I re watched Firefly recently, I forgot how bleak it was. Those people were barely hanging on.

Blame!

It filled the Jupiter-sized hole in my heart.

If you haven't read it Hand of the Emperor is incredible and there are a ton of adjacent books that expand on the different characters and the world(s) involved.

Atlantis from Stargate. Alien city, breathtaking ocean views.

I really enjoyed the Revelation Spaces Series (and its spin off The Prefect series) by Alaistair Reynold

The Matador Series by Steve Perry.

Dude is a soldier for an imperialist government, is out putting down a rebellion and has a borderline religious experience on the battlefield, puts down his gun and walks away.

He falls in with a religious teacher and masters a martial art called "The 97 Steps" which is part fighting style, part kata, part exercise.

He then gets with a shooting instructor who teaches him a very specialized non-lethal weapon that glues to the back of your hand. You fire it by pointing your finger and tapping your fingernail to the bottom of the barrel.

The darts that it shoots range from stingers, that hurt but do no damage. To shock-tox which incapacitates. To Spasm, which makes every muscle in the body hyper contract for 6 months.

He sets up shop as a bar owner on a military run planet and starts a one-man revolution every night with stolen dart guns and Spasm darts.

Overall, I think it's a 10 book series? Something like that. There are a couple of unrelated books set in the same universe

This is the base trilogy:

Firefly, cuz of the ✨gritty working class aesthetic but hope still shines through✨

mandatory disclaimer: fuck joss whedon

10 years ago?! Oof oww.

I stopped watching soon after they opened all the portals and went to a new solar system or something. Seems I didn't miss much.

More like "if only the show hadn't repeatedly and egregiously jumped the shark." The first season was straight brilliant but by the time Naomi survives the vacuum of space with nothing but a hypospray of "hyper oxygenated blood" the show had become a parody of the hard sci fi noir it started out as.