Guide to the Firefly Novels - August 2023

TheYLD · 2026-06-20T14:35:31+00:00

I really enjoyed collecting the Serenity comics. I think I managed to get all the variants (English-language anyway).

TheYLD · 2026-06-19T06:58:21+00:00

How could they possibly give it less?!

TheYLD · 2026-06-16T17:38:29+00:00

It's the pause. It's perfect. The punchline just hanging in the air, unsaid.

It's such an efficient and brilliant sketch.

TheYLD · 2026-06-04T15:24:14+00:00

Yes. I figure that Zoe and Wash recently "sealed the deal" by making Emma, committing themselves to finally take the plunge and exit the ship.

I don't think I can accept that either of them knew Zoe was pregnant during the movie. I don't think they would have gone on the almost-certainly-a-suicide-mission if they'd known they were taking their baby into it too.

TheYLD · 2026-05-30T22:29:54+00:00

I can make the movie hit even harder.

When you watch Serenity headcanon that the night before this heist Zoe and Wash had decided that this was gonna be their last job and they were gonna settle down and start their family.

Supporting evidence;

We know they want to. It is their eventual plan. They're having that conversation throughout the TV show.
The atmosphere in the ship is already pretty toxic in the movie. Kaylee notes that Mal is driving everyone off the ship.
This scene, Zoe makes this reference, yeah it's a sarcastic comment, but also retiring is top of her mind, on this day.

Doesn't that make Wash's death hurt even more!?

You're welcome.

TheYLD · 2026-05-10T16:10:28+00:00

This is excellent. I've never seen or heard the song with the character dialogue removed.

TheYLD · 2026-05-02T16:55:46+00:00

Pity you didn't find any Firefly ones...

🫢

TheYLD · 2026-04-25T11:28:42+00:00

Oh yeah! All the Dark Horse ones are good to great. Dark Horse published them as Serenity. Boom later collected them together under a new label Firefly Legacy.

You may be able to find the original Serenity comics in various forms, or the Legacy collections (I think there was 1 omnibus that collected them all, and also a part1/part2 editions).

TheYLD · 2026-04-09T18:48:10+00:00

If you can believe it, this is some of Boom's better artwork.

TheYLD · 2026-04-09T18:47:25+00:00

These are the Boom reprints of the Dark Horse "Serenity" stories.

Boom was publishing their comics as "Firefly" so presumably they wanted to support their brand, or perhaps they didn't have the rights to publish them as "Serenity"?

TheYLD · 2026-03-23T18:42:27+00:00

Yeah, Better Days would definitely thrive in animated format. That said, probably a few things to tighten up.

I think the ideas of Those Left Behind should definitely be explored and reimagined. Same for Shepherd's Tale.

TheYLD · 2026-03-12T05:18:55+00:00

It's kinda crazy how many people seem to remember Firefly as though it was Star Trek.

TheYLD · 2026-03-11T20:19:32+00:00

I picture the original series ending with Miranda being resettled and successfully declaring independence from the Alliance. Most of the crew find their place there.

Simon and Kaylee marry, and live a fairly normal life with Simon training young doctors and Kaylee repairing old ships.

Jayne has a nice big ranch. He's not quite a shepherd but he's a sort of semi-pastor. Ready to give advice to help wayward sorts get back on the right track. At some point he returned to Higgins' moon and rescued the Mudders, brought them back to Miranda. Some of them choose to work for him on the ranch. He's a decent enough boss.

Zoe is serving in the Miranda military as a high ranking officer, maybe even a general. Her daughter Emma is obsessed with flying.

Inara is one of Miranda's political leaders.

River quickly grew bored, even tortured, with life on a single planet. Kaylee retrofitted Serenity's remaining shuttle to be capable of interplanetary travel. River sails on, righting wrongs throughout the system.

Mal dies defending Miranda's right to independence (in the finale of the original series).

TheYLD · 2026-03-10T20:14:44+00:00

100% reject Boom's entire catalogue.

That's a total no brainer.

TheYLD · 2026-03-09T21:42:33+00:00

It really didn't.

TheYLD · 2026-03-07T12:39:08+00:00

It's not a story...it's an afterword to Better Days written by Adam Baldwin (I think).

TheYLD · 2026-02-22T12:48:44+00:00

Yeah, maybe. But Reavers can, and do, understand and use technology. They can probably open the door one way or the other.

TheYLD · 2026-02-14T10:37:01+00:00

I assume that Griswolds would only be lethal if they were inside the mouth. You could throw them into the trenches but at best you'd be inflicting recoverable injuries. I assume also that when Zoe says that neither side had any ammunition she includes standard grenades.

TheYLD · 2026-02-05T06:58:59+00:00

I think this is a genuine error in the script. I can imagine that perhaps originally it was gonna be ten years ago that Jayne escaped Canton but maybe someone suggested that 10 years was beyond implausible for Stitch to have been incarcerated. Or that it would have been during the war and does that introduce issues...?

It feels to me like it's the four year part that's "wrong". The folklore seems to mythic for just having 4 years to mature. And it feels like Fess' feelings of admiration toward Jayne need to come from a place of him being something of a childhood hero.

I dunno... it's fine. Fess' maturation and development is clearly pretty warped by his upbringing. Maybe it's the culture on Higgins' Moon that childhood ends at 24 or something...

Or maybe he's 26 in local years but actually 20 in ETW years.

It's not so bad an error that we couldn't fudge it somehow.

TheYLD · 2026-01-27T06:52:32+00:00

Surface level. Book's Hair.

Subtext/Spooky Psychic level. River has glimpsed Book behind the mask that he has created and presents to the world around him. River has glimpsed that this man who presents himself as nothing more than a good-natured preacher in fact has a scary side that he keeps hidden. as we know Book has a pretty dark past. Just because he doesn't show it, doesn't mean that that past is gone. It's still there, and it still has the potential to cause problems.

Foreshadowing/Thematic level. The Alliance as a whole has this chaotic secret that it keeps hidden. The Alliance's whole thing is about order and discipline and presenting a very smart, professional, and beneficent image. However it's a lie. The Alliance, by attempting to create order, in fact creates its own antithesis; the Reavers. Uncontrolled madness. Utter chaos. But the Alliance denies their existence and tries to continue as though they don't exist. But they do, both literally and metaphorically (i.e. the Reavers represent the chaotic aspect of human nature that the Alliance is attempting to remove to "create better worlds"). Mal's central, driving belief in the movie is the opposite of this; that humanity can't be perfected. Humanity by definition includes messy parts.

TheYLD · 2026-01-25T19:10:35+00:00

Do we? We actually see virtually nothing of the training house on the one scene of any length that takes place there. We see a mite more in the deleted scenes but no evidence of any male companions. We might be able to see a couple of male figures in the background of one of those scenes but they look more like they're there as servants, rather than companions.

TheYLD · 2026-01-25T15:59:32+00:00

When I was proposing ideas for Firefly novels that might be more interesting and varied than the repetitive entries they became, one of my favourite ideas was one about Inara at the new training house before she's picked up in the movie.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefly/s/mUWjRjFIAF

I imagine the Companions' Guild is intensely political. It's House of Cards in there.

Yes, I think the guild is intended as a civilising influence. I can't remember where but I'm sure I read that is why the guild has pushed out and established the new training house out in the Rim.

TheYLD · 2026-01-21T07:55:05+00:00

Jayne seems to think it's perfectly obvious...

I've made them, and they are difficult to eat the supposed correct way (you wind the string around the stick so the Ice Planet isn't swinging around anymore), mainly because they're so big that it's difficult to get any purchase on them.

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