Unpleasant from start to finish

I am a huge Firefly fan & was so excited to see a book series coming. I enjoyed "Big damn heroes" and pre-ordered "Magnificent Nine." From the beginning, this book had a different tone & feel from the previous one & the series. As I read it, I didn't remember who wrote these two books but my immediate assumption was that there were different authors for each of them. I was shocked to see that James had written both. The obvious difference is that Nancy Holder co-authored the first one & in this book James was solo. The absence of a female perspective is obvious & is at the heart of why this book bothers me so much. Most of the characters are a shadow of their former selves. Obviously Jayne is at the heart of the book & the two main protagonists, Temperance & Vandal, get the majority of coverage but what really made this book so unpleasant was the disdain for women & violence against them. Firefly (series) & Serenity (movie), like the wild west, were violent but the female characters OWNED their destinies. Not in this book. It felt like this book was written by a man who doesn't respect women. This isn't just about Jayne & the sociopath Vandal being "done wrong" by a woman & that is the root of their behavior. Throughout the book is a series of violations against women. The female characters have some agency in the resolution but it's really the men who save the day & rescue them. This book left a terrible taste in my mouth & I am relieved that James isn't writing the next book, "Generations." If he writes additional Firefly books, he needs a female co-author. If there isn't one, I won't be reading it.

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