Joss: Chinese for "luck." (pp. 197)

Firefly: Chinese for "canceled entirely too soon."

Be that as it may, Finding Serenity exists to expand the 'verse a wee bit, giving the devoted fan insights they may never have expected. This isn't to say the book is exclusively for fans; I think anyone who has an interest in how worlds are built or characters developed would do well to pick up this book, whose topics range from gender issues within the Firefly 'verse, to who kicks whose butt when you stand Firefly against Star Trek: Enterprise. Writers of any genre would be well-served here.

You may have gathered, being the quick-thinking person that you are, that the book balances the serious and the lighter hearted topics. It does so with ease, just as the television series did. Wash may play with plastic dinosaurs, but that doesn't mean flesh-eating Reavers aren't lurking around the corner.

With a 'verse that shows the United States and China as two cultures that survived into the 26th century, why aren't there more Asians on the show? Is it possible that the late-great Gene Roddenberry had a hand in Firefly's downfall? Inara's character archetype reaches into Earth's distant past, but does that make the men of the show somehow wimpy? Is freedom only an illusion in this world, and what does "Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean-jan..." mean anyhow? (And hey, what the heck did Jayne's t-shirt say in "Janyestown" anyhow? This book will tell you.)

Espenson, with the help of Glenn Yeffeth, has collected twenty essays and one glossary of Firefly Chinese, in this shiny little book. Espenson, herself a writer on Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Deep Space Nine, Gilmore Girls, and more, gives some insight into the Firefly series, as does Jewel Staite, who played Kaylee. Staite offers a behind the scenes look at episodes--what she loved best, the unexpected things that happened, and how "Captain Tightpants" came about as a nickname.

Demonstrating that balance between light and hit-you-in-the-gut-dark, Yeffeth, in perhaps the book's broadest piece, envisions correspondence between series-creator Joss Whedon and FOX executives, while Lawrence Watt-Evans speculates on the origins of the Reavers.

The book was written prior to the movie, Serenity; Espenson gloats in her forward to Watt-Evans's piece that she already knows the answers to the questions he poses. Espenson wastes no time telling you if she disagrees with the viewpoint in any given essay; some opened her eyes to new angles, others reinforced what she already felt, and some made her darn right angry. If anything Espenson's voice was the only downside to this collection; it intrudes at times where it ought not.

But, if you love Firefly, you will love Finding Serenity. It will make you think about the series in new ways, and keep Serenity flying just a little while longer. It will make you sit down with your boxed set of DVDs and ponder frame by frame what cast and crew did. You will listen to the sounds of Firefly, and hear something new each time.

Dong ma?