Firefly really isn't science fiction. I have enjoyed the romance of the first three CDs greatly, but it gives me snickerfits that the economy is so goofball; some of the things they treat as rare are physically fungible with stuff they treat as cheap.
But, okay, it's obviously SF in the same way the Star Wars movies are, which is to say, romantic historical gallimaufry; of Westerns, in Firefly's case; so, being almost but not quite thorough, I read The Virginian for familiarity with the source. This was wrong; the TV source is probably 1950s TV, or maybe novels. But a 19th. century enthusiast gotta do what she's compelled by circumstance and character to do.
Actually, Wister's book is completely early-20th-c., in its politics and romance; the natives are just scary 'noises off', and the heroine is halfway between coy and competent. I don't think there's a woman of easy virtue in it anywhere, the rich are just and deserving (dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt), juries are untrustworthy, violence one of those unfortunate necessities.
The oddest thing I noticed was what a perfect 'chick flick' it would currently make, although I think it was renowned for manlitude in its own day. The plot and the writing are just dreamily fond of the lithe good looks of The Virginian; and the man himself is happy to be domesticated to become worthy of his bride. Also, he stages a wedding-night that fogged up the lens of my critical faculty.
It seems to me that somewhere after noir, conventional novels-aimed-at-men dropped the domestic fantasies. Travis McGee was good-looking and seductive and all, but rather a lout. And it further seems to me that this was a backlash against the loss of men's automatic status. probably covers it in The Hearts of Men.
Project Gutenberg etext #1298
So wrote clew in Fiction (20th c.). | TrackBack