I finished up The Magnificent Nine - now that was more like it! The author's previous Firefly novel (Big Damn Hero) wasn't as well done as this one; it seemed clunky in places and the characters were doing some stuff that didn't seem like what they would do. (Plus, he had this irritating habit of trying to reference just about every episode of the series in the first novel, as if trying to prove his credentials.) But he hits his full stride with this one, which seemed like it could have been a "lost" episode of the series. While it was similar in plot to "Heart of Gold" - the crew of the Serenity is fighting off bandits trying to take over a town on a desert planet instead of a whorehouse this time - it played to the characters' strengths and Jayne got some time in the spotlight. While the ending came as no surprise (I saw it coming halfway through the novel), it was altogether an enjoyable read.
Now I'm reading Genghis: Lords of the Bow, a fictionalized biography by Conn Iggulden. It turns out this is the second of a three-part series on Genghis Khan's life, but that's okay - I'm sure it's pretty standalone if you view it as just documenting one part of his life. The same author wrote a similar three- or four-part series on Julius Caesar, of which I only ever read the first one, but it was similarly well done. I'm only a few chapters in but the characters are engaging, even of I have no idea which are historical figures (besides the main ones, of course) and which were made up for the story.
Johnathan
Now I'm reading Genghis: Lords of the Bow, a fictionalized biography by Conn Iggulden. It turns out this is the second of a three-part series on Genghis Khan's life, but that's okay - I'm sure it's pretty standalone if you view it as just documenting one part of his life. The same author wrote a similar three- or four-part series on Julius Caesar, of which I only ever read the first one, but it was similarly well done. I'm only a few chapters in but the characters are engaging, even of I have no idea which are historical figures (besides the main ones, of course) and which were made up for the story.
Johnathan