck. Others sound good but the lyrics suck. Then there are a few I like. You can sample a wide range of filk here. Songs From The Black is a free album that is given out by The Signal, a Firefly podcast. Already one fan movie has come out and an audio drama. The movie I’ve not seen. The audio drama is done by a professional group (The Sonic Society) in their spare time and is really good. I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since I was a little kid and I would listen to Sherlock Holmes radio dramas on AM radio late at night. They were reruns from the 1940’s. Well so much for the background.This story is a freebie. Really. Go download it here. It’s 168 pages of Firefly fanfic. Or is it? Word is that this was going to be a licensed Firefly novel but Universal or someone decided not to approve tie-in novels.
Now my wife has read the Star Wars novels that take place after Return of the Jedi and she loved them. So I opened up my mind and gave this one a chance. You can tell right away that the author is a writer. The story flows, the dialogue fits, hell it’s like reading a TV show. I got a better sense of the characters from this fanfic that from the approved Those left Behind comic. Go figure. Steven really captures the magic of the show.
The story? If you must know. The crew of Serenity deliver a legal cargo to Hera, the planet where the Serenity Valley battle took place, though on the other side of the world. Mal being Mal can’t let two thugs shoot a stranger and then all sort’s of trouble come their way.
I almost feel like quoting the dialogue like I’d do for the show, but I won’t. I really appreciated how the writing lets you get into the characters minds. The insights into River’s thought processes are wonderful. How so? Well if you don’t know the show then telling you won’t make much sense. If you do, well read the story and have your eyes opened. I’ll leave you with a bit about freedom from River.
“People spoke about “freedom” but they didn’t know what it was. Freedom was being able to do what you were meant to do. Just that; no more. And most of them didn’t appreciate it, because most of them had never been without it.” But Mal and River got it.
It might be cumbersome to read 168 pages on a computer. I used a palm Zaire 31 and even that has it’s drawbacks. This is a quick read that will keep you turning the virtual pages.
Here is a link to an interview with the author. In it he explains how this was almost an official book.
