Review: My Own Kind of Freedom [Firefly] by Steven Brust (2007)

Posted on February 15th, 2008

As a fan of the Firefly series, I was concerned about reading this novel and I don’t think I ever really got past that concern as I was expecting jarring notes on every page. Luckily that expectation was disappointed for the most part.

For this novel, pretty much the whole crew is back: Mal, Zoe, River, Simon, Jayne, Kaylee, Serenity, and yes, even Wash, so it’s clear this takes place before the events of the movie Serenity but after the Firefly episodes. Proper for that period, Inara and Shepherd Book are both absent from the story.

The plot is similar to those Firefly episodes you know and love: there’s a delivery, the delivery goes south, and Mal makes a sticking point out of doing what he believes is the right thing.

I was most worried about the dialogue and characterization, and the beginning dialogue does feel forced. As well, Brust never gets the characterization quite right for two particular characters. For example, Simon Tam is a cardboard cutout playing nursemaid to his sister, but he was a much stronger character in the episodes and movie. Jayne is missing the sly humor that made him so fun to watch throughout the series and is instead portrayed only as an overly-dumb crooked thug. More is the pity that while he has Vera, there is no sign of his cunning hat.

Aside from those faults, even big fans can quickly come to grips with the dialogue. Once the story gets moving the dialogue does feel authentic enough, and the best part is that Brust used the characters’ type of speech without resorting to mimicry. The turns of phrase seemed new, but fitting, which was an impressive accomplishment.

The best part about the story was in Brust’s deep digging into two of the most mysterious characters. The reader forst gets to look inside River’s head and understand what is going on there and what is behind the odd responses she always throw out. Then there is also a deeper look into what Serenity Valley meant to Mal (and Zoe) and readers get to see a little further into Mal’s head than they ever have before. Both of these characters rang true and Brust did an excellent job extending the development of these characters farther than we had ever seen.

While I would still rather see a Firefly novel from the original writers than Candido or Brust, I’m calling this one

Good/Recommended. So read the gorram thing online here.

Tags: Review
Filed under Brust, Steven, Free Stuff, Review, Science Fiction & Fantasy (SFF) |

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