Firefly: Big Damn Hero Book Review

Riding the show’s browncoattails wasn’t enough.

Summary

Firefly: Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove and Nancy Holder takes place near the end of the TV series. While on the planet Persephone looking for work, captain Malcolm Reynolds is kidnapped. The rest of the crew of Serenity desperately search for him while having to contend with a cargo hold full of explosive crates, explosives that are becoming increasingly unstable.

Mal discovers he’s caught up in events dating back to his teenage years. Old friends and past lovers have come back to haunt him, and many of his fellow Browncoats view him as a traitor. Can his crew get to him intime?

My Thoughts

I was disappointed with Big Damn Hero. I thought many of the characters were poorly written and didn’t feel like themselves from the show, and the unequal balancing resulted in a few of them barely getting any page time. The story itself, with the missing captain and the misunderstanding from the past, was trite.

Another complaint was, unlike the comics which took place after the show and then the movie to keep the story going, the book was an interquel and didn’t add anything significant to the overall franchise. Even the glimpses into Mal’s past felt more like a plot device than genuine character development. About the only thing the book had going for it was, it’s more Firefly, but riding the show’s browncoattails wasn’t enough.

My Rating: 3/5