Due to the good graces of Stan (since I didn’t pre-order it at my comic shop and it sold out by noon), I got my copy of the latest Firefly/Serenity book, Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale, by Joss and Zack Whedon, illustrated by Chris Samnee.
Good stuff. No spoilers below.
Shepherd Book was one of my favorite characters in the Firefly universe. They’re all favorites, at different times, but Book was special. A man of faith, even when confronted by questions from his comrades and questions from his heart. A man of peace who seemed awfully handy with a gun or his hands. A man on a journey, but whose starting was shrouded in mystery, save for a few tantalizing clues.
It would have been interesting to see the tale of Derrial Book told out over a multi-season run of Firefly. Alas, Fox TV is as much of [digress into rambling screed over Fox, Fox TV, Fox News, and the Problem of Evil]. So instead we get this book.
It’s good.
It’s also short, essentially a one-shot, a slender 48 pages of storytelling despite the hardcover binding. Arguably overpriced. Could it have been better served in a longer format, the three-issue mini-series once promised? Perhaps. Or maybe not. The story is what it is, and adding more details at each step would have been entertaining but not necessarily more meaningful. It does feel rushed at times, like Zack (who did the actual frame-to-frame writing) wanted to get it done, but it also plays a bit like an extended flash-back, a series of images and episodes peeling away Book’s past and what brought him to that mining planet in Serenity.
In short (literally), it sums up the life (and death) of Shepherd Book neatly and quietly, explains the mysteries, shows us where he came from and where he was going, and does so in a way that (a) makes sense, (b) doesn’t cop out to the most egregious fanboi imaginings, (c) lives up to what it needed to be (sort of like Book himself), and (d) brings it all to a nice end.
I’m glad Shepherd got his chance to tell his story, this way if none other. Recommended.