Joss Whedon's short-lived series Firefly developed a fierce following while it aired on FOX from 2002 to 2003. After its cancellation, fans cried foul and demanded more, which eventually led to the 2005 feature film follow-up Serenity. The series and film were celebrated for their mixing of science fiction and western iconography, dystopic settings, underdog storylines, and clever and fast-paced dialogue.

Firefly and Serenity have inspired many books and essays, but despite this, relatively few publications have focused specifically on Serenity, with Firefly often standing at the forefront of critical and scholarly consideration. It is certainly difficult to divorce the film from the series, but numerous features of Serenity do set it apart.

In the first collection of essays devoted specifically to Serenity, authors from around the world offer various perspectives on the film, treating it as a text worthy of consideration on its own terms and touching on everything from formal properties, to narrative completion, to genre, to race, to systems of power, and everything in between.