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Big Damn Hero: The First Firefly Hardcover – November 20, 2018
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The Battle of Serenity Valley was the turning point that led the Independents to their defeat at the hands of the Alliance. Yet the Browncoats had held the valley for weeks against all odds, before being ordered to lay down their arms. Command stated they refused to send in airpower because the ground war was "too hot." But the soldiers who were there insist that was not true...
While picking up a new cargo on Persephone, Captain Malcolm Reynolds is kidnapped by a bunch of embittered veteran Browncoats who suspect him of sabotaging the Independents during the war. As the rest of the crew struggle to locate him, Mal is placed on trial for his life, fighting compelling evidence that someone did indeed betray them to the Alliance all those years ago. As old comrades and old rivals crawl out of the woodwork, Mal must prove his innocence, but his captors are desperate and destitute, and will settle for nothing less than the culprit's blood.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTitan Books
- Publication dateNovember 20, 2018
- Dimensions6.35 x 1.15 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-101785658263
- ISBN-13978-1785658266
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The entire novel feels like it could be a lost episode from the show." – The Verge
"[Big Damn Hero is] Season Two. Episode One." - Birth.Movies.Death
"Illuminates not only a huge chunk of Mal's past but also showcases a perfectly plausible chapter in the adventures of the Serenity's crew." - The Frumious Consortium
"Fans who know the 'verse well...will feel right at home in this story that spans the era before the series, with callbacks to events in the series, and right afterward as if it were a 15th episode." - Borg.com
"For someone who genuinely enjoyed the Firefly ‘verse, this was a treat to read. - Editing Everything
An outstanding tie-in to the beloved TV series, this book is shiny in every way possible." - Books Bones & Buffy
"This was a wild ride back into the world of Firefly that I sorely missed; I loved learning some of the backstory that Fox robbed us from fifteen years ago and look forward to the next installment." - Reader Voracious
"Big Damn Hero absolutely nails it across the board for me...It brings back all of the familiar and beloved while adding in dashes of the new and unknown. This Firefly book is a no-brainer buy for fans of the franchise." - Nerds on Earth
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Titan Books (November 20, 2018)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1785658263
- ISBN-13 : 978-1785658266
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.35 x 1.15 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #226,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,423 in TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction
- #4,384 in Space Operas
- #6,896 in Science Fiction Adventures
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Wonder Woman IS HERE! I am so thrilled that this amazing film is here. I cried when I screened a rough cut on the Warner Lot--and so did the Warner Brothers sister Amazons who saw it with me! I was thrilled and humbled to write the novelization.
Here's what @BookTrib has to say: "If you loved the movie and want even more details about the plot, then be sure to pick up this new read by author Holder."
I'm the New York Times bestelling coauthor (with Debbie Viguie) of the New York Times bestselling dark fantasy series, Wicked. I also wrote the Crusade and Wolf Springs Chronicles series with Debbie, and we have a teen thriller out titled The Rules. I also wrote the novelizations for the new Ghostbusters movie as well as Crimson Peak.
AND I have a new comic book series from Kymera Press called "Mary Shelley Presents," which will debut at San Diego Comic-Con 2017! Come meet me at the Kymera Press booth on Thursday and Friday of Comic-Con!
Here's what one reviewer said about my Crimson Peak novelization:
"The poetry in this novel is chilling and fantastic. The extra details bring unanswered questions to light and flesh the characters out a little more. If you fell in love with the film, this novel will deepen it.
Here are some nice things people have said about THE WOLF SPRINGS CHRONICLES:
365andMe - 5 Stars
" From the get-go, this young adult werewolf story had me hooked...Bottom line, I can't wait to read book two. This is my first book by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié. I enjoyed it so much, I'd like to try another series while waiting for book two of the Wolf Springs Chronicles to come out."
"If you love Nightshade, or Kelley Armstrong you will definitely like this book, it has love, betrayal and A LOT of mystery. A great read." -- Siobhan Reads a Lot (blog)
Avid Reading in NV - 5 Stars
"I loved this book from page one, haven't been able to put it down till i just finished it."
Mundie Moms - 4.5 Stars
"This is a classic paranormal read! It's dark, thrilling and one I quickly devoured. I've read a lot of enjoyable wolf books this year, and this one is definitely at the top of my list. Nancy and Debbie's enticing blend of mystery, suspense, passion, love and loyalty made for a story that was hard to put down." - Katie
---
I am also the author of the POSSESSIONS series, for young adults, about a haunted boarding school, where the mean girls are EVIL. The BookKidsBLog says, "Possessions is the novel Stephen King would written if he'd been asked to write Gossip Girl." As I am a HUGE Stephen King fan, this made my head spin around like that poor little girl in The Exorcist.
I have also written some fairy tale retellings as well as tons of what we call "tie-in" books--which are based on TV shows and movies. My tie-ins include BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, HELLBOY, SMALLVILLE, SAVING GRACE, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, and others.
I have a new Buffy Encyclopedia coming out with my very first Buffy editor, Lisa Clancy. It's called THE BUFFY ENCYCLOPEDIA (imagine that!) and it will out this fall. We cover the comic books as well as Buffy and Angel shoees.Also, a bunch of short fiction including some Sherlock Holmes.
I was born in California and have lived in Germany and Japan. I was a ballet dancer for a while but after an injury I gave that up. I attended the University of Hawaii and graduated from the University of California at San Diego. I am also a faculty member of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program, offered through the University of Southern Maine.
I love to travel, read, and watch movies. I'm also an avid hiker and baker.
James Lovegrove is the author of over 60 acclaimed works of fiction, which have sold all over the world and been translated into 18 languages.
Straight after graduating from Oxford with a degree in English Literature, James set himself the goal of getting a novel written and sold within two years. In the event, it took two months. The Hope was completed in six weeks and accepted by Macmillan a fortnight later. The seed for the idea for the novel — a world in microcosm on an ocean liner — was planted during a cross-Channel ferry journey.
His next book, Escardy Gap, was co-written with Peter Crowther over a period of a year and a half, the two authors playing a game of creative tag, each completing a section in turn and leaving the other to carry the story on. The result has proved a cult favourite, and was voted by readers of SFX one of the top fifty SF/Fantasy novels of all time.
Days, a satire on consumerism, was shortlisted for the 1998 Arthur C. Clarke Award. The book’s genesis most probably lies in the many visits James used to make as a child to the Oxford Street department store owned by his grandfather. It was written over a period of nine months while James was living in the north-west suburbs of Chicago.
Subsequent works have all been published to great acclaim. These include the Brexit-predicting Untied Kingdom, Worldstorm, Provender Gleed and the back-to-back double-novella Gig. United Kingdom was shortlisted for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, while “Carry The Moon In My Pocket”, a short story, won Japan’s Seiun Award in 2011 for Best Foreign Short Story. It and other stories by James, more than 60 in total, have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies over the years, and most have been gathered in two collections, Imagined Slights and Diversifications.
James has also written for children. Wings, a short novel for reluctant readers, was short-listed for several awards, while his fantasy series for teens, The Clouded World, written under the pseudonym Jay Amory, has been translated into 7 other languages so far. A five-book series for reluctant readers, The 5 Lords Of Pain, appeared at two-monthly intervals throughout 2010.
James has produced the Pantheon series, a set of standalone military-SF adventures combining high-tech weaponry and ancient gods. The third of these, The Age Of Odin, made it onto the New York Times bestseller list, and it and all the others have been a huge success, selling over a quarter of a million copies. The ninth and last volume in the series, Age of Legends, appeared in 2019.
He has also produced numerous Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. These include The Stuff Of Nightmares, Gods Of War, The Thinking Engine, The Labyrinth of Death and The Devil’s Dust, along with the Cthulhu Casebooks, a series mashing up the fictional worlds of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft. His latest Holmes offerings are Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon, Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons (a continuation of The Hound of the Baskervilles), and Sherlock Holmes and the Three Winter Terrors. His Holmes short stories have been collected as The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes.
More recently, James has moved into the Firefly ‘verse, writing tie-in fiction based on the much-missed TV series (and its follow-up movie). His first Firefly novel is Big Damn Hero (based on a story outline by Nancy Holder). His second is The Magnificent Nine, which was shortlisted for the Dragon Award for Best Media Tie-in Novel. His third, The Ghost Machine, won that award, and his fourth is Life Signs.
As a sideline, James reviews fiction for the Financial Times, specialising in the children's, science fiction, fantasy, horror and graphic novel genres, and has been a regular and prolific contributor to numerous other publications, including The Literary Review, Interzone, BBC MindGames, Comic Heroes and The Baker Street Journal.
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If you don't understand a gorram thing I'm saying, then go watch the sci-fi western series, Firefly. Then watch the follow-up movie, Serenity.
Then you'll be a full-fledged Browncoat, and you'll devour this book.
It felt like a lost, never-before-aired episode of Firefly. Great backstory on Mal, and a peek behind Book's curtain of mystery.
The only downside to finding this book is needing to read all of the other books.
Don't stop the signal. Keep flyin'.
Is Big Damn Hero perfect? No. It has the humor and the characterizations you'd expect from a new take on the best show in the 'Verse, but there's very little world building going on, because this world is built and the characterization keeps getting hamstrung by the fact that this movie takes place in between the series and the excellent feature film "Serenity," so we know everyone's going to be OK by the end, if for no other reason than we know that creator Joss Whedon is going to wait to kill half of them off in the movie. So, since they can't take the story forward, the authors wisely take the story back to Mal's time as a member of the Browncoats and the friends he had growing up. Mal's reputation, such as it is, is based on his time with the Rebels and in particular, the Battle of Serenity Valley, so when one of his oldest friends calls all that into question and actually puts Mal on trial for betraying a cause that's already been lost years before, it's an interesting spin on a story we thought we knew.
But because of where they placed it in the chronology, not much else you'd want to see happen, happens. There's no forward movement between Mal and Inara or Kaylee and Simon, Wash and Zoe are still Wash and Zoe, because all of that gets dealt with in the movie and Jayne is still Jayne and River's secret skills as a psychic ninja and still, well, secret. The book does try to give you a little background on Shepherd Book's secret past, but there was only so much they could do without getting deeper into the mythology than perhaps Mr. Whedon wanted them to go.
If you've never sampled Firefly before, this is NOT the place to start. Watch the series first (only 14 episodes, so it's easily bingeable), then the movie and then this book. If you're looking to find out why so many people love the Firefly universe and hate Fox for treating it so badly, you're not going to find it here. However, if you're already a fan, come on in. Big Damn Hero is a nice snack after the larger meals of the series and the movie and after, you can always give the comics a try. Shiny.
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2019
Is Big Damn Hero perfect? No. It has the humor and the characterizations you'd expect from a new take on the best show in the 'Verse, but there's very little world building going on, because this world is built and the characterization keeps getting hamstrung by the fact that this movie takes place in between the series and the excellent feature film "Serenity," so we know everyone's going to be OK by the end, if for no other reason than we know that creator Joss Whedon is going to wait to kill half of them off in the movie. So, since they can't take the story forward, the authors wisely take the story back to Mal's time as a member of the Browncoats and the friends he had growing up. Mal's reputation, such as it is, is based on his time with the Rebels and in particular, the Battle of Serenity Valley, so when one of his oldest friends calls all that into question and actually puts Mal on trial for betraying a cause that's already been lost years before, it's an interesting spin on a story we thought we knew.
But because of where they placed it in the chronology, not much else you'd want to see happen, happens. There's no forward movement between Mal and Inara or Kaylee and Simon, Wash and Zoe are still Wash and Zoe, because all of that gets dealt with in the movie and Jayne is still Jayne and River's secret skills as a psychic ninja and still, well, secret. The book does try to give you a little background on Shepherd Book's secret past, but there was only so much they could do without getting deeper into the mythology than perhaps Mr. Whedon wanted them to go.
If you've never sampled Firefly before, this is NOT the place to start. Watch the series first (only 14 episodes, so it's easily bingeable), then the movie and then this book. If you're looking to find out why so many people love the Firefly universe and hate Fox for treating it so badly, you're not going to find it here. However, if you're already a fan, come on in. Big Damn Hero is a nice snack after the larger meals of the series and the movie and after, you can always give the comics a try. Shiny.
Big Damn Hero offers a fast-moving plot (a two-day story) and all the flavor of the show that Browncoats should enjoy; Lovegrove has a good ear for the show's peculiar mix of frontier drawls peppered with Chinese expressions, and none of the characters from the ship are overlooked in contributing to the resolution: it's very much an all-hands on deck kind of story, bringing even Book and Inara into the thick of things. The show's humor runs throughout, from Mal's verbal harrying of his captors, to Zoe and Wash's playful banter and Jayne's mix of wiles and tactlessness. River is...well, River, playing a flute to calm the explosives down and providing just the right amount of insight to get the team out of tight corners. There are plenty, too; with so many members of the crew separated in the search for answers. Zoe, never a weak character -- never -- is in fine form hre, hobbling round town on a fractured leg, keeping the crew focused despite River's episodes and Jayne's fits and Kaylee's near panic at the idea of leaving the captain behind. The only fly in the ointment is the questionable backstory about the Alliance and the Independents, as the settling of this system is portrayed simplistically with rich people buying the core planets and leaving the poor people to the frontier planets, and then there being some confusion about the independents "seceding" from the Union...which they were not part of to begin with. That's relatively minor, though, perhaps on the scale of arguing about Klingon head makeup.
Big Damn Hero will find an audience, I think, not just because it's a new story in a beloved franchise, but because it also adds to that Firefly universe by fleshing out Mal's past and the people he loved and fought by. I enjoyed it thoroughly and hope this series keeps flying.
Top reviews from other countries
I had a great time reading Big Damn Hero, I don't think the smile left my face while this book was in my hands and these characters walked back into my life like old friends.
I think the author's biggest triumph is how well he's captured the voices of these characters. It's always a difficult task, particularly when characters have as distinctive a manner of speech as Whedon's, but James Lovegrove absolutely nails it (Badger's in particular, Bravo!). There wasn't a line of dialogue that missed the beat. (For how not to do it, look at literally any page of Boom!'s rubbish).
The story is a bit derivative hitting similar beats as 'Safe' and 'War Stories' but I truly I don't mind; I want these novels to feel like stepping back into the show. Having said that the novel takes the brave decision to hugely expand on Mal's backstory in a series of flashbacks. In my opinion the author was very successful; I could believe in the teenage Mal and it was interesting to see into the mind of the man before he decides to enlist with the Browncoats.
The continuity is good, the story is set between 'The Message' and 'Heart of Gold' which is an excellent choice as Inara hasn't decided to leave the ship but the characters are very familiar to one another. I really liked that every episode prior to 'Heart of Gold' got a nod and even events from 'The Shepherd's Tale' graphic novel are referenced. These nods convinced me that James Lovegrove is a real fan of the show and a safe pair of hands to write these novels.
Half way through the Second one and I can't put it down.
This Firefly adventure is pretty much like watching an episode and covers approximately the same ground. It's set part way through the first and only season, more towards the latter end. The major characters are all assembled. River is still wambly in the brain-pan; Simon still hasn't made a pass at Kaylee; Zoe and Wash are happily married and Jayne has the knitted hat and a gun called Vera. Mal is his usual cynical self, but he can't afford to turn down a job, which is why they all find themselves on Persephone's Eavesdown Docks getting ready to transport crates covered in warning stickers (as in warnings of imminent explosion should the crate be rattles, wet, warmed up etc. Maybe they shouldn't have taken another job from Badger, but they need the cash to keep flying (presuming he pays them this time).
Oh, yeah, this is gonna be great!
Badger's job (transporting unstable mining explosives is one thing, but when Mal is kidnapped he ends up being tried in a kangaroo court as a traitor to the Browncoats while his crew follows every clue available to trace him. There's some interesting backstory from Mal's youth on Shadow, before the war, which I assume can be taken as canon since this is an official tie in.