So I just started reading The Postman by David Brin. A post-apocalypic sci-fi novel which spawned a really bad Kevin Costner movie (according to what I've read about it — I haven't seen it).  I'd forgotten how good a writer David Brin is. I remember being very affected by Earth and enjoying the Uplift series.

Now, if you haven't seen the unspeakably wonderful Joss Whedon TV series Firefly, this will mean nothing to you, but when I came across the following passage in The Postman, my eyes popped out of my head:

"Hal an' Peter died in th' war, but I counted me an' Sally blessed that all three girls grew up. Blessed!"

"Sonny, it's not your fault. It was just bad luck."

"Bad luck?" The farmer snorted. "One raped to death when those reavers came through, Peggy dead in childbirth, and my little Susan… she's got gray hair, Gary. She looks like Sally's sister!"

Take note of that bolded sentence. 

Those familiar with Firefly will know the Reavers. They are cannibalistic, barbaric humans. Here, the Firefly character Zoe describes what Reavers would do if they boarded the spaceship Zoe and her companions were aboard:

"If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing – and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order."

I think the description of being raped to death by people known as "Reavers" is a little too similar between those two quotes to be coincidence. Now, take note that The Postman was originally published in 1985, and Firefly originally ran in 2002. 

I don't think there's anything wrong with Whedon borrowing the name Reavers and one of their endearing traits from Brin's book and expanding on it. I thought it was very cool when I came across that passage today. Naturally, I assumed that I could not have been the first to notice this. Perhaps Whedon acknowledged somewhere that The Postman contained the genesis of the Reavers, or perhaps some Firefly or Whedon fan site would detail the connection. But in all my Googling, I could find no reference to this.

Am I really the first to notice this?