By Jane Espenson
Well if you've made it this far with me in my push for 2 books a month you're reading this review for (hopefully) one of two reasons. You either find my views mildly entertaining or you are a huge Firefly/Serenity fan. With this book it will help if it's more of the latter.
Overall I didn't find Finding Serenity all that interesting. I'm glad to say that Serenity Found held my interest better. 18 essays of topics related (sometimes dubiously) to Firefly. This book came out after the movie Serenity was released, so some of the essays comment on the movie. Half the essays put me to sleep. The other half? Well I really liked them.
The standouts were the essay by Mal himself. Nathan Fillion. He talked about his Firefly experience and how in their off time when the cast hung out together he often took the lead (as Captain) to make decisions for the group. Where to meet up, when, etc. He talked about how he felt a sense of ownership to the ship, like any Captain would. Where as Jewel Staite's essay in the last book was just bullet points about each episode, Nathan really gave a feeling about what it was like to be the Captain of Serenity.
In case you needed a more in depth look at Malcom Reynolds, there is a character study that pieces together the bits of his life we learn about throughout he series, and an essay comparing Mal and Simon trying to answer the question who's the hero of Firefly? Whose story does the saga as a whole tell? Is it the man on the mission (Simon) or the man who takes on that mission? Maybe it's both.
There were essays on the Firefly world, hot it seemed real and lived in, especially when compared to the sterile atmosphere of Star Trek. There is an essay from the visual effects supervisor and one from the founder of Multiverse, the platform that the Firefly MMOG is going to be based, both interesting.
The last essay I'll mention is about the history of the Western and why the Space Western gets such a bad rap. It was an interesting history. I guess ever since pulp fiction stories came out in the early part of the 1900's people have frowned on the genre. Firefly shows that the genre should be given another chance.
If I had to pick one of the two books to read, I'd suggest you read Serenity Found. But while I found parts of both interesting part of me wants to say, hey just sit back and enjoy the TV show
and movie
. Then there is the other part that enjoys the analyzing and speculation
