Starfight by Melissa Landers: Firefly ripoff

Starflight 

by 

Melissa Landers

I think this Melissa lady was binge watching Firefly while she wrote this book. So of course I have to use Firefly gifs.

But seriously there was a tiny falling-apart-ship full of criminals including a mechanic, a crabby captain, and a backstabbing crew mate (hello Jayne haven’t seen ya’ in a bit). 

There was super rich planets and super poor planets and even a heist, yes a heist, involving stealing medical supplies from said rich planet’s local hospital!? Even a race of killer not-humans who were after them. Hello magnificently less scary Reaver clones.

Blatant copy catting aside it would have been fine, because let’s admit it my Firefly addiction is so starved that I will gladly read/watch a rip-off. 

At least if it had actually been a good rip-off. It was mildly enjoyable but if it’s going to stand up to Firefly it had to be awesome. This was not.  The writing was decent but the characters were pretty boring (and that’s without comparing them to the Serenity crew) and the relationships between them, Um no.

Ha Ha kidding I'm not armed. I mean not for lack of trying

The story tried to be about how the characters bonded together in empty space but it was not. It was more about a steamy romance between the two main characters which caused my gag reflux to kick in. I’ve been told that I’m very picky when it comes to the romances but I’m pretty sure this one was just plain old bad. But enough of me putting unrealistic Firefly driven expectations on this book let’s get to the actual characters.

Solara: she’s a mechanic but with crime. 

She is not Kaylee, sorry. In fact she was kind of boring. She was one of those ‘I can do everything myself because I’m a strong independent women’ kind of character. they aren't bad characters per say but rather cut and dry. I mean from what I could tell her flaw was that she lost her head in a crisis. That’s not an interesting flaw that’s just boring. Even the crime she committed was boring in the end but I guess I won’t give everything away.

Doran: he’s the spoiled rich boy that falls in love with Solara after she kind of kidnaps him?  He was pretty useless and mean and . . . oh right scared of tight space?

 Dude what are YOU DOING ON A SPACESHIP!  Actually they made a big deal of tight spaces in the beginning but then it just kind of . . . disappeared halfway through the book. Kind of like his rude attitude (though that was kind of a blessing I’ll admit). Still I would have preferred if they gave more of a reason for his change of heart instead of just ‘oh I realized I was a jerk after you yelled at me a bit and tasered me'

???????? 

Okay but why?

Rossi: cyborg captain. I swear this guy had like twenty lines max. He was just never there. But he’s got a pet flying squirrel named Acorn so you know you’ve got to love him. Forget all that characterization bits.

Renny: he’s a kleptomaniac. And the pilot so maybe not a good combo. 

Sure let the guy who steals everything that’s not tied down fly the ship. Seems like a good plan. Still I liked him unlike most of the other characters.   

Kane: I don’t like this one. He was some sort of smooth talking womanizer but he was also a backstabbing git. But for no reason whatsoever. At least Jayne’s backstabbing was in character guys.

Cassia: I’m not actually sure why she’s here. She and Kane are a thing but I’m not really following that either so . . .  What the hay.

What I liked

It was decently fast paced: I read this book in a few hours because it’s pretty short so I didn’t have a lot of stopping and going to give me time to think of why ‘this didn’t make any sense’ or why the characters  did such and such instead of that. There was usually something interesting going on. Usually.

The world was cool: Okay I’m kind of cheating because the world was the ‘Verse. Which was why I picked it up in the first place.

What I didn’t like

I AM GIVING A GENERAL SPOILER WARNING HERE if my rage fueled ranting hasn’t put you off already.

Guess what! The romance. It just wasn’t good. It seemed fully motivated by the opposite parties good looks 

(And of course the obligatory ‘but I’m not pretty/handsome like they are’ whining). Honestly since I didn’t like the two characters that much to begin with it was kind of doomed from the start.

The “Shocking Death”: I have already posted a spoiler warning but if you didn’t listen the first time here is a hint I am about to talk about the ending so SHOO! 

Basically the gang is captured by a pirate gang that Solara kind of accidently married into (long story) and old cyborg Rossi decides for . . . some reason? To stay behind and get blown up in their masterful escape. 

Why?! I mean not ‘why would you kill somebody during the end battle’ that’s obvious but why would you bother to kill the character that was involved with about 0% of the narrative. You could have killed anybody else and I would have cared more. And that’s including the characters I hated.

The ‘super scary’ bad guy:  They were people who were had removed the part of the brain that registered guilt or something like that. BUT WHY!! Who in their right mind would do that? I could use an explanation guys. Also they were part of about 5 pages of the plot which was majorly disappointing.

There was other stuff that I kind of disagreed with, I don’t think teen authors realize how dangerous their messages are, but that is a rant for another day. In the end Starflight was a mildly entertaining read that ripped off a show that it could never live up too. so here is my suggestion 

Kidding, kidding.