Product Description

Five hundred years in the future, Captain Mal Reynolds, a hardened war veteran (on the losing side), ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family -- squabbling, insubordinate, and undyingly loyal.

When Mal takes on two new passengers -- a young doctor named Simon and his unstable, telepathic sister, River -- he gets much more than he bargained for. The pair are fugitives from a coalition that dominates the universe with unlimited wealth and power -- and that will stop at nothing to control River and her abilities. The crew of mercenaries, used to skimming the outskirts of the galaxy unnoticed, soon find themselves caught between the unstoppable military force of the Universal Alliance and the cannibalistic fury of the Reavers, savages who roam the very edge of space. Caught up in the fight to stay alive, they don't yet realize that their greatest danger may be on board Serenity herself....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130156 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

Customer Reviews

A letdown
It's hard to say exactly where this novelization goes wrong, as a feeling of 'wrongness' permeates the bulk of the novel. There are good parts that stand out, but only because the rest of the writing feels sub-standard.

Ironically, part of this is due to what could arguably be one of the novel's pros. DeCandido obviously did his research, as the book is filled with an impressive ammount of references to the TV series. However, this also serves to intensify the problem that there's little inovation in the story. The characters feel two-dimensional, the narrative feels like a copy and paste effort of the movie. Granted, there are events that we don't see on the big screen, but there's a noticable lack of innovation. It was as if guidelines were applied from the start that couldn't be deviated from.

The book can be read without seeing the movie and vice-versa. But given the similarity between the two, they don't really complement each other.

A Decent Interpretation
A very good novel in it's own right since it is based on the awesome movie of the same title. There are some details that were included in the original script that didn't make it into the movie so that should appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the 'Verse

Basically the extended version of the movie
As has been said by other reviewers this book is the full script for the movie turned in to a novel.

It becomes obvious when reading the book that it was written off the script and not after the final movie was released as there are some things that happen slightly differently.

If you have seen the movie and the deleted scenes on the DVD then this book adds nothing to the story, but is however a reasonably plesant read.