The Privateers of Mars -- Review

So, with the shine well and truly off of Joss Whedon these days – No, this isn’t about to turn into a screed about misogyny in Hollywood, or about how geek culture seems destined to forever poison its own well – it’s hard not to look back at old favorites like Firefly with a slightly jaundiced eye. Yet, like most fans, I still wish there had been more of it. There is a certain kind of magic to the show that makes it almost impossible not to like.

Yet, all we got were those fourteen episodes and a feature film. Nothing since then that I have seen really captures that same magic. I know some of it was casting. Firefly was blessed with an unusually talented cast of relative unknowns, save for Ron Glass and Adam Baldwin who both had pretty extensive screen credits behind them. The other part was the writing. Say what you like about Whedon, he put together a top-flight writing staff for that show. And maybe that’s part of the reason why everyone has struggled so hard to replicate that feel. Until now, that is.

DC-based writer, actor, and self-described “…marginally above-average medieval swordsman” Matthew Castleman has done the impossible (Firefly fans will get the joke). In his novella, The Privateers of Mars, he finds that elusive combination of hard luck team spirit and snarky humor that made Firefly shine. Even better than that, he does it without descending into pastiche or fan-fiction. Castleman’s novella instead embraces a fusion of those elements mentioned above with some of the near-system space travel and political intrigue more common to The Expanse series of novels and the show based on them.

Less of a novella than three short stories held together with a few distinct plot threads, it reads a lot like the first three episodes of a science fiction show. You get glimpses into a politically fractured solar system whose power players only maintain tenuous control over discrete regions of space. Sometimes that means a planet, and sometimes that means a shadowy criminal empire with smoky tendrils that corrupt everything they touch. You also meet the crew, which is made up of misfits like the ex-shipjacker engineer, a drug-addled pilot, and a captain who is probably a bit too ethical to be in his current line of work.

You get to sit back and enjoy the ride as this crew tries to navigate its way out from under the thumb of a powerful crime boss, stay off the radar of local authorities, and maybe even cover their bills.

The Privateers of Mars is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.