The Magnificent Nine (Firefly, Book 2)
by
James Lovegrove
“Jayne! The man they call… Jayne!”
This is unequivocally a Firefly story and a perfectly fine addition to both the canon and to the book series. The first novel was very Mal-centric and gave us insight into Cap’n Tight-pants and this one seems to do something similar, yet not quite the same, for our ever-gruff merc-with-a-smirk. I bought the Titan Books edition on pre-order as with the others in the series and it was a nice big hard-back with a very pretty dust cover that lines up very nicely on my shelf as a set.
Short summary:
This is a simple, fun story that adapts the legendary Seven Samurai (a.k.a The Magnificent Seven) concept as many have done before it. That premise is not terribly original, but the novel does things its own way with the call for help coming from an old flame of Jaynes named Temperance and there’s no recruiting since the nine are already together on our beloved Serenity.
The crew goes in, finds a suitably bad man and his crew to oppose and a town full of people that need saving. There’s also a surprise on arrival in the form of the ex-lovers daughter who just happens to be named Jane.
The Review:
As such there’s a simple and straight-forward feel to the proceedings which I really enjoyed. It’s not that it’s predictable but it’s a clean story with nicely drawn characters and a narrative that flows quite well. If I had to explain further, I’d say author James Lovegrove has with this novel found a far better groove than the first novel; that novel was also perfectly fine but this one seems to have a more confident voice with the characters in particular. In addition, unlike its predecessor, this one leans far less on subtle and lowy-key callbacks and fan-service and that makes it a better experience for me as a long-time fan of the franchise.
The biggest draw for me is the characters. They really feel like the ones we know and love (if you’re someone familiar) but I think in this book they’re definitely crafted well enough from the start that even a relative newcomer should be able to enjoy it just fine. The only slight sad point is that poor Wash and Simon are relatively side-lined in this adventure, but I can see why that choice was made and I praise the writer/editors for making that choice – again, going for serving the story and not pandering to the older fan-base. I will also add that the story does also benefit from the writer spending just enough time giving a moment to some of the bad guys that you get a more interesting and rounded perspective which only enriches the story, especially as we reach the final beats of the tale.
There’s a bit of a twist and turn in the last 1/3rd of the book and the tale is not without its surprises but I will leave those be and not throw in any spoilers as the rest of the story is, as I said, kept pretty clean and simple and I don’t want to spoil the few googly’s that the story keeps in its holster.
Overall, this is only the second entry in the novel series but it has me excited for #3 which for a series I would imagine counts as a win. It’s a brisk and fun narrative filled with well rounded characters and is welcoming to readers new and old alike.
My reviews of other books in the series:
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One Happy Monk 
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