My Own Kind of Freedom

This is my second book by Steven Brust, and, unfortunately, I had a lot of the same complaints that I had with the first one. Which was also, now that I think of it, a situation in which Brust wrote a story around someone else's work (in this case Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity world and characters, and in the other book, the Bible).

I just don't think that his style is for me. Which is a shame, because I think the stories are good. I just get annoyed while I'm reading them. His style is too choppy. Too many staccato sentences, too many interruptions and cut off sentences, too much dialogue and not enough exposition. Too many POVs, too many scene changes, too much left for the reader to fill in whenever there are gaps, and there are too show more many gaps. I want to know what a character is doing, and who, not just that something is being done by someone. For example:

"Sorry, ma'am. I'm in kind of a hurry. And you're not going to be able to reach your se­cu­rity peo­ple any­way. So, if you'll just let me . . . ugh. Which one of these . . . ? Okay, that's the di­rect link to the Cor­tex, so one of these must be, ah, I see. I don't know if I have the right con­nec­tion here. Okay, this ought to—there. Yes. A guy named Mis­ter Uni­verse showed me how to do this. Weird name, huh? Not half as weird as the guy is. We met in flight school. Worst pilot you ever . . . okay, that should do it. Just give me half a sec­ond to make sure the cross-load worked. Yep. Okay. You can have your desk again. Thanks."

It was like reading a story that's been cut up into sentence fragments on little pieces of paper, put into a box, and then drawn out one by one. And almost every single time there's a scene change, we're in for a good chunk of time not knowing whose POV we're reading until there's a hint or clue, or occasionally, someone else comes in the scene and gives it away. That's not enjoyable to me. I want to be drawn into the story and have it feel effortless to read. I want to just be with these characters again, and not be irritated by them. I know Zoe says "Sir" a lot, but this book is only 168 pages long, and there are 206 sirs in it. I know, because I counted.

Or worse than being irritated by them is not understanding them at all, and had I not watched Firefly and Serenity before reading this book, I really don't think I would have. There just wasn't enough there. And combine that with the interruptions and everything else, and I just don't see how a person without full Firefly/Serenity experience would get much out of this book.

But, all that being said, I DO think that Brust did a good job matching the world and the characters, and the story itself was good. I just wish that his writing didn't make it hard for me to enjoy it. show less

Every fan of Firefly must read this. Were this story made into a two-parter, those would be the best episodes.

True to the title, Brust introduces us to a new kind of freedom, and in doing so crafts the very first legitimate definition for 'freedom' that I have ever read or heard, the implications of which no man should do without.

A novel-length Firefly fanfic.

I thought my fanfiction days were far behind me. I distrust the stuff. I don't want to see characters I love contorted into strange parodies of themselves, especially since they often seem to be involved in weird sexual pairings. (Jayne/Book? Oh god...) I mostly just ignore the whole fanfiction scene, unless someone directs me to a particularly bad one for a laugh.

I heard about this book here on LibraryThing, though, and I figured I didn't have much to lose. I wanted some more Firefly pretty bad. It was free. The author had street cred. If it bugged me, I could always abandon it.

So I downloaded it, and I actually found it very entertaining. The characters were true to life, (er, show?), the story was show more cleverly plotted and the whole thing came together very well. I especially liked how Brust dealt with the good vs. bad issues that Firefly seems tailor-made to explore. He introduced some interesting elements and did an excellent job of poking away at the implications of their role in the story.

Good stuff. I'll certainly be seeking out more of Brust's work. If you're a Firefly fan and would like to give this a try, you can download it here. show less

Steven Brust is a very talented fantasy and science fiction novelist. (Actually I'd say he's a talented novelist, period, but anyway.) This is fan fiction set in the universe of the TV show Firefly, set at some point between the end of the series and the movie. Like all fan fiction, it's pointless unless you know and enjoy the original. Unlike almost all fan fiction, it's really good, both in its own right and as a pitch-perfect capture of everything that made the show fun. In fact, I found myself double-checking that Brust hadn't, in fact, been a writer for the show... It's free from his homepage (http://dreamcafe.com/firefly.html).

This has been on my "currently reading" shelf for what seems like years, but it really was a fast read. I was just about to start it when I switched from the Palm to the iTouch, and I didn't get around to converting it from a .prc file to an .epub until this week.Yes, I know that Calibre, which is a marvelous and indispensable piece of software for anyone who reads e-books (and I firmly recommend that everyone should run out right now, download it, and show some kind of support to the author, especially in the form of donations if at all possible), can do that kind of conversion automatically. It does them very well.But I am OCD Woman. Hear Me Whine. I edit the epub files I buy. No, really. I feel it necessary to strip out extraneous show more crap in them before I read them or I'll be bitching about it the entire time I'm reading the book. Or I make my own table of contents the way I like it. I'm serious. So yes, I had Calibre convert the .prc generously provided Mr. Brust, and then I went through and did all my editing.THEN I loaded it onto my device and started reading it, and honestly, my only complaint at that point was that I would have been happy to have many more hours of material to read.Brust got the character interplay so precisely right that I felt like I was reading a script for an episode of Firefly I had somehow missed viewing. I could hear the voices and see them clearly. Sometimes it's so right that one thinks the dialogue might be quoted from actual episodes, but it isn't - I've seen all of them, and this material isn't there. River's lines and thoughts, in particular, are eerily good.I don't read fan fiction. I simply don't do it. I'm not going to engage in a debate about it. Let's just say that it isn't my preferred entertainment. But I am a Brust fan, and a Firefly addict who is missing her fix. This novel probably counts as fan fiction, so I've broken my rule, and I don't regret it. I would happily do so again - for Brust. show less

This has been on my "currently reading" shelf for what seems like years, but it really was a fast read. I was just about to start it when I switched from the Palm to the iTouch, and I didn't get around to converting it from a .prc file to an .epub until this week.Yes, I know that Calibre, which is a marvelous and indispensable piece of software for anyone who reads e-books (and I firmly recommend that everyone should run out right now, download it, and show some kind of support to the author, especially in the form of donations if at all possible), can do that kind of conversion automatically. It does them very well.But I am OCD Woman. Hear Me Whine. I edit the epub files I buy. No, really. I feel it necessary to strip out extraneous show more crap in them before I read them or I'll be bitching about it the entire time I'm reading the book. Or I make my own table of contents the way I like it. I'm serious. So yes, I had Calibre convert the .prc generously provided Mr. Brust, and then I went through and did all my editing.THEN I loaded it onto my device and started reading it, and honestly, my only complaint at that point was that I would have been happy to have many more hours of material to read.Brust got the character interplay so precisely right that I felt like I was reading a script for an episode of Firefly I had somehow missed viewing. I could hear the voices and see them clearly. Sometimes it's so right that one thinks the dialogue might be quoted from actual episodes, but it isn't - I've seen all of them, and this material isn't there. River's lines and thoughts, in particular, are eerily good.I don't read fan fiction. I simply don't do it. I'm not going to engage in a debate about it. Let's just say that it isn't my preferred entertainment. But I am a Brust fan, and a Firefly addict who is missing her fix. This novel probably counts as fan fiction, so I've broken my rule, and I don't regret it. I would happily do so again - for Brust. show less

I think this is a fantastic novel. I really don't understand why we don't have actual, published novels for the Firefly 'Verse, but if folks like Brust keep churning out gems like this, that'll suit me just fine. The book takes place between the end of the series and the Serenity movie, which works well, in my opinion. Not to spoil things for those that haven't seen the movie, but let's just say things aren't the same as they were in the TV series. This entire space of time in the 'Verse is ripe for more authors to have fun like Brust did, and I hope they take Brust's lead! Great book - really a lot of fun to read.