James Lovegrove takes us back out into the Black with his second Firefly novel, The Magnificent Nine. Once again, he has an ear for the dialogue and the pacing of the series and translated it nicely to a novel.

As the title hints at, the story is a bit of a riff on the classic western, which in turn was based on a classic samurai film.

Set between the events of the series, and the film, the story finds Jayne Cobb getting a wave from a former flame, one he hasn’t heard from in fourteen odd years, Temperance McCloud. It seems a group of thugs, known as the Scourers, and led by the brutal and sadistic Elias Vandal.

The Scourers have seized Temperance’s town and claimed all its water, the most valuable resource on the planet. She asks Jayne to bring help to take on the Scourers.

Jayne comes to his crewmates, and asks Captain Malcolm Reynolds to help these people, as it’s the right thing to do. Even if there is no pay.

So the nine members of the Serenity, saddle up and prepare to confront Vandal.

But it’s not going to be that easy. Serenity is shot down on approach and needs fixing. There are only nine of them against a small army, oh, and personal complications ensue. It seems Temperance has a daughter, about fourteen odd years. A girl named Jane.

Lovegrove moves the story along, hitting all the quirky, funny and action beats you would expect from an episode. But even as you read the story, no matter how taken in by it you are, you know that Jane can’t really be Jayne’s daughter.

Can she?

This one definitely leans into the western angle of the space western that is the defining trait of the series. Alongside its whipsmart dialogue.

This one is fun, it’s predominantly a Jayne story, and much like the character, it’s fairly simple. The twists and turns aren’t really that much of a surprise. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just you know the constraints of what the writer can and can’t do with the characters, and established canon.

Yes, these are officially licensed stories, but they can’t affect big changes to the characters. I mean, for them the events of the film Serenity are still in their future. Will we see why Shepard and Inara leave the ship? I’m not sure. But that being said, I am enjoying these rides.

The next time it’s The Ghost Machine.