jcarter's review against another edition
4.0
A must-have for Firefly fans, if only for the glossary of Chinese words.
hoperu's review against another edition
4.0
A nice collection of essays about the TV show Firefly. I've had it for several years but only just now got around to reading it. Most of the essays were very good, and I only skipped one (because I found the author's tone and view of the show pretty offensive).
lizjane's review against another edition
3.0
For about a year I've been reading this collection of essays about the tragically canceled sci-fi television series Firefly, and I finally finished it. It isn't hard to read, its just that I only picked it up when I forgot to bring my "regular" book upstairs to read in bed.
alice2000's review against another edition
5.0
Brings more dimension to a beloved, by me and many others, series. Especially liked the one about Simon and Mal.
wmhenrymorris's review against another edition
As one might expect the essays range all over the place in terms of quality and approach and many of them fall a bit flat. Probably not worth paying full price for even if you are a serious Browncoat. But pick it up used or check it out of the library and read the ones that seem interesting? Sure. Just don't expect every one to be shiny.
jenniferbbookdragon's review against another edition
4.0
For Browncoats and other Whedon fans, a diverse collection of essays exploring Serenity and its verse.
lbmaddux's review against another edition
4.0
I lost all the notes I took while reading this collection of essays. So, until I find them, let’s just say that the essays were, for the most part, well written & thoughtful studies of the characters & creators of Firefly.
leahjanespeare's review
5.0
So cool!!! A must-read for any fan of Firefly.
It's a collection from a surprising amount of familiar authors (to me) like Mercedes Lackey and Nancy Holder. Made a few of these authors go up on my awesome-list to know they're Firefly fans!!! Those two do write science-fiction though, so maybe it's not surprising to everyone.
A great portion of the essays are devoted to strong feministic topics, how Whedon is a hero in that area, and there's even one essay where someone says he completely screwed it up. Gotta see both sides, right?
There was a beautiful music/score explanation essay that I loved, and one on the visual placement of characters relating to lines in the background and
photography...kind of hard to explain. If you're into filmmaking, you'll get it I think. Or photography; that's why I liked it.
Overall these essays were enjoyable and interesting; it was nice to read a few in between the other books I was reading too.
So now I gotta go watch the series again and notice WAY more than I did the first dozen times around. ;)
It's a collection from a surprising amount of familiar authors (to me) like Mercedes Lackey and Nancy Holder. Made a few of these authors go up on my awesome-list to know they're Firefly fans!!! Those two do write science-fiction though, so maybe it's not surprising to everyone.
A great portion of the essays are devoted to strong feministic topics, how Whedon is a hero in that area, and there's even one essay where someone says he completely screwed it up. Gotta see both sides, right?
There was a beautiful music/score explanation essay that I loved, and one on the visual placement of characters relating to lines in the background and
photography...kind of hard to explain. If you're into filmmaking, you'll get it I think. Or photography; that's why I liked it.
Overall these essays were enjoyable and interesting; it was nice to read a few in between the other books I was reading too.
So now I gotta go watch the series again and notice WAY more than I did the first dozen times around. ;)
expendablemudge's review
3.0
The Book Report: Twenty-one essays on Firefly and its underlying assumptions, pre-Serenity-the-movie, by a motley crew of writers, philosophers, actors, and bon vivants, edited by Whedonesque Goddess Jane Espenson, creatrix of the fine, fine episode "Shindig."
My Review: Unless you're already familiar with "Firefly," none of this will make one whit of sense. If you've drunk the Kool-Aid, it's a balm in this age to re-immerse yourself in the 'verse. So much richness and challenging freshness were lost when the series was amputated after 14 episodes! A wild-assed solar system, per Joss's insistence, with a zillion and seven terraformable planets and moons. A society made up of solely human inhabitants that still manages to feel alien as all hell and still contains people...oh dear, oh dear, I *meant* characters!...that I know, some well, some not well, some I'd cross the street to avoid. Just like my block. A crew of thieves and whores, plus one bona-fide Companion/geisha/hetaeara as a nod to respectability(!).
Essays treat all, well most, facets of this fascinating and deeply textured fictional reality, from deep philosophical musings that, frankly, I found impenetrably dull and in spite of four separate runs at it have never finished, to Jewel Staite (Kaylee!) musing on her top-five moments of joy making or watching or both each of the 14 episodes. Mercedes Lackey, a favorite author of mine some of the time and a keen observer of humanity all of the time, wrote an excellent meditation on the libertarian overtones of the series, whether that was her stated aim I know not. David Gerrold (he wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" for ST:TOS, and if any part of that sentence doesn't scan for you, I can't help you) meditates elegantly, since he can't write any other way, on subtext and its many traps and rewards.
But no one takes on some of the cringe-inducing tech flubs, like the universally-accessible Cortex, "waves" that allow real-time conversation, and the explicit **lack** of relativity-bending FTL drives still allowing us to go from place to place in a reasonable facsimile of a blink! EEEUUU But well, what a geeky fan-boy am I, over in fan-fiction-land, I wrote stories treating these very subjects: This is indeed a system, just part of a system in a star cluster (Google it) that's held together by dark matter, which is what the gravity drives on space ships use to get to near-relativistic speeds so get from planet to planet in less than the months it'd take otherwise...wait, this isn't *my* essay in the book! It's a review!
*sigh*
Anyway, I turned to this essay collection because I miss with a starved passion the fixes of the 'verse that I've come to need like I need single-malt Scotch whisky. I truly, passionately, deeply love this vision of humanity's probable future, and wish that I could win one of those super-ultra-mega-big lottery jackpots. I'd put some of it, like Nathan Fillion said, to use buying "Firefly" back from the gorram Reavers at FOX and make as many more episodes as I could afford, netcasting them to my fellow Browncoats. A fine bunch, may I add. I chould know. They helped me get through the lowest ebb of my independent adult life, generously and without making a fuss about it.
But I can't recommend it to any and all comers. It truly is just for the initiates, so I can't rate it higher than I have here. For Browncoats, though, I give it full star marks! If you don't have it already, get it.
My Review: Unless you're already familiar with "Firefly," none of this will make one whit of sense. If you've drunk the Kool-Aid, it's a balm in this age to re-immerse yourself in the 'verse. So much richness and challenging freshness were lost when the series was amputated after 14 episodes! A wild-assed solar system, per Joss's insistence, with a zillion and seven terraformable planets and moons. A society made up of solely human inhabitants that still manages to feel alien as all hell and still contains people...oh dear, oh dear, I *meant* characters!...that I know, some well, some not well, some I'd cross the street to avoid. Just like my block. A crew of thieves and whores, plus one bona-fide Companion/geisha/hetaeara as a nod to respectability(!).
Essays treat all, well most, facets of this fascinating and deeply textured fictional reality, from deep philosophical musings that, frankly, I found impenetrably dull and in spite of four separate runs at it have never finished, to Jewel Staite (Kaylee!) musing on her top-five moments of joy making or watching or both each of the 14 episodes. Mercedes Lackey, a favorite author of mine some of the time and a keen observer of humanity all of the time, wrote an excellent meditation on the libertarian overtones of the series, whether that was her stated aim I know not. David Gerrold (he wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" for ST:TOS, and if any part of that sentence doesn't scan for you, I can't help you) meditates elegantly, since he can't write any other way, on subtext and its many traps and rewards.
But no one takes on some of the cringe-inducing tech flubs, like the universally-accessible Cortex, "waves" that allow real-time conversation, and the explicit **lack** of relativity-bending FTL drives still allowing us to go from place to place in a reasonable facsimile of a blink! EEEUUU But well, what a geeky fan-boy am I, over in fan-fiction-land, I wrote stories treating these very subjects: This is indeed a system, just part of a system in a star cluster (Google it) that's held together by dark matter, which is what the gravity drives on space ships use to get to near-relativistic speeds so get from planet to planet in less than the months it'd take otherwise...wait, this isn't *my* essay in the book! It's a review!
*sigh*
Anyway, I turned to this essay collection because I miss with a starved passion the fixes of the 'verse that I've come to need like I need single-malt Scotch whisky. I truly, passionately, deeply love this vision of humanity's probable future, and wish that I could win one of those super-ultra-mega-big lottery jackpots. I'd put some of it, like Nathan Fillion said, to use buying "Firefly" back from the gorram Reavers at FOX and make as many more episodes as I could afford, netcasting them to my fellow Browncoats. A fine bunch, may I add. I chould know. They helped me get through the lowest ebb of my independent adult life, generously and without making a fuss about it.
But I can't recommend it to any and all comers. It truly is just for the initiates, so I can't rate it higher than I have here. For Browncoats, though, I give it full star marks! If you don't have it already, get it.