FIREFLY: WHAT MAKES US MIGHTY

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

What Makes Us Mighty is the seventh original Firefly novel and the first written by M.K. England, the fourth author to describe the adventures of the crew of Serenity. As with Una McCormack's Carnival, this take place between the episodes "The Message" and "Heart of Gold." England's book places the crew on the planet Kerry, where they find themselves the honored guests of the local feudal lord after delivering an undisclosed cargo to him.

The idea of hobnobbing with a duke doesn't sit well with Mal Reynolds, but upon landing and finding the duke to be an affable fellow who tells Mal to call him by his name Tarmon, goes a long way to ingratiate him to Serenity's crew, while his insistence that they stay in his palace and eat his fresh and copious food, further breaks down their walls. The only crewmember who is wary of him is Zoe, whose concerns are enough to make Mal reconsider his opinions, even if he does not see any evidence pointing to issues.

While Mal works to secure additional business with the duke, his crewmembers follow their own interests. Kaylee finds a group of women she can hang out with. Jayne becomes drinking buddies with the duke's troops. Book leaves the comforts of the palace to volunteer at a local abbey, where he isn't entirely welcome. As each crew member infiltrates different parts of Kerry culture, the joyful facade the duke has presented begins to break down and they find themselves facing a rebellion against the duke, and they must begin choosing sides.

The crew that England portrays isn't entirely united, with each having their own understanding of the situation and having to make their own choices, which is only undermined by the fact that the reader knows that when Serenity eventually leaves Kerry, the entire crew will be aboard, as evidenced by the subsequent episodes of the television series and the film. Nevertheless, they all act according to their characters. Furthermore, England allows them to have ties to the area rather than simply flying in completely devoid of connections. In this case, Wash has experience on the nearby moon, Madcap, where he visits when working to ensure that Serenity is safe and he can bring Mal's eventual plan to fruition.

As evidenced by the earlier novels, getting the characters' voices correct is one of the things that can make or break a Firefly novel. If the words and cadence of the dialogue don't feel right, the characters won't feel right. Many of the authors have dealt with this, and the large cast of nine characters, by sidelining some of the characters for much of the novel and selecting a couple of characters to serve as viewpoint characters. England has written chapters from the points of view of all nine of the characters who call Serenity their home and has managed to bring them to life in a way that makes the reader hear the various actors reading the lines.

England's What Makes Us Mighty is a welcome addition to the Firefly canon. The plucky band of outsiders cause in the middle of a revolution is not a trope previously visited by the group and is a welcome change from the various heists and kidnappings which many of the novels have described. Furthermore, England weaved references to their past adventures into the story skillfully, providing the fans which familiar references without overwhelming the story with nostalgia.

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