Firefly: Big Damn Hero Review

When this line of books was announced I was beyond elated, search the archives of this site and you will see how excited I was and just how much I love this franchise.
But the idea of novels and the actual execution of them can too often be two vastly different things.

So my main questions going in are, with as specific as Firefly was with it’s patterns and flavors, can this possibly recapture the feel of that lightning that’s been out of the bottle and free roaming the verse for nearly two decades at this point?
Will it be able to add a new spoke or two to the wheel of the show without feeling jammed in or forced?
I believe the time for set-up has come to an end, so let’s find out where this one falls.

As per the normal, you can consider this your shiny ***SPOILER ALERT***

Set not long after episode 12, The Message, of the series, Serenity and her crew are on Persephone trying to scrounge up some work.
Badger lines them up with a job transporting highly unstable explosives, but, hoping to squeeze a little more cash out of the journey, Mal sets up a meeting with another potential client.
When things go sideways and Mal gets hisself Captain-napped, the crew starts running down leads and come face to face with an old commrade-in-arms with a score to settle.

I want to start off by saying that I had never read anything by James Lovegrove before this, I had heard of his Sherlock Holmes Lovecraftian crossover stories and thought they sounded interesting, but that’s about as far as it went.
Now, when I belly up to a new Author’s table, I will admit that can be a tough audience.
Like most things, I bring a “you best thrill me” attitude and sharp claws.
Mix in how much I love this particular franchise and that makes the hill even steeper.
Well guess what, gang, as I began the climb, near berserker rage all Wolvie like (if you’ll allow the mixing of multiple metaphors), I reached the summit, and the clouds cleared, revealing to my worried eyes a lovely snow kissed field, full of happy puppies, pizza, cheeseburgers, and Dr. Pepper.
If it’s not clear from that jumbled list of heaven, cover to cover, I completely fucking loved this goddamn book!

Everything about this story feels like an expanded missing episode of the show.
Lovegrove is dead on balls accurate with his handling of the very specific useages of language that Firefly employed.
There was never a single moment when I bumped into a passage and felt like this was trying too hard or anything of the like.
That is an incredibly delicate balance to strike, and I’ve seen far too many people attempt it and come off feeling like an SNL skit.
As with all tie-in fiction, getting inside characters head’s and learning more about them is a highlight.
Lovegrove does it all with ease.

But I can’t give Lovegrove all of the credit here, because this is based on a story concept from Nancy Holder, who I know from her great Smallville novels.
While I’m sure she didn’t push him out of the way and write vast chunks of it for him, he did have a bit of a leg up on this first outing from a well established name that allowed him to focus a bit more on making it feel right.

Something that I think people tend to forget is that Firefly had a bit more brutality than your run of the mill Sci-Fi series.
And it should be, it is a hard scrabble future after all.
Lovegrove nails that too, particularly at a point when the entire top of somebody’s head is blown clean off.
It’s a total shock when it happens, but it makes sense in context of the book and the universe, as well as the style the franchise is emulating.
Westerns aren’t clean and pretty, neither is this.

I think everybody, with the possible exception of Wash & Kaylee, is given a good chance to shine or grow a little.
Jayne, in a big bad way that helps you see he’s not just a big dumb ox that make things goes boom.
Inara, plays a key role in the chasing down of where Mal got took.
Shepard Book, we see a bit more of his less than shiny past.
River & Simon, act as you would expect, but also assist in locating a key piece of the puzzle.
Zoë, is really, in some ways, the star of this book because she takes on the biggest challenges while Mal is out of commission.

All in all, this was a hell of an experience, gang.
Weighing in at 401 pages, it zipped by with the ease of a 250 pager.
This effort has me more than ready to dive into Lovegrove’s three other Firefly novels (so far), as well as making me want to check out his Sherlock work even more.
I loved everything about this book.
With this, Firefly came roaring back with a vengance.
I can only hope all of the rest of the novels in this series can maintain the quality, but seeing some of the authors ahead I think this is gonna be a great line of books.
If you love Firefly and have been hungry for more, don’t miss out, gang.
This is what we’ve been waiting for, and the signal is strong.

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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.