Coup de Grace: Firefly tie-in by Una McCormack

In this episode your hosts discuss the TV show Firefly, and Lilly fundamentally misunderstands "tie-in" novels. They also talk about colonialism vs. capitalism and what Wash's shirt actually looks like.


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Transcript

Lilly 0:03

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and watch television also. I'm Lily,

Sara 0:11

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly 0:13

and tonight we'll be discussing the Firefly novel tie in Kudigra by Una McCormick. But before we get into that, our quick intro. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara 0:27

It's been raining, which has been bad for lots of people, but it's not been too bad here and it just makes it lovely, cozy weather. So I'm calling it my good thing.

Lilly 0:39

that is always a good thing, especially in California. I believe you have the storm that I had yesterday.

Sara 0:45

Yes, we do.

Lilly 0:46

And my good thing, in fact. Is that I have power! Because I did not for, not quite 12 hours, but a very long time yesterday due to this storm. So,

Sara 1:02

this storm has knocked out power for a lot of people where you are, is my understanding.

Lilly 1:07

yeah, and still, they're saying there's people who are going to be out without power for a couple of days. We were woken up in the middle of the night when suddenly every light in the house turned back on at once. So that was good. I then realized that I had been halfway through cooking dinner when the power went out and I had not actually turned the stove off.

Sara 1:28

Oh no!

Lilly 1:30

I mean, I remembered immediately, so that was able to be prevented. I used weird passive voice because I did not do it, I made my husband go do it.

Sara 1:41

what husbands are for.

Lilly 1:42

It was prevented, not by me. Anyway, yes since then though, our power's been back on and fine. And it has not been nearly as stormy today so that's good.

Sara 1:54

I like how we both have good things related to this storm, but from very different angles.

Lilly 2:00

Yes, yesterday was takeout dinner huddled around the fireplace. Because it was chilly. What are you drinking tonight?

Sara 2:09

Like it, it, like I mentioned, it is. Wet and windy and stormy. So that's red wine weather.

Lilly 2:17

That is red wine weather, lovely. I am drinking, it's kind of a pun, so, you know, I'm very clever. Everyone gives me kudos for that. I'm drinking. good earth tea, which is like a sort of cinnamon spice herbal tea. But the book that we're reading has a lot to do with like, drought on a terraformed planet, so I thought good earth would be a funny to drink.

Sara 2:46

I see. I see where you're coming from.

Lilly 2:48

It's a little bit of a stretch, but I think I got there.

Sara 2:51

I think it requires a little too much explanation to be a pun. But it is, it is topical.

Lilly 2:58

But it's a play on I guess it's not a play on words. Yeah, it's not a pun at all, is it?

Sara 3:04

No,

Lilly 3:05

It's a joke,

Sara 3:07

it is, it is a joke.

Lilly 3:08

not a good joke. Anyway, have you read anything besides what we were about to discuss?

Sara 3:14

I have not.

Lilly 3:16

Yeah, me neither. All right, let's go. Although, before we talk about this book, which was Is it a novel or a novella? It's pretty short.

Sara 3:25

It calls itself on the front an original novel, so I'm gonna go with novel.

Lilly 3:31

a bite sized novel. But clearly based on the Firefly television show. When was the last time you've seen Firefly?

Sara 3:41

So long ago that I don't remember when it was. I've only watched it, I've only watched it once, you

Lilly 3:48

really? I did not know that.

Sara 3:50

And I'm pretty sure that I've only seen the movie once, and I'm pretty sure that I've only ever watched it with you.

Lilly 3:56

Okay, well, I will be the resident then.

Sara 4:00

Yeah, so, like, I enjoyed Firefly, but I was not a Firefly fanatic.

Lilly 4:07

Well, I would never claim to be a fanatic because then someone would come up with an argument for why I'm not. But I've seen it several times, and The most recent time was only, I think, two months ago, so it's actually fairly fresh for me.

Sara 4:22

I would, okay. You are, you are a much bigger fan of the franchise than I am. We'll just put it that way.

Lilly 4:28

I mean, I, I am a very big fan. I've seen it multiple times. I know it exceedingly well. Probably too well. But I have not really delved into the world of, or the extended world, I should say. I'm pretty sure that the story was continued in comics. But this novel takes place during the show, so think of it as like a lost episode, kind of.

Sara 4:54

Yes. I, I mean, I'd like, I did gather that much from context clues. Yes.

Lilly 5:01

Oh yeah, that was for the listeners, not you.

Sara 5:03

Okay.

Lilly 5:05

You've read the book, you know. I mean, if nothing else, Wash isn't dead. So, can't be after the movie.

Sara 5:14

I did gather that, yes.

Lilly 5:17

Which was actually a very weird experience for exactly that reason.

Sara 5:21

I can imagine. So, you know, it's funny, I feel like we must have had very different experiences reading this book. Just Because you have so much more knowledge about the show than I do.

Lilly 5:32

I wonder if, so, half of my notes did not actually make it into our episode planning document because it was just me going, Oh, that was a reference to the episode Out of Gas. Oh, that was a reference to the final episode. Oh, that was a reference.

Sara 5:50

Yeah, I, I missed all of those references. I mean, I, like, I was sure that there, there were some but I didn't, when it was really obvious that they were talking about something that had happened in the show, like, I gathered that, but I couldn't have told you which episode it was or what they were specifically talking about.

Lilly 6:09

Interesting. So, did you feel like you were ever out of the loop? Or were there just times where you were like, this feels like a reference, but that's okay.

Sara 6:21

I didn't feel like I was out of the loop. It was, it was more like, yeah, I know you're probably making a reference that I just don't, don't understand, but I don't need it to understand what's actually going on in the book. I do think that I would have been lost if I had not watched the show at all. Like, if I didn't have some vague idea of who these characters were and what they were doing, I don't think that I would have been able to follow along very well.

Lilly 6:56

absolutely, 100%. This is definitely a book for people who've seen the show. You don't have to be super familiar with it. I mean, you've seen it, what, only once over a decade ago. But, yeah. You were able to follow along, that's fine. I cannot imagine trying to read this book if you were not familiar with the TV show.

Sara 7:17

yeah, I don't think, I mean, and I feel like it was stretching it a little bit for me, not to the point where I didn't enjoy it, just, you know, I feel like I was the very baseline of what you need, like the bottom level of what you need to to enjoy this book.

Lilly 7:37

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Something I noticed while I was reading this book, I feel like McCormick really nailed the characters. The characterization, the dialogue felt very on theme for the show. Their relationships with each other and sort of the vibes in that way, I thought were spot on and very fun. But there were no descriptions of anything in the book at all, ever. And that So I noticed it for the first time when someone is making fun of Wash for wearing a dorky shirt, which he often wore brightly colored, like, weird print shirts, whatever.

Sara 8:22

Hawaiian shirts or something, right?

Lilly 8:24

Yeah, I'm not sure if they were all Hawaiian, but that, that type of shirt,

Sara 8:28

That genre of

Lilly 8:29

Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. And I realized after going through, like, several back and forths in the dialogue of banter around this shirt, that I had no idea what this shirt looked like. And I went back, because I thought maybe I had just been reading too quickly, and no! In fact, the shirt was never described at all. I got what they were going for because I had a picture of Wash in my head, so it worked, it was fine. But there was no visual description. And because of that, the world didn't really feel right to me.

Sara 9:10

Interesting.

Lilly 9:12

Because the setting of Firefly is supposed to be the, like, futuristic space and throwback western fusion. But because we had no descriptions of the world they were moving through, it was just western. And there, there were some spaceships, and there was occasionally, like, comms, communication stuff, but for the most part it was just pistols and horses.

Sara 9:36

Okay, I, I was going to argue with you a little bit when you first started out that Sentence But then you clarified that the description of the world that you had, or your mental image of the world was mostly just Western. And I actually don't disagree. I mean, I obviously couldn't have told you how, how accurate the, character relationships are to the TV show. My recollection of the show just does not go back that, that far. Doesn't encompass that, but I thought that the setting was pretty well defined, but you're right. It was mostly. I

Lilly 10:17

And that's not incorrect, but the, the, the Experience, I remember of watching the show, is that it would be, like, they'd be on one of these rim planets, outer planets, pretty far away from, you know, the core, where most of technology and civilization is, and it would be very low tech, very western. themed, very cowboy, right? But there would always be, like, some weird old derelict piece of tech in the background, or they'd be using an old ship as a table, like, you know, something like that would be going on to remind you that you're still in space.

Sara 10:59

they, they had like hover cars and stuff

Lilly 11:02

They had mules, that they called mules, which I know refers to the little side ships that come off of Serenity. I don't think the book ever tells you that.

Sara 11:12

I, I wasn't specifically talking about the Mule, although

Lilly 11:16

are hover cars at

Sara 11:17

but, but yeah, like there, there are other like intercity shippy transport

Lilly 11:24

There is. It's not, like I said, it's not totally missing from this book, but when, like, even the narration is in, like, western slang, there's a lot of rootin tootin going on in this third person narration.

Sara 11:38

very, very much so for, especially for Annie's point of view.

Lilly 11:42

Which wasn't first person,

Sara 11:43

Which was in first person. Yeah. And I mean, you're right that they just called them mules. I couldn't have told you that that was the little side ships that come off of Serenity, but I did know that they weren't actual, like, animal mules.

Lilly 11:57

But it's just funny that that was never explained what that was. Like, and, yeah, it, it's just I think if there had been more scene setting, then it would have felt more consistent throughout. But instead, I had to do a lot of that heavy lifting. Which, when I was writing this note, I realized might have been on purpose. Because think about it, because McCormick had the reader fill in all of those gaps, the reader is never going to go, Ooh, wait, that's not how I see it.

Sara 12:34

Yeah, I mean, and again, I like, I feel like I did get, and it still felt sci fi y to me. So I'm wondering, I'm wondering how much of this is, how much of this observation is true. because you know the show better and so you noticed that lack more.

Lilly 13:00

I think I'm maybe, I'm drawing a connection between two things that is there, but they're also two separate things.

Sara 13:08

Yeah

Lilly 13:09

it didn't feel super sci fi y to me, and I think that's because there was, like, no descriptions. My bigger problem was with the lack of description, not how low tech it felt.

Sara 13:21

right.

Lilly 13:22

But also, then no one could complain and go, Wash would never wear a shirt like that, how dare you? Which I suspect was something that was being defended against.

Sara 13:33

I, I suspect that that complaint has been made about things before, just. Knowing, knowing how pedantic fans can be sometimes.

Lilly 13:44

Yeah. But yeah, no, the it felt very Far on the western side. And that was more of a something I noticed. And I think it was because of the lack of description. And that was where I went down the rabbit hole of, Wow, there's not a I don't think you even know that Zoe is black.

Sara 14:00

Yeah, I'm not sure that that's mentioned.

Lilly 14:03

Like, these characters are not described at all.

Sara 14:06

could possibly be mentioned when Annie meets them. Like, meets the crew.

Lilly 14:11

It's possible.

Sara 14:13

But I don't actually remember.

Lilly 14:15

Yeah. I just I noticed it halfway through the book. And I had, it took that long, because it was fine, because I did know what all these characters looked like. It was just, like, a fascinating, anyway. Also why you have to have seen the show in order to read this book, though.

Sara 14:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly 14:35

Which is actually a complaint that I've also heard about the Warhammer novel tie ins. I haven't read them myself but my husband is very big into Warhammer and has been for all of eternity. His mom, being his mom, then read a bunch of Warhammer books because she wanted to be, like, engaged in his hobbies, which was really cute.

Sara 14:56

That's adorable.

Lilly 14:57

But she couldn't follow it because they would just throw these words out there and never give any context or explanation for what they were.

Sara 15:06

Interesting.

Lilly 15:07

And so that was a story I got told when I was complaining about how this book had no descriptions. So I was like, oh, interesting.

Sara 15:14

I have read some of the Supernatural tie in novels. But that was a long time ago, and it was when I was like, deep in my supernatural phase. So I genuinely don't remember if they had that problem or not.

Lilly 15:32

Well, and I'm saying it's a problem, but also clearly it wasn't. We were both fine.

Sara 15:39

Well, I mean, it wasn't for people who had that context.

Lilly 15:44

I think the reason why I'm sticking on it is because that makes this not a standalone piece of work.

Sara 15:54

Oh, it's definitely not a standalone piece of work.

Lilly 15:57

Right. And Something in me is like, you just needed, like, ten more pages of description. And then it could have been. But I guess at the same time, who is going to pick up a Firefly novel if you haven't seen the show? So why even bother making it accessible to non fans?

Sara 16:14

Yeah, like, and I also think that you had more of a problem with it. Yeah. than I did. And I, I can't help but feel like that's related to you being more of a fan of the show.

Lilly 16:29

Really interesting.

Sara 16:31

Yeah, just, it, it, so, I have no idea how true this is, but for me it feels like the lack of descriptions meant that it didn't feel as much like the show as you thought it could have.

Lilly 16:46

No, I think I introduced those two thoughts too closely together

Sara 16:49

Okay. Okay. That's quite possible too.

Lilly 16:53

Those are two observations that I had and that I realized that I thought they were wrong. cause and effect. I just, it's wild to write a whole ass book and then say, all of you, majority of humans, not for you. Go away.

Sara 17:10

But that's the whole point of a tie in novel.

Lilly 17:13

Is it?

Sara 17:14

Yeah,

Lilly 17:14

Is that the point?

Sara 17:16

no one, no one is going to pick up a tie in novel who is not already a fan of the franchise. Except in rare cases like Danny, like your husband's mother who wanted to support his hobbies.

Lilly 17:30

right.

Sara 17:30

But I think that's the edge case.

Lilly 17:32

I've read some Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books that entirely stood alone. You did not have to have seen the show to understand what was going on.

Sara 17:41

Interesting. How much of that is comics versus tie in novels?

Lilly 17:48

I don't know. I don't generally engage with expanded universe stuff. So this is a genre that I'm completely out of my element in.

Sara 17:58

And I guess there's a whole bunch of, like, Star Wars novels. But see, at what point does it stop becoming a tie in novel And become its own thing.

Lilly 18:11

Maybe that's the problem. Is a tie in novel specifically fuck you, watch the show first? Is that the definition of a tie in?

Sara 18:19

I feel like that's my definition.

Lilly 18:22

Because I know that there are novels written in other IP universes do stand alone. So it's like, why not?

Sara 18:32

I mean, like, I know that there are all of these Star Wars novels, for example. I've not read them, but presumably, I mean, there's only so much tying in they can do with the number of novels that they have. So presumably they do start to go off and do their own thing. But yeah, I, I don't know, I feel like specifically, My definition of a tie in novel is it ties in to the show and, or whatever, you know, IP it's dealing with, and you need to have that context.

Lilly 19:03

Okay, so that is just me fundamentally not vibing with the concept of a tie in over expanded universe whatevers.

Sara 19:15

Yeah,

Lilly 19:16

those are two different, completely different things then.

Sara 19:19

I think I would count them as, as different things.

Lilly 19:23

Wild. Okay.

Sara 19:24

Like, I feel, I feel like if there was a novel set in this Firefly universe that dealt with a different crew, and maybe they had a cameo from Serenity's crew, like, that's expanded universe. But a tie in, a tie in novel, like, I don't know.

Lilly 19:47

Wild. Okay. To me, this felt an awful lot like fanfiction. The experience I have when reading fanfiction. When the author is like, I don't gotta explain jack shit to you. We all know you know what I'm talking about.

Sara 20:00

which, which is what I think that tie in novels are. They're, they're just official fanfiction.

Lilly 20:06

Crazy. Okay. I still would have liked to know what color Wash's shirt was. If you're gonna have that much dialogue about it.

Sara 20:14

I didn't need to know, it was loud. I got, I got the point.

Lilly 20:19

There was an OC. in this. I'm just gonna use fanfiction slang because I've decided that's what this is. There was an original character, I mean there were several original characters. One of the main characters was Anne Roberts. She sort of starts the story off and she has several sections throughout the book that are first person perspective from her perspective while the rest of the book was in third person POV. But she hires the Serenity crew because her father was murdered and she wants to find, like, find a way to bring his murderer to justice. she was a, a precocious youth. Except she was 18, so I feel like she should have known better.

Sara 21:03

I don't know, I think 18 still counts as youth. At 18, you don't think so, but when you're older than that.

Lilly 21:11

Yeah, and that description fits her character very well. I liked the character. I wanted to shake her quite a bit, but in consistent ways.

Sara 21:22

She frustrated me sometimes, but overall I liked her, and she was very consistent as a character. throughout. So my frustration was not that she was doing things that I thought was out of character for what we knew of her or anything like that.

Lilly 21:37

Yeah, she was a very well done character.

Sara 21:40

Yeah.

Lilly 21:41

The proof of which is that I wanted to shake her.

Sara 21:44

Yeah. She just made like stupid decisions because she was an 18 year old girl who was grieving the death of her father.

Lilly 21:51

Yeah, I can't believe Zoey, like, aided her when her whole argument was, take me on the adventure, look, I can shoot really good. it's like, my dude, target shooting is not the same thing as killing people.

Sara 22:09

It's definitely not.

Lilly 22:11

No, and Zoe should have known better. But I, I liked her. I and then the way that she sort of bonded with all of the members of the crew in different ways, I thought was really nice as well.

Sara 22:23

Yeah. I, I did like the way her relationship with everyone develops.

Lilly 22:29

The point of view switching was a little wild. And it took me a minute to get the hang of, but I got there.

Sara 22:36

Yeah, it's definitely, the first time it happened was jarring but after that I was like, oh, this is, this is just what it's doing, okay.

Lilly 22:44

Well, I think the problem I had was, the first chapter, the like, prologue basically, is past tense. Annie's perspective. It's like her journal or something. She's telling the story of when this happened back when she was 18 years old. And then the next chapter, this third person perspective about the Serenity crew. So I was like, okay, the chapters go back and forth. That's fine. No. No, the point of view just switches wildly in the middle of chapters. No line break.

Sara 23:17

Most, I think most of the time it was bounded by chapters, but there was one or two times when it just was random. And yeah, that was a little hard to follow sometimes.

Lilly 23:29

It was at least three times. I did not keep full count, but it was multiple times.

Sara 23:35

Yeah, it was, it was multiple, I'm not saying it was only once.

Lilly 23:38

no. And then yeah, once I was like, I did have to go back and read that section twice because I was like, What just happened? Then once I was like, okay, that's what this book is doing. Sure. All right. And then I was, it was fine, but I was no visual indication at all.

Sara 23:56

Yeah, that was, that was an interesting, uh, layout choice.

Lilly 24:01

Well, we've come to the question of who should read this book. I think the answer is very obvious. If you have ever seen the TV show Firefly or the movie Serenity.

Sara 24:12

And specifically, if you have seen those and wanted more Firefly content,

Lilly 24:18

Yeah. I mean, it's a good show. Honestly, I really enjoyed it. It did feel like the right vibes. I would probably absolutely read more tie ins.

Sara 24:29

I probably wouldn't bother. I mean, I enjoyed reading this book, to be clear. Like, I had a good time with it. But I'm just not a big enough fan of Firefly to go search for more Firefly tie in novels.

Lilly 24:46

I think it appealed to me in a very recreational way. It was very easy to read.

Sara 24:56

It was a, it was a very easy read. 270,

Lilly 24:58

And so fast! I mean, it's only like 250 pages.

Sara 25:05

I think. 262.

Lilly 25:07

That's like 250.

Sara 25:10

splitting the difference almost exactly. Between what you said and what I said.

Lilly 25:15

So, just for like a,

Sara 25:17

read.

Lilly 25:19

yeah! And so just for a little, like, I want to relax and kill some time. not doomscroll on my phone. Delightful. Low mental load.

Sara 25:31

Yes. But again, I do think that you have to be a bigger fan of Firefly than I was to want to make this your low mental load read. Relaxing book.

Lilly 25:44

Probably. I am a sucker for the sci fi western which is something that came up when we were reading Tenlo and I can never remember the name of that series. The Factus

Sara 25:56

Yeah. Yeah. The second book is Hell's Eight and the third is nightlife by Star Colburn.

Lilly 26:03

And those are some phenomenal novels, but they are, I mean, not but. They're really, really good. And because they're very good, they require much more engagement from the reader.

Sara 26:17

Yes. This, this novel does not require quite as much thought as those do when you're reading it,

Lilly 26:24

So as someone who's like, give me the space western all day every day, this is the perfect, like, I just want something fun to read that's relaxing in an afternoon.

Sara 26:39

Yeah. I mean, I can, I can see that and I, again, I like, I enjoyed it, but I think you like space westerns more than I do. Not that I dislike'em, but I think you like'em more than I do. And.

Lilly 26:52

It's not your thang the way it's my thang.

Sara 26:54

Yeah. And I think you're also much more of a Firefly fan. So this is not the book that I would go for if I was in the mood for like a low effort novel.

Lilly 27:07

Which came first, I wonder, the Firefly or the Space Western?

Sara 27:12

I don't know when Space Western as a genre was developed.

Lilly 27:15

No, sorry, for me.

Sara 27:16

Oh.

Lilly 27:17

I don't care about the genre. But because of when I encountered Firefly for the first time in my life, they are inextricably linked. But yeah, anyway,

Sara 27:27

was Firefly the first Space Western that you encountered?

Lilly 27:32

that was my question. Which came first? I think for, like, As far into the aesthetic as Firefly leans, probably yes. Although there were definitely some, like, sci fi, more survival type books. Where, yes, it was very high tech to get to the planet, but once they were there, it was just the Wild West, if you will. Though not as, not as Western. So I was sort of primed for the The low tech sci fi. Anyway, low tech isn't even really the right description. It's, this book was for me.

Sara 28:13

Yes, it was. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Lilly 28:21

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Sara 28:29

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Lilly 28:36

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Sara 28:44

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Lilly 28:50

All right. One way that this book was very different from the TV show is that it was much more pro Alliance than the show was.

Sara 29:01

I was wondering about that. I mean, we, we get a fair amount from Simon and Inara's, not POV because it's third person, but like, They have a lot of dialogue, and I feel like they're much more pro alliance, or ambivalent, yeah, sympathetic or ambivalent than Mal is.

Lilly 29:26

Well, of course. Malcolm Reynolds fought on the side of the independents. He's a brown coat. He hates all of the Alliance. And in the show, the Alliance really justifies his hate. And everyone is like, You're fighting a losing fight. But like, we get it. You know what I mean?

Sara 29:46

Hmm.

Lilly 29:47

Whereas in this book, there was so much interior contemplation about how shouldn't we all just get along? Why is he being so side picky about this? And that felt very jarring.

Sara 30:03

Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's not something that I found jarring, because that's not really something I had context for, if that makes sense. Like, I know I noticed it, but I didn't know how Much, I should be noticing it.

Lilly 30:25

Yeah, in, I would say in the show, there are people who are like, The Alliance isn't so bad. Look, they gave us medicine. Except it's almost always followed up with, Plus, having boots on your neck is really cozy. Like, every time. Whereas this book was a much more like, We should consider both sides.

Sara 30:47

Well, I felt that that was just because we were getting that from, again, Simon and Inara, like, it's not that the Alliance were, it's not, it's not that the people on Able were super pro Alliance, except maybe for the mayor who called in the, Whatever she was, the investigator, to investigate Annie's father's death.

Lilly 31:16

I think it was more the context of those conversations.

Sara 31:20

But it makes sense for their characters, doesn't it? Because, like, they have been very privileged by the Alliance. Like, that's, that's how they grew up, so they wouldn't necessarily see that as total asshole behavior.

Lilly 31:36

I mean, Simon's pretty mad at the Alliance for torturing his sister. He is not, he is not very sympathetic to the Alliance.

Sara 31:44

Okay, fair, fair enough. He's, he's not, he's not unsympathetic in this book, but I don't remember how he behaves in the show.

Lilly 31:53

There was just a lot more of characters displayed in a, like, you should probably respect this character way, going, Having two stratified sides is not a good idea. Which, I mean, is probably true. But having seen the show fairly recently, I'm like, No! The Alliance are bad guys. What are you doing? So it was probably good that this book was trying to do something a little different. But Oh, it's not having it?

Sara 32:21

And, and some of the Alliance are still bad guys. I mean, the the rich jerk who is, you know, He's essentially running this, it's not a scam, but he's

Lilly 32:32

This conspiracy.

Sara 32:34

yeah, he's, he's trying to undo all of the terraforming so that he can get rich, or get richer. He's Alliance.

Lilly 32:47

he's from the core. I mean, technically, everyone's technically Alliance now because they won,

Sara 32:53

Okay.

Lilly 32:53

they're all in the Unified Planets.

Sara 32:56

he's, presumably he is from where the alliance started. Or, or he was from a place that was alliance in the war.

Lilly 33:04

But he doesn't represent the government. I would say this book is more class war than anti overreaching government.

Sara 33:16

it's, it's definitely class war and not anti overreaching government.

Lilly 33:20

Yeah. Which, I mean, still totally works with, you know, the Serenity crew, so it was fine. But every time that came up, I was like, where is this coming from? Because, yeah, it's not the government that's doing something evil, right? In the movie Serenity, it's the government itself that creates Reavers, we find out. Whereas in this book, it was not the government's plot to fuck over Abel. It was just some douchebag capitalist.

Sara 33:51

Right.

Lilly 33:52

So, in the TV show, the Alliance is very much always the bad guys as a whole. I mean, there are some good ones, of course, but this book was much more measured. You mentioned, though, that the mayor did call in an investigator from the Alliance to discover what was going on with Annie's dad, which she probably should have said.

Sara 34:13

She definitely should have said, but thinking about it, when does she get the chance? Like, she, she tries to talk to Annie, kind of fumbles it. Annie kicks her out. She doesn't have another opportunity.

Lilly 34:28

We don't know the time frame here, do we? Her dad died previously, and Annie waits some amount of time before going to the Sheriff, and then it takes some amount of time for the Serenity crew to get to her. I guess I assume she waited at least a week before shaking down the Sheriff, for why has there not been an arrest. But I guess I don't know that.

Sara 34:58

all I'm saying, I mean, I, I did kind of assume that there was a bit of a time there too, but I guess what I'm saying is we, because we don't see anything on the page, we just see like the one conversation they have where Annie kind of decides that this mayor is an enemy. We don't know if the mayor tried to talk to Annie about it again. She could have, she might not have, but.

Lilly 35:28

Yeah, I guess when Annie goes to the sheriff and the sheriff is like, You should hire a bounty hunter! Which, my dude,

Sara 35:36

mean, okay, I think, I think that the mayor should have told the sheriff.

Lilly 35:41

Yeah! Or the sheriff should have said, Hey mayor, by the way, this citizen is so mad I told her to go hire a bounty hunter. And that's when the mayor should have gone, No! Wait! Hold all of the horses!

Sara 35:56

There should have been more communication. I don't necessarily, I'm not necessarily sure it's entirely the mayor's fault, but there should have been more communication.

Lilly 36:05

I you're right. I think The mayor found out about the bounty hunters way too late. Because yeah, by then Annie already had them on planet, she wasn't gonna let them go.

Sara 36:16

Yeah.

Lilly 36:17

But how did the sheriff not tell the mayor about this?

Sara 36:22

I mean, he had one foot out the door, he just wanted to retire to his like, fishing spot or whatever.

Lilly 36:29

Even a moor reason to escalate. That sounds like that's above my pay grade. You should go talk to the mayor about that.

Sara 36:36

I think he was, he was of the opinion, that sounds like something I'm just gonna let my replacement deal with. Not a very good sheriff.

Lilly 36:45

I mean a decent guy, but not very good at his job. It was fun playing the like, who's behind the conspiracy game? Because this is introduced. We know some guy shot Annie's father in broad daylight in front of a bunch of people, and he's not getting arrested. So Annie is pretty sure, and ends up being correct, someone hired him to kill her father. And I thought for sure that the mayor was in on the conspiracy. I didn't think the sheriff was. He just seemed too bumbling. But at the beginning, I was pretty convinced that the mayor was gonna be in on the conspiracy because she was so, like, condescending to Annie.

Sara 37:32

I agree. I thought that she was going to be in on it for quite some time.

Lilly 37:37

And then she ended up being a good guy. Or Kayleigh talks her into being a good guy. And that was charming.

Sara 37:43

I, I, her intentions were good, but Kaylee talks her into her actions being good.

Lilly 37:50

Yeah, yeah. Annie, though, I understand. Hiring a bounty hunter because everyone is like no, we're not going to arrest this guy. That was fine. And by a bounty hunter, I mean the crew of Serenity. But her insistence on going with them on the adventure was so frustrating.

Sara 38:10

Yeah, that was where I wanted to shake her. I was like, girl, you have a concussion, you just, like, passed out for a bit, you are in no position to be going to a shootout.

Lilly 38:23

And she takes it so personally, but Mal sends Jane away too. He's like, hey, you two are injured, go home.

Sara 38:30

Right! Like, his decision makes sense!

Lilly 38:34

yeah, he let you come in the first place, which is bonkers.

Sara 38:37

Yeah, why are you so fixated on he thinks I'm a liability, like, he's going back on his word? No, you're, you're injured. Or, yes, you are a liability, but it's because you were injured.

Lilly 38:50

hmm.

Sara 38:52

And then, look at the result. She gets, she gets caught.

Lilly 38:56

I, ooh, I may be a bitch, Sarah, but I loved that.

Sara 39:01

I mean, it, it felt like, a reasonable consequence of her actions.

Lilly 39:08

Yeah, she earned that. She got caught by the guy who killed her dad.

Sara 39:15

Yeah, and she has the realization that, oh, I maybe was not as prepared for this as I thought I was, because she, like, fumbles it.

Lilly 39:24

I think that actually might be part of why I was so frustrated with her, is that her section is all past tense. It's introduced Hold on. How is it actually introduced? And I was 18 years old when the events I describe here occurred. We don't know how long ago that was, but presumably she's not 18 anymore. So This whole thing is written from, you know, future Annies. Not the whole thing. Annies. sections are written from future Annie's point of view, but there is no introspection in that. It's not used in any way. So all of her opinions are 18 year old Annie, and I'm like, please tell me that you realize that you were being an idiot back when you were 18. And the narration never does that except for a little bit, a tiny, tiny bit in that one moment.

Sara 40:24

that would have been would have been nice. I agree.

Lilly 40:27

There should have been more like, foreshadowing introspection from her because just it's framed as it's her journal that she wrote at least a year later. And so you can't just be like immersed in the moment. Anyway, this is why I have problems with first person perspective. It did, however, serve one narrative purpose, I think. Her near death experience was not stressful at all.

Sara 40:57

No, we, we knew that she lived.

Lilly 41:00

Unless you thought maybe that she was going to be writing from beyond the grave.

Sara 41:05

I didn't think that this was novel with a supernatural component. No.

Lilly 41:10

Yeah.

Sara 41:12

Firefly has many things, but that is not one of them.

Lilly 41:15

I mean, terraforming is basically magic. I almost burst out laughing when Simon is trying to explain to those rich fucks the conspiracy that he's uncovered. And he's like, they're trying to de terraform the world. And they're like, that's preposterous. And he's like, it's true. And I can explain all the science to you. It's to prove that it's real. And then his explanation is just like, It's in reverse! Don't write yourself into that corner.

Sara 41:46

Maybe he did a super science y description off the page in minutes that we don't see. I don't know.

Lilly 41:56

Maybe that line was accompanied by some very explicit hand gestures.

Sara 42:01

He had a whole powerpoint he was pointing to.

Lilly 42:04

Mm.

Sara 42:05

That explained it all.

Lilly 42:07

Yep. Yeah, so the, Annie's perspective being in past tense did, I think it contributed to me finding this book so pleasant, because I was reading that going, Well, I know she's gonna live.

Sara 42:21

Yeah, it does take away some of the sense of danger.

Lilly 42:24

Which I have to assume was purposeful. They didn't want to scare me.

Sara 42:29

there's, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Lilly 42:31

Oh yeah, no. But yeah, I think it was entirely on purpose. think it was cool. Okay, I know I complained about the Alliance being whitewashed a little bit in this. Or I should say the anti Alliance people being painted as paranoid argumentative fools.

Sara 42:51

I don't know if I would go that far about, about the anti alliance people.

Lilly 42:57

No, it wasn't that extreme, but that was the fastest way to describe it.

Sara 43:01

Okay. But it was, it was not that extreme, to be clear.

Lilly 43:05

No. But I did like that we met some bad guy brown coats in this.

Sara 43:10

Yeah, I'm sure.

Lilly 43:13

That was something that didn't show up much in the show. Any other, like, fellow independence fighters, Mal usually, I mean there's some friction but it's usually due to a third party. Whereas in this, They're the lackeys for the capitalist jerk who's trying to destroy the planet for profit, but they are all in on the plan. Amal was convinced that they had been tricked into it, because he was like, but they're browncoats, they couldn't possibly be helping this scheme. And then it turns out they are, and he gets really upset about it, and sort of realizing that, like, his reaction to losing the war was, well, how can I still help people? And their reaction to losing the war was, Nothing matters, I'm gonna burn everything to the ground.

Sara 44:04

How can I help myself?

Lilly 44:05

Yeah. And I thought that was really good, and really good for Mal as a character.

Sara 44:12

Yeah, I could see that. I mean, I, again, I didn't have that kind of like emotional reaction to it, but I

Lilly 44:21

Was there anything in this book you had an emotional reaction to? Could you give a single shit about this book?

Sara 44:28

enjoyed it,

Lilly 44:30

Yeah.

Sara 44:31

but that is maybe the strongest statement that you're going to get out of me for it, which

Lilly 44:38

Well, this whole book ends with a summary from good ol Annie. In case you missed how the conspiracy shook out. It's almost like to the word. So in summation, here's what actually happened.

Sara 44:53

I mean, to be fair, it does feel kind of like a journal entry.

Lilly 44:56

Yeah, and I could see that being like the voiceover in an episode. I would still make fun of it in a TV show, mind.

Sara 45:04

Sure. But it, it could, it could be something that would happen in the show.

Lilly 45:09

Yeah, especially since In this plot, there are enough sides, like, involved here, because there's also the union, right, going on. There's a, a strike, basically, of the workers in the town, and that's sort of what Kaylee and Wash are dealing with during this whole thing. And so there's, there's a lot of moving pieces for this being a fairly short book,

Sara 45:35

Yeah.

Lilly 45:37

so. Actually, at one point, When Kayleigh and Walsh first interact with the mayor, first get to the mayor, and are, like, convincing her to be reasonable and not call in a paramilitary force to deal with a union strike, I was kind of going, I'm really looking forward to the summary, I assume will be at the end, to explain what all of these dang sides are,

Sara 46:06

Well, you got it.

Lilly 46:08

I got it, and I also did get it before then, so it ended up being redundant. But there was a moment that I was saying I was looking forward to it, and I, and I am glad that I wasn't proven wrong.

Sara 46:19

Is that something that the show did a lot of?

Lilly 46:22

Not really. I don't think there were mysteries to this. extent.

Sara 46:28

Hmm.

Lilly 46:30

You know?

Sara 46:31

I will say that one thing this book did do was kind of make me want to watch the show, rewatch the show. It's not going to happen, but just realistically speaking the thought has crossed my mind.

Lilly 46:46

I saw it recently enough that I'm good, but it's a good show. It kind of made me want to look up fan fiction. I don't think there's a ton of it though. Or at least last time I looked there wasn't.

Sara 47:01

Interesting.

Lilly 47:02

Although last time I looked I was in high school and I don't think I knew AO3 existed.

Sara 47:06

I mean, it's quite possible that AO3 didn't exist last time you looked it up.

Lilly 47:11

yeah.

Sara 47:13

So maybe there's more fan fiction now. It

Lilly 47:15

Very possible. I might, I might dip my toes in just to see.

Sara 47:20

not make me want to look up Firefly fanfiction. I Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly 47:31

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Sara 47:41

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Lilly 47:48

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Sara 47:55

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!