{"id":19327,"date":"2010-11-26T10:46:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T17:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=19327"},"modified":"2013-06-03T11:28:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T17:28:02","slug":"the-shepherds-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/26\/the-shepherds-tale.html","title":{"rendered":"The Shepherd’s Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"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<\/em> book, Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale<\/a><\/em>, by Joss and Zack Whedon, illustrated by Chris Samnee.<\/p>\n

Good stuff. No spoilers below.<\/p>\n

Shepherd Book was one of my favorite characters in the Firefly universe<\/a>. 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. \u00a0A man of peace who seemed awfully handy with a gun or his hands. \u00a0A man on a journey, but whose starting was shrouded in mystery, save for a few tantalizing clues.<\/p>\n

It would have been interesting to see the tale of Derrial Book told out over a multi-season run of Firefly<\/em>. \u00a0Alas, 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.<\/p>\n

It’s good.<\/p>\n

It’s also short, essentially a one-shot, a slender 48 pages of storytelling despite the hardcover binding. \u00a0Arguably overpriced. \u00a0Could it have been better served in a longer format, the three-issue mini-series once promised? \u00a0Perhaps. \u00a0Or maybe not. \u00a0The story is what it is, and adding more details at each step would have been entertaining but not necessarily more meaningful. \u00a0It 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I’m glad Shepherd got his chance to tell his story, this way if none other. \u00a0Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “The Shepherd’s Tale”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-comics","category-media-tv-fireflyserenity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/shepherd-book.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8168,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/05\/04\/shiny_bridge.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":0},"title":"Shiny bridge","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-May-05 10:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"There will be a Dark Horse Serenity comic coming out in the Fall that will serve as a bridge between the Firefly TV series and the Serenity movie. Three issues,...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/jcassaday_mal.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12252,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/13\/shepherd_book.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":1},"title":"Shepherd Book","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jun-08 8:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Shepherd Book was, for a variety of reasons, one of my favorite characters on Firefly. A deeply philosophical and gentle man, his professed monastic life had some mysterious inconsistencies...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/shepherd-book.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":43834,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/25\/wait-what-huh-what-shiny.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":2},"title":"Wait, what? Huh? WHAT? Shiny!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-Jul-14 10:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, this is gorram exciting. #Firefly \u00a0Reshared post from +Geeks of DoomOne of the more exciting announcements to come out of this year's San Diego Comic-Con is that the entire cast of the prematurely cancelled, still dead with no savior in sight cult classic TV series Firefly will be re-uniting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51506,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/18\/you-cant-take-this-parody-about-firefly-from-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":3},"title":"You can't take this parody about "Firefly" from me","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 18-Jun-15 6:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently I missed the premiere of this ditty at the Denver Comic Con. Nicely done -- music, cosplay, etc. (And, yes, I know we're never getting Firefly back, certainly not in any form that we might once have dreamed -- but it's still a fun song.) View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21575,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/14\/gorram-shiny.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":4},"title":"Gorram shiny!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Jul-11 2:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I love Mucha and the art nouveau movement. \u00a0And I love Firefly\/Serenity. \u00a0So ... Four posters, available through Quantum Mechanix for $30. Loverly. Unfortunately, there's a fifth poster that's only available for sale at the San Diego Comic-Con. And while I've made a last-second Con trip for Fireflying reasons,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Firefly \/ Serenity"","block_context":{"text":"Firefly \/ Serenity","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-fireflyserenity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/artnouveau-firefly-650x365.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/artnouveau-firefly-650x365.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/artnouveau-firefly-650x365.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":28416,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/28\/keep-flying-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":19327,"position":5},"title":"Keep Flying","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Jun-12 12:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"I look very much forward to an official report from Certain Folks attending SDCC on this particular panel.Reshared post from +Comicbook.comWell, there's at least one reason officially announced for Nathan Fillion to be at Comic-Con! Embedded Link Firefly Tenth Anniversary Panel Descends on Comic-Con A number of press releases were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F06%2Ffirefly-cast-photo-300x206.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36728,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327\/revisions\/36728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}