Firefly: The Sting

Firefly (Collected Editions)

by Delilah S. Dawson, Pius Bak (Illustrator)

Saffron -- the enigmatic rogue who captured the hearts of FIREFLY fans worldwide, as well as the heart of Capt. Malcolm Reynolds -- returns to the Serenity. But this time, she’s got no time for Mal, as she’s there to recruit the women of the ship to join her on a heist that has personal stakes for all involved. New York Times Bestselling writer Delilah S. Dawson (Sparrowhawk, Star Wars: Phasma), along with a team of artists including Pius Bak, Rodrigo Lorenzo, and Taj Tenfold, enter Joss Whedon’s FIREFLY to reveal an untold chapter of the fan-favorite saga.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Space, Media Tie In

129 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2019

About the author

Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times-bestselling author of Star Wars: Phasma, Black Spire: Galaxy's Edge, and The Perfect Weapon. With Kevin Hearne, she writes the Tales of Pell. As Lila Bowen, she writes the Shadow series, beginning with Wake of Vultures. Her other books include the Blud series, the Hit series, and Servants of the Storm.

She's written comics in the worlds of Marvel Action: Spider-Man, Lore's Wellington, Star Wars Adventures, Star Wars Forces of Destiny, The X-Files Case Files, Adventure Time, Rick and Morty, and her creator-owned comics include Star Pig, Ladycastle, and Sparrowhawk.

Find out more at www.whimsydark.com.

Reviews

[Madison Warner Fairbanks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firefly graphic novel: The Sting by Delilah S Dawson
From fan favorite Firefly, an original graphic story. Best read with knowledge of Firefly characters.
Saffron convinces, aka threatens, the women of the Serenity crew to help her with a heist.

A story mostly with the female characters and their thoughts on their relationships, themselves and what they might change if they could. Of course, there is an adventure with other world subterfuge, attempted escapes and daring rescues.
Dark thoughts from most of them throughout. Artwork to match the darkness but some is very colorful and clever.

[Aldi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty much uninspired rubbish all the way through; I really need to let go of the idea that Firefly is ever going to work in graphic novel format. The concept of this sounded so promising - Saffron returns to unite Serenity's ladies for a girls-only heist? YES PLEASE - but the execution was terribly poor. Every character was completely one-note and the author seemed to have NO idea what to do with their personalities other than make them basically cosplay a version of their show selves centered around approximately one character trait and/or plotpoint each: Kaylee talks to machines! Zoë is tough and maybe wants a baby? Inara spouts trite Buddhist philosophy! River... swallowed a bug? (no really. That's basically all we got from River - "I'm a ghost" and "I swallowed a bug AGAIN") And Saffron is evil! There was no depth to any of it, no indication that the author understood these characters or even cared for them. I was particularly annoyed that Zoë and Wash's exhausting baby-related "conflict" was completely swapped around for some reason, with Zoë being the one who was "afraid" to have a child when the whole point of that drama in canon was that she wasn't and he was. And don't get me started on how incredibly offensive and dull it is when post-Serenity graphic novel authors seem to have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what to do with Zoë's character other than give her motherhood plots. Gag.

Complete dud.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those that know me, there is no big surprise to the fact that I consider myself a huge fan of the TV show Firefly and the follow up movie Serenity.

I've watched them both numerous times, I've bought T-shirts, listened to themed podcasts, bought music CDs that featured songs inspired by the franchise and met four of the actors from the show at comic conventions. I've also bought and of course read all the comics that have been published by various companies.

So when I saw that this one shot hardcover graphic novel was being published, I immediately put in a pre-order for it.

I read it yesterday and I was pretty happy with the results. The story is written by Delilah S. Dawson with a different artist and colorist for each chapter of the story.

I should be upfront with my opinion that some of the art is better than other parts. Perhaps it was a nice idea to have the series of artists work on each chapter, but I do think one consistent artist might've been a way to go for the story. Of course, I'm not even close to being an art expert so that could just be my own personal preference.

As for the story (set before the events of the "Serenity" movie) think of the Ocean's 11 series. Or since this story features the female characters, perhaps a more apt comparison would be to Ocean's 8 (the recent movie led by Sandra Bullock).

The women of Serenity (Zoe, Inara, Kaylee and River) are set to get some planet-side downtime at a spa. But the rest and relaxation is quickly interrupted when Saffron shows up once more in their lives. She ends up blackmailing them into a heist.

The stakes are pretty high. If they pull off the heist successfully they stand to get their cut of huge haul of diamonds, to set them up quite nicely for the forseeable future. But they have to infiltrate a convent full of lunatic nuns to do it.

And if that isn't enough of an obstacle to overcome, there is the matter of "tweaked one" Saffron. Everyone knows she's untrustworthy and is certain to betray them. But the when, where and how of said anticipated betrayal is unknown so the women have to be doubly on guard.

I'll let you read the book for the rest of story, but suffice to say, it was quite an entertaining story full of action, intrigue and a nice twist or two to further liven up the proceedings.

"The Sting" is a worthy addition to the Firefly comics canon and I would look forward to another story like this in the same kind of format from Delilah S. Dawson.

[Andy Summers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm horribly biased towards anything Firefly. It pained me to only give this two stars. It was obvious the author only watched a couple episodes at best. You don't mess with cannon. The most glaring example was the switch between Zoe and Wash with who wanted a baby. It's an attempt to give Zoe a feeble character arc in the story. It's a much more interesting contrast to have this total badass warrior who also wants to have a baby. Sadly, this wasn't explored further because of the cancellation of the show. The author also has trouble with the lingo of the 'verse. Sure, a "shiny" is thrown in here and there, but the characters speech was dropped much too often. It pulled me out of the story every time. This goes back to only watching a couple episodes, not enough to get speech patterns down. I really wanted to like this one. Bringing back Yo-saf-bridge was cool, but I think she shines more when putting Mal through the proverbial wringer. The art was ok. The characters didn't really look like themselves. A few panels were spot on, which made me wonder what happened to the rest?

I know all you other fans out there will still read this. We're always hungry for more Firefly. Just don't get your hopes up for this one.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mixed bag. It's been a long time since I watched Firefly, to be fair. I thought that some of the inner dialogue was a little heavy handed, and Saffron seemed like she was supposed to sound clever, but just sounded awkward? I did like River's inner dialogue, though.

Warning for Mal's usual anti-sex-work comments. (But everyone tells him he's an asshole for saying it, if that counts for anything.)

[TJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this is great, but the pacing was so. painfully. slow. I didn’t know a heist story could be this slow! There was also wayyyyyy too much inner monologue, and jumping from one POV to the next was torture and killed the momentum. Saffron also deserved more depth. They could have done way more with her character, but she seemed pretty surface-layer here. The art was inconsistent; they should have chosen one style. 3/5 stars.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels very much like a middle-of-the-season episode and most of the character voices feel true to the show. I did have a few gripes, but these days I’m preferring to focus on the positive. Worth a quick read for fans of Serenity and her crew.

[Michael Rudzki · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you're a Firefly fan, you can safely give this one a miss. Just read (or reread) the comics done by Dark Horse. About the only good thing Boom has done for Firefly is to republish these in trade paperback form, as well as a deluxe hardback. Go buy those if you haven't already.

It pains me greatly to write this, because everyone who loves this show wants more adventures aboard Serenity, but Sting is a five-star idea done incredibly poorly. The basic premise - Yo-Saff-Bridge returns with a heist that will only work with the women of the crew - should have been gold. Five fantastic, strong women on their own? It should have written itself.

The writer, Delilah S. Dawson, gets a lot of the dialog right (particularly Kaylee's), but there's huge problems with pretty much everything else.

First, when is this set? It has to be pre-Serenity, as Wash is still there, but Book is nowhere to be found, which would put it after the end of the series. If that's the case, though, then why is much of the book given to pages of Wash trying to convince Zoe to have a child? And more pages of Zoe whinging on about whether she should? If Dawson had bothered to watch the series again before writing this, she might have noticed in "Heart of Gold" that it was *Wash* who didn't think it was wise to have a kid, while Zoe is adamant about having one:

"I don't give a good gorram about relevant, Wash. Or objective. And I ain't so afraid of losing something that I ain't gonna try to have it. You and I would make one beautiful baby. And I want to meet that child one day. Period."

River makes a big deal about swallowing a bug "again," an apparent reference to the scene in Serenity which hasn't happened yet.

Yo-Saff-Bridge has somehow been hiding on Serenity for long enough to steal everyone's diaries and learn their deepest, darkest secrets. No explanation is given for how she got away from the authorities at the end of "Trash," how she got on board, or how she escaped detection while planning a heist on a planet that she had no idea if they would ever even land on.

Add to that a boring "nuns are evil" plot device, some slash fiction ideas about Zoe, and artists who can't draw the characters so that the reader can easily distinguish them from one another, and you get a book that only a completist would want.

[Kym Masera Taborn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't as engaging or fun as I had hoped it would be.

[Ming Wei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good edition to the Firefly universe, in this novel the female characters mainly dominate the story line, which is about conducting a robbery upon a wealthy target, the females use their talents to full fill their task, but things do not go as straight forward as they planned, there are alot of twists and counter twists and things get quite dangerous in parts, I did not see the direction of the story until I read, gives some of the characters more depth, and going forward I would like to see a follow up story to this novel. A helping hand for those in trouble arrives from a very unexpected source. The artwork is OK, the wordings work well with the artwork, the story is easy to follow and easy to understand. I liked it, nice book cover.

[Brandon Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea outdistanced the execution.

I love the idea of a girl's heist with the women of Serenity crossing paths with Firefly's best villain. It's got great potential, but you'd need to really nail it to make it more than a gimmick.

The heist itself is interesting. There's a structure of entrapment that gives a bit of suspense, but ultimately falls flat (Saffron actually lets Zoe out after trapping her).

Zoe and Wash are arguing about a baby and taking OPPOSITE sides from what they had on the show.

Kaylee sounds far more bumpkin-ish than she ever did in the show.

I know this is nitpicking, but when the characters are this beloved, it's important to get them right. Wash and Zoe especially stick out considering you could have just watched Firefly and seen this same argument taken from different sides.

When the hook and charm of your stories depends on the use of previously established, previously beloved characters, it's important to get them right.

This was a fun little bit of fan fiction done at a professional level, but with middling fact-checking ability.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do enjoy a good heist caper. The women of Serenity battle some maybe-evil nuns alongside Saffron, and a bunch of twisty double crosses follow. I'm not a big Firefly fan, so I don't have a ton of context to go along with this, but I definitely found the story easy to fall into.

A big thanks to Boom Studios for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

[kaitlphere · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little clunky at times, and most of the womens' inner monologues centered on the guys. However, this is a nice addition to the Firefly universe. It fills in some holes of when certain things in the canon are decided. I enjoyed how each issue focused on one character and how the art and coloring changed to match that character.

[Wordsworn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I was hoping for a fun heist story, and it...just wasn't. Parts of it were good, but it just didn't feel very "Firefly" throughout most of it, if that makes sense.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing really stood out in terms of the writing, but it was entertaining enough and I quite liked the drawing style, which was much more preferable to that of the Unification Wars series.

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

All over the shop

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a spa-cation for the Serenity fems! But what is fan-fave grifter Saffron doing there?

This is your typical extortion/heist story, taking place between the series and the movie, but features excellent characterizations for Zoë, Inara, Kaylee, and River, all enhanced by running internal monologues. Each shines in her own way, but I especially enjoyed Kaylee's arc, since she rarely gets appreciated for being the glue that keeps Serenity's crew together; and I loved River's arc, since we hardly ever get a peek inside her jumbled brain (there may have been calculus!). Intermissions feature diary pages from three of the four. You can guess who doesn't keep one. :)

Graphics differ for each of the five chapters, but did not rise above "meh".

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review to come.

Rating - 2/5

[Hobart · Rating 4 out of 5]

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
WHAT'S FIREFLY: THE STING ABOUT?
While Mal and the Serenity are tied up, Inara takes Zoë, Kaylee, and River to a luxury spa. The ladies are having a wonderful time when they're essentially taken hostage by Yo-Saff-Bridge who wants them (or at least Inara, Zoë, and Kaylee) to help.

It's a great scheme, even if she has to threaten the lives of the rest of their crew to get their cooperation.

After the setup, we get four chapters showing how Saffron's plan goes, each chapter focusing on one of her accomplices. While we see them carry out the plan (and as it goes horribly awry, as all plans we see with this crew do) we get the chance to get into the minds of the women of Serentiy. Zoë and Wash are having some troubles as they consider having a child (more her troubles than his at this point) and she's thinking about what they're going through. Inara's decided to leave, but she can't bring herself to tell Mal. Kaylee's focused on her friends, thinking about them.

The best chapter is River's chapter (which is a tautology, I realize). Part of that is because that's the action's climax and River gets the chance to shine, part of that is because it's about River.

HOW WAS THE ART?
There was a different artist for each of the five chapters, which was an interesting approach. It kept things from getting stale, it helped ensure that each chapter was easily distinguished from the others, and you could probably make the case that each art style used was the best way to capture the primary character for that chapter.

I didn't love all of the art, but a couple of the chapters blew me away, the characters have rarely looked better.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT FIREFLY: THE STING?
I appreciated this approach to storytelling and Dawson has a good handle on each character, and captured the voices perfectly (I could really hear Jewel Staite's voice as I read Kaylee's thoughts/speech bubbles). I'm not sure it was the best story, but the way that Dawson and the artists told the story more than made up for it. And it's always fun to see Yo-Saff-Bridge try to dig herself out of trouble.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good story that is unfortunately let down by its artwork.
Dawson does a good job of getting into the minds of the Firefly female characters, and using them to push this heist story led by charismatic antagonist Saffron. Each issue prioritizes one character and helps to bridge where the characters ended the series and where they were in the movie (although this doesn't explicitly form that entire bridge). The heist itself ends up taking a back seat to the introspection, even as it helps drive their decisions forward.
The problem is that the art makes the story more confusing -when it's not immediately evident if a character is Kayley or River, that's a problem. And even Inara isn't always easily recognizable. Or Zoe. How can you draw (and color) these characters and not make them distinctive?
The story intentionally sidelines all the men (and Book is entirely absent), but even River doesn't really get a chance to shine; it really focuses on Zoe, Inara and Kayley, with Saffron as the catalyst for change. Those stories are interesting and worth reading, but the story loses some of its power due to the art and perhaps too much focus on thoughts over actions. Still, Firefly fans will get enough out of it (and it really does seem to get the characters it focuses on well) to make it worth the read.

[anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delilah Dawson is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. The plot here is complex, and lots of characters "take the lead" in this ensemble story of the women of Firefly. The premise (that Saffron had been hiding on board Serenity, and thus able to cause a full set of hijinx) felt a little beyond what the character (to me) is capable of, but everything after that was true-to-character and strong.

Props to the many artists, colorers, and letterers involved, especially for the interstitial art between chapters. It was impressive and intriguing.

I hope that there are more stories like this coming.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this was somewhat of an enjoyable visit with some of my very favorite characters in the world, it was just an ok story, and the art was also just... ok. Comic artists never get Zoe quite right, and this book was no exception.

Story-wise, I enjoyed River's perspective the most. The dialect on Kaylee was overdone. Zoe's introspection bordered on whining, which is completely out of character for her. Inara's section was too drawn out and repetitive. And for all the hype of "let's go on an adventure with Saffron!" there was no real adventure, and Saffron had very little depth. Overall: disappointing.

[Kathryn Halbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The women of Serenity attempt to enjoy a girls' day out, only to be forced into assisting Saffron on a diamond heist. Also, nuns are involved. Great in concept, but the end result could be better. There's a lot of forced drama and some inner dialogues that don't feel totally Firefly. Zoe in particular seemed off, both in writing and artwork. Speaking of the artwork, some of the panels are spot on, but a lot of them feel rushed and sketchy, especially when compared to the good ones. Overall was an okay read, but slightly disappointing.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saffron manages to press all my buttons, but I did enjoy the new adventure she ensnared the girls into. I liked how each woman got a segment in which her thoughts were delved into, particularly Inara and her struggle with Mal and what could potentially be between them, and Zoe with her doubts about having a child (though it was a little bit of a flip from the show, where Wash has doubts and Zoe is gung ho). Kaylee and River always add some flair, and in the end they foiled Saffron's treachery and live another day, so all in all a fun read.

[Christopher Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was just OK.

It was a great idea for a story, and I could see the events being written into an episode. But in the end the story didn’t capture the feel of the characters for me.

And I want to say, and this is nit picking a little, but there were a couple of panels where Wash was way taller than Zoe and really no sorry not at all.

And, minor spoiler I guess, was it just me or did anyone else keep thinking why does she use that diamond ring to cut the glass.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine. The author seemed to get the voices of each character correct. Fun little story. Don't feel inclined to read 'nother in this series.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable,and a bittersweet reminder of what could have been.

[Fei · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art didnt pop as much as other volumes but i enjoyed the foray back into the universe and getting the chance for the women center storyline.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun. But again, lots of revisiting lines of dialogue from the series and film to add “authenticity” to the characters. And, again, the story isn’t really progressing. Nothing new here, just more high jinx in a different setting. Some old stuff.

[Druss · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rollicking romp! I live me some Firefly and the ladies at the forefront is fun!!