This note contains spoilers for the book.

Initially released free under a Creative Commons license.

I've watched the Firefly episodes and seen Serenity four or so times in theaters, so it seemed like I needed to read this. "Fan fiction" has acquired a rather grim name, largely because most of the practitioners are amateurs and a lot of them are no-hope amateurs, but it doesn't mean the idea of writing in another writer's universe can't be inspiring to good writers too.

This novel is fairly short (that's a virtue). It contains some rather nice flashbacks to prior history, including the most perfectly Jaynely fight scene ever (which ends with him thinking his sister will need a new husband), and some lovely interiors of River which make a bit more sense out of what's going on in there (without giving us the slightest clue where any of her information actually comes from, which is good). Jayne even makes a major intellectual breakthrough, which is likely to be important for his future life (if he can remember it).

And nobody dies except red-shirts, and Kaylee can repair the damage to Serenity, so everything is good.

Okay, there's a bit at the beginning about how good piloting in the landing can make a huge difference in fuel consumption, at a level that's incompatible with the casual way they take off and land throughout the rest of the story; if what Wash is thinking earlier is right, they can't possibly afford it. Not quite everything is good, I guess.