Firefly: The Magnificent Nine Novel Review

Titan Books has published a hardback book titled Firefly: The Magnificent Nine available from numerous online retailers and high street book stores. Firefly: The Magnificent Nine is a novel based upon the hugely successful Firefly TV series starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau and the late great Ron Glass. Despite only spanning one season of 14 episodes from 2002 until 2003; Firefly lives long in the memory as one of the greatest TV series in history and deservedly continued with a blockbuster film named Serenity in 2005 that starred every core cast member from Firefly and Chiwetel Ejiofor portraying the role of the Operative, although Firefly has not been continued in TV or film form since. Does Firefly: The Magnificent Nine deliver what it sets out to by producing a superb second standalone story focused novel set within the ‘verse of the Firefly TV series?

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine is the second officially licensed Firefly novel; that once again rather amazingly features Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly creator Joss Whedon as the consulting editor. The Magnificent Nine novel is written by James Lovegrove having previously written the first officially licensed Firefly novel titled Firefly: Big Damn Hero from a story concept by Nancy Holder; a New York Times best-selling author of The Age of Odin and having written multiple Sherlock Holmes novels including Gods of War, The Stuff of Nightmares, The Thinking Engine and more besides, alongside writing reviews of fiction for the Financial Times.

The story is set between the Firefly television series and the Serenity film with the opening chapter emphasising the tensions between some of the crew members as Jayne Cobb complains that River Tam is wearing his knitted hat as she dances to music playing in her head. That is an early inkling of how The Magnificent Nine’s story flows as the crew are divided and pulling in different directions as to what they believe they should do next. Captain Malcolm Reynolds wants to do a job that would keep food and drink on the table for his crew and the Serenity flying; however that all changes when Jayne Cobb receives a distress signal from his former girlfriend named Temperance situated on a distant planet called Thetis where a gang of vicious outlaws want to takeover the local water supply.

The quality of writing retains the same award worthy approach as James Lovegrove’s previous Firefly novel titled Big Damn Hero. Firefly fans who already know and love the characters will be able to read each line of dialogue from each character’s perspective in their respective tones of voice due to the appropriate depiction of each character within the novel that are all proportionately adapted from the Firefly television series, while the same can be stated for any newly introduced character due to their thorough descriptions.

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine is as beautifully presented as Firefly: Big Damn Hero by naturally utilising the same stylised presentation. Natasha MacKenzie returns as the cover artist with amazing front cover artwork featuring Adam Baldwin’s Jayne Cobb in a knitted hat accompanied by a side-on drawing of another character related to the story, while a habitat can be seen in the distant background amongst a desert landscape, alongside a fantastically presented title, subtitle and author credits. Meanwhile, the back cover has artistically presented foreign writing before hinting at the current state of affairs onboard the Serenity ship. Every chapter title is situated across the centre of an image of the Serenity ship from a top-down perspective that provides another touch that Firefly fans will no doubt appreciate due to its attention to detail.

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine’s value is the equivalent to that of Big Damn Hero even to the point of having the same quantity of pages with an all-new story unfolding over the course of 336 pages.

Firefly and Serenity fans can look forward to future Firefly novels from Titan Books including Generations by Tim Lebbon in October 2019. Firefly and Serenity fans should also look at other Firefly books from Titan Books including a novel titled Firefly: Big Damn Hero from James Lovegrove, Nancy Holder and Joss Whedon that released on November 20th 2018 in America and the UK and Firefly Encyclopedia’s coverage of the television series that released on November 6th 2018 in America and December 11th 2018 in the UK.

Analysis
• Title: Firefly: The Magnificent Nine
• Writer: James Lovegrove (Story written by) and Joss Whedon (Consulting editor)
• Art: Natasha MacKenzie
• Publisher: Titan Books
• Length: 336 pages
• Cover: Hardback

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine can be purchased in the UK from Amazon and Forbidden Planet, while Firefly: The Magnificent Nine can be purchased in America and Canada from Amazon. You can also find Titan Books’ official website including a back catalogue of captivating books and product details regarding Firefly: The Magnificent Nine.