Review: Fringe Runner

Fringe Runner by Rachel Aukes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked (3 stars) Fringe Runner because it was similar to one of my favorite space operas, that being Firefly. I enjoyed the way the author brought diversity in the differently abled character, Throttle (my favorite character) and the author's voice made for easy reading. Now, on to some other things...

Fringe Runner borrows from, and in some instances quotes, Joss Whedon's fan-favorite television series, Firefly. The characters are likable, even though many are somewhat two-dimensional facsimiles of the character archetypes found in the Firefly series.

I found the dialogue somewhat stilted and forced at times as the characters seemed to be restrained from fleshing themselves out into what they might have become if the author wasn't trying to force them into the mold of Whedon's characters. Don't get me wrong. I, and many people I know, love(d) Firefly, but I see a difference in using Whedon's story as a muse and outright forcing your story and its characters to become likenesses of the original.

Overall, there was enough originality to make Fringe Runner its own story, but it felt forced and confined by the parameters of the author's attempt to recreate Whedon's Firefly. Essentially, if you're a Firefly fan, you're probably going to like this book and read it for its similitude. One of the things that kept me reading was just to see how many lines, references, and direct similarities there were to the Firefly series.

Royce Sears
www.roycesears.com

View all my reviews