Customer Reviews

Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay 1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is great fun, fast moving and entertaining fantasy.

I would not suggest that this is anything overly fresh or new, but it is put together very well and as the book and the characters grow, the book sucks you in deeper and deeper.

Imagine a blend of the TV SF series "Firefly", a bit of Captain Jack and the Pirates from "Stardust". Here we have a crew of a kind of airship (the Ketty Jay) all of whom have their hidden secrets and background and are using the Kitty Jane as a bolt hole - a kind of marriage of convenience until something better comes along. A bit of smuggling and piracy, the crew step over the line a lot and live on the edge and hand to mouth. This changes when they are framed for the destruction of another ship carrying a VIP. Can the crew pull together to help clear their names before they are hunted down and killed?

This is not deep and thoughtful fantasy, it is pure escapist fun. Having said that, it is a far better written book then you imagine it will be. You come to the end with regret and a satisfied grin on your face and the hope that Wooding will write a follow up.

My confession about this book is that I really didn't like it for about the first 100 pages. And I really wanted to like it because a friend had gone to a lot of trouble to send the book to me. He liked it, a lot. So what was wrong? I picked it up and put it down three different times. I didn't like the characters, not a single one of the motley crew of dysfunctional malcontents. My favorite characters so far were Bess the golem and Slag the cat. Not a ringing endorsement there. I didn't see much sense in where the story was headed, mainly because I didn't see WHERE the story was headed. It just seemed to ramble and wobble around, getting the crew in and out of one scrape after another. Then something happened. For me it was that the author made me interested in the captain of the aircraft, Darian Frey, and I began to wonder why he had been set up to take the blame for something he had not done. From then on, the action in this book simply flew. The mish-mash of disconnected characters began to come together into a cohesive unit to try to help each other out of the troubles they were constantly landing in. They began to seem like people who deserved to be liked, people who had to clear up this terrible wrong by whatever means was at their disposal.

I ended up absolutely loving this book. The crew went from one disaster after another and yet they were always focused on their final objective, which was to prove their innocence. With their awful luck, success was never a certainty. The author, Chris Wooding, created quite an unusual mixture in his fantasy world. The aircraft in the story, including Frey's Ketty Jay, were the most otherworldly things in the book while the pirates still fought with cutlass, knife, pistol, and shotgun. There didn't seem to be very much high technology present for these fictional characters to use. That was a little surprising, but it still worked for me after I stopped looking for all the fancy fantasy equipment to show up. And the gold tooth, well, the tooth was a real hoot!

There is nothing deep, intellectual, or subtle about this book. What you get is a rollicking, fast moving (for me after about 100 pages!), adventure story. If what you want is to escape into a fantasy world with swashbuckling pirates then this will be a wonderful book for you. Just try to remember, if it starts out a little slowly for you too, the action really begins to ramp up and it just never slows down from then on.

Retribution Falls has been called everything from a Steampunk Firefly to Jack Sparrow in a sky ship, both of which just ooze thoughts of wild adventure. I can now say unequivocally that Retribution Falls deserves every good word said and many more. Retribution Falls starts on a compelling high note and never lets up. It'll have you holding your breath in anticipation dozens of times. Retribution Falls has already been recently named for the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist of just 6 titles.

Retribution Falls is a hard book to classify. It has classic elements of Fantasy, but with Sci-Fi tech akin to Steampunk yet I hesitate to put it in that camp as it is much more advanced. Retribution Falls is much more than a Firefly riff as it is like an entire season without one lull compressed into less than 375 pages of complete and utter bliss. I do wonder if it would exist without the influence of Joss Whedon, but either way Wooding does an incredible job of creating a group of the most compelling characters I've found in sometime and he makes you care about nearly each and everyone of them right down to the sleep asphyxiating cat.

Darian Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, who is quite the sordid ne'er-do-well to the nth degree. Frey's only cares are that he own the Ketty Jay and that no other may posses or even pilot her. His crew has been a revolving door for years, where few of stayed or lived long enough to decide if they want to stay. The ship's doctor is a drunk. The mechanic a virtual mute. The Ketty Jay also has two out-fliers, which are smaller aircraft that provide support, reconnaissance, and much needed gun power on their run, but they are piloted by a very loathsome young man and another who is so war-beaten he can't part with his ship. There is also a mysterious passenger with access to some very unusual science/magic, especially with his dutiful metal monstrosity at his beck and call. And not to forget their brand spanking new female pilot with a puzzling pass and a secret that could mean her ostracization at any moment. Each and every character is larger than life and grow on you more and more. The character's back stories were released a perfect points and really nailed where the character came from and the motivation or lack thereof for their current situation.

From the dialogue with supremely funny re-joiners to the a world that is so well realized, Retribution Falls is a can't miss novel. It is touching in all the right places and a non-stop adventure from start to finish. I feel like I'm gushing a bit on this, but it is without a doubt one of my favorite books this year. I only wish I got to it sooner, but than the wait for book two would be even longer. But not to worry, there is a clear resolution for the story and most of the crew of the Ketty Jay except for one character who will probably need a whole book in and of itself to properly address. The whole plot is intricately and smartly laid out that all quarters are covered.

The fast and furious Retribution Falls is a staggeringly and ridiculously good page turner. The quality of the writing is close to that of Scott Lynch and has left room for so many more immersive stories for the crew of the Ketty Jay. I give Retribution Falls 9.5 out of 10 hats. This is the first time I can remember pre-ordering the second book in a series before even finishing the first. It is that good. The sequel The Black Lung Captain will be released this July in the UK and it can't get here soon enough for me.

Right. I understand why I was supposed to love Retribution Falls. Pirates! Airships! Firefly references! Wooding punches the buttons marked "fun" with a grim and repetitive fervor.

When you see those words-- "grim and repetitive fervor"-- you must surely get the impression I did not enjoy this book. Your impression is correct. I did not.

I had a few moments of roller coaster ride thrills. I'll give it that much. But that's not enough.

I found the world building thin. The characters unconvincing. They tell each other everything (or tell us in flashback) they feel. It's fed to us; we aren't led to it. I don't like being manipulated into enjoying myself and feeding off pirates in popular culture is not a substitute for character development.

And then there's the female characters. The book's treatment of women annoyed me right from the moment Jez (the only woman in the pirate crew) is introduced.

Let me stop with this review for a moment for a plea from the heart: Can we please please please have a moratorium on female characters who are too athletic, skinny and boyish to be attractive? Please? That bit is so old, its whiskers have whiskers. Grey ones.

So-- Jez is the only female character who hasn't ruined or found herself on the male parts of Cap'n Frey. And what happens? In the final and predictable last grand caper, her bit part revolves around finally being willing to prove her loyalty by selling herself. "Ick" doesn't quite cover it.

What was that about Frey's male parts? Oh yeah. Trinica turns into a ruthless pirate because he-- horrors!-- seduces and rejects her. Rather than find true love elsewhere, she uses her body and is abused for her body in a kind of business/piracy intiation. Needless to say, her later career is defined by her romantic disappointment and subsequent rejection of all things female.

Then there's the other ex-girlfriend. She ends up sent to a convent after being dumped by Frey. But she naturally still loves him, and is awfully cute when all fired up and angry and all. She's a classic example of the harmless little spitfire of a female. Noxious.

I do understand that the world is meant to be misogynistic by nature, but to my mind that isn't a reason for such one dimensional characters.

Wooding has a clean and sure grasp of prose and he clearly understands the mechanics of plot. This one absolutely wasn't my cup of tea.

My first thought was: Firefly with airships. It has so many of the same elements--a freebooting ship on the shady edge between lawful civilization and the outer dark, a troubled captain and in lieu of a crew, a collection of disparate individuals, each with their own problematic histories, a powerful navy that's hunting them, pirates and gangsters, quasi-human barbarians on the fringes, but perhaps most importantly, it has the same grungy frontier SF feel.

This is both good and bad. If you're looking for something new and original, this may not be the book for you. It does have some creative ideas--his vision of airships are more like an armored Osprey VTOL aircraft, not the standard zepplin image. That adds some new wrinkles I enjoyed, such as airship navigation/combat in 3D. Overall, though, readers who've seen Firefly won't be too surprised by any of the plot twists. On the other hand, Firefly inspires such fierce loyalty from its fans for good reason, and Wooding manages to duplicate those good features.

Like Wheldon's TV series, Wooding fills the book with vivid characters. The first several pages, as the captain shrugs while a loan shark threatens to kill one of his crew if he doesn't surrender Ketty Jay's access codes, are a brilliant characterization. Each of the crew members is interesting in his/her own way, and gets fleshed out and developed as the story goes on. Wooding puts the characters through action-filled adventures and suspenseful dangers, just like he should.

He does add a generous dollop of Steampunk flavor to the Firefly recipe. One of the crew uses magic (watch for the flying demon cutlass). It isn't central, but coexists alongside technology; he even makes the common move of portraying magic practitioners as scientists (or following the scientific method, at least). The plot revolves a conspiracy by those in power seeking more power. And (of course) there are airships, not starships.

Overall, it seems fair to say that Retribution is a very well-crafted, but formulaic book. If you like either of the two formulas he's blending, you'll like this book. I did. If you want a deep and thought provoking literary experience, go read Duncan's Vellum or something.

With a cast of characters seemingly drawn from the scripts of Firefly, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean and a story that plots like an action-adventure video game Chris Wooding has created a superb new series and, in the process, has fashioned an enjoyable sub-genre with the publication of Retribution Falls. Wooding has invented an innovative and fresh style of speculative fiction that I like to call "PiratePunk." (Yes, I said it, arrrggghhh, PiratePunk. So keelhaul me.)This story contains elements of the high seas, steampunk, magic, buccaneers, phantasmagoria, science fiction, mutiny, adventure, mystery, fantasy, political intrigue, and a whole lot of swashbuckling for good measure. (Or would that be Swashpunkling?) The flying machines in this story are not slow-moving dirigibles or hot-air balloons but quick, aggressive machines with as much attitude as altitude. And much like the works cited above the ships are almost as famous as the stories themselves (Serenity, The Millennium Falcon, and The Black Pearl, to mention a few.) So to, Wooding has produced the Ketty Jay, a formidable air ship with its own pair of fighter jets that act, in essence, as characters themselves.

The crew of the Ketty Jay, a motley band of brigands, pirates and cut-throats at best, include a daemonologist, a tortured man with a price on his head, a nine-foot tall golem, a gung-ho fighter pilot, and a ghost of a woman who may be transforming into something, well, not quite human. (You have to read the story to get the whole picture.) Early in the narrative the crew is forced to discover why they were deceived into destroying an airship that killed more than a dozen passengers, one of whom was the son of a high-ranking nobleman of the kingdom. At least three of the seven (nine including Bess, the golem, and Slag, the cat) crew members are hiding something tragic from their pasts, or so we are led to believe. And the Captain, Darian Frey, is a complex, multifaceted character with a tragic past that, and again I use the above mentioned stories as an example, bends morals like Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly and has similar physical attributes, is extremely likeable like the blockade runner Han Solo from Star Wars, with perhaps the confidence and bravery of Indiana Jones and the irreverence for authority of Captain Jack Sparrow.

An interesting afterthought occurred to me after I finished reading Retribution Falls which was reinforced when I read other reviews. This story cries out for treatment by the film media. I know, I know. You've probably heard this all before about other stories you've read. But this one truly has it all. Gun- and sword fights, magic, Pirate- and Swash-punk settings, golems, fistfights, card games, lost love, torture, politics, murder, dog-fights, religion, betrayal, revenge, and the fast-paced flow of gripping entertainment. Add elements of video game play, anime, and the blockbuster action-adventure which is scattered methodically through-out the narrative and it would parse well as an action film (IMHO). Retribution Falls was a fast, fun read that kept me up a few nights in a row turning pages and I enjoyed it so much that I've ordered the next book in the series Black Lung Captain as well as Wooding's Fade, which I've heard is also a pretty good read (but not part of this particular series.)

All in all, Retribution Falls is one of the most pleasurable books I've read so far this year and I recommend it for those who enjoy Firefly, steampunk, adventure, magic, Star Wars, swordplay, fantasy, and gun fights. Did I mention Joss Whedon?

4 ½ stars out of 5

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin

Books in the Series:

Tales of the Ketty Jay
1. Retribution Falls (2009)
2. The Black Lung Captain (July 2010)
3. The Iron Jackal (July 2011)
4. "Unnamed 4th Book" (2012)

The Crew of the Ketty Jay (Wickfield ironclad-class cargo-combat hybrid)

Darian Frey - Captain and owner of Ketty Jay
Gratharian Crake - Daemonologist
Jez - Navigator and a transforming Mane
Silo - Engineer/Mechanic
Malvery - Doctor/Medic
Pinn - Fighter Pilot
Harkins - Fighter Pilot
Bess - Golem and watchdog and...
Slag - Ship's cat and rat catcher

Last word: Almost every review of Retribution Falls that I've read offers some comparison to Joss Whedon's Firefly. Indeed, I've done it here myself and that's before I ever read another review. Most espouse that the resemblance is not a bad thing (or is a good thing) and it is an apt judgment, but only as it applies to the general plot and concept. Yes, the crew is similar. They skirt the law, have scrupulous associates, take questionable work, have chip-on-shoulder attitudes, and find themselves in trouble more often than not. But really, those are the only similarities. ;-) Being a confirmed Browncoat I happen to love the idea of a book that resembles Firefly and a ship that lives and breathes like Serenity and perhaps that swayed my opinion when rating it, though I'd like to think that my reviews are based on the merit of the story and not because of similar familiar work that has come before. Regardless, Retribution Falls manages to stand well on its own and had Firefly never been born the comparisons to Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean would still be made. You know why? Because good art is recognizable but is often difficult to find and define. But, those who do see it recognize it for what it is, a rarity waiting for its moment to shine. Retribution Falls does just that.

[NO SPOILERS]

FIREFLY. COWBOY BEBOP. TALESPIN.

If the names of any of those shows throws your mind into a sudden nostalgic flashback, then you definitely need to give this book a try.

In the same spirit, RETRIBUTION FALLS follows the adventures of a crew and their craft as their Captain tries to clear his name of a crime that wasn't exactly his fault.

THE CAST

DARIAN FREY--Captain of the Ketty Jay. Torn between dreams of being filthy rich and being loyal to his crew . . . and not one, but TWO troublesome women in his past.

PINN and HARKINS--Two wingmen that are only at home in their cockpits or with a bottle of bubbly in their hands.

JEZ--The new female navigator who acts a bit strange. But why?

CRAKE and BESS--The first asks that no questions be asked. The second isn't even capable of asking questions.

MALVERY--A doctor with a walrus-mustache who will only go skin deep when it comes to fixing you up.

SILO--Silo is silent. But give him some spare parts and he'll keep the Ketty Jay flying no matter what happens to her.

SLAG--A cat that's good for catching rats and keeping your face nice and warm.


As you can see, the cast greatly resembles that of FIREFLY, the main difference being that the names are changed and some of the roles are slightly different. The adventures they have are also very reminiscent. At first the overwhelming sense of Deja Vu was a bit unwelcome, but after about 100 pages the characters really start to have their own identities. The old writing tip of "Show don't tell" is used to good effect, especially with the flashback scenes that give insights into the troubled pasts of each of these characters--except the cat.

There are witty one-liners and action scenes that play out in your mind that are more fun than most offerings on TV. Altogether it feels like several episodes of FIREFLY, COWBOY BEBOP and TALESPIN all rolled into one. This is the end result and, let me tell you, it is swashbuckling good fun.

I liked this book very much, the action was good, it was paced very well, and the characters were all interesting. One of the other things that was interesting was the world itself, it was new but had bits of many others that I have liked, pirates, just enough tech, and gave you just enough information on the peoples of the world, that you understood how the world worked, but really wanted to know more. I hope for more in this world even after the second book. The closet books to me that it reminds me of are Karl Schroeder's Virga books, some steampunk, and in the anime world it very much to me would fit in with Last Exile. So if you like any of these I do think you will enjoy this book.

Retribution Falls is Chris Wooding's version of a pirate, or at least privateer, tale. The central character, Darien Frey, is a compromised character at the start of the book. He has paid a high price for his ship, the Ketty Jey and he will do anything for it. Frey is a charismatic person, with a crew of misfits much like himself. Their stories and the Frey's unfold as the book proceeds. At the start of the book, Frey is not a very likable person. But they the end of the story, he has grown and he becomes a more attractive privateer.

Like the other books by Chris Wooding, Retribution Falls is set in a complex world of remarkable imagination. Wooding has a taste for familiar technology realized in strange ways. For example, the ships in Retribution Falls are a strange mix of airships and airplanes. Like his other work, Retribution Falls also has its darkness. This is fantasy (or perhaps science fiction) for the adult mind.

I have not given this book five stars because the story is a somewhat simple tale. It reminds me of the Firefly series by Joss Whedon. A freebooter captain and his outcast crew have adventures and survive many close scrapes with destruction. Wooding's other work is difficult to characterize in such a simple way.

When I read that Retribution Falls was Firefly in book form I was both nervous and excited. After reading, excited takes top billing. The similarities to Firefly are there but Wooding not only makes it work for him but makes the crew of the Ketty Jay entirely his own.

Captain Darian Frey is a veteran and a low-level smuggler and pirate. He has left crews and women in the lurch to save his own skin on many occasions and he always has a self-justifying excuse. On board his airship he has the usual motley crew, all with secrets of their own to keep. These include a daemonist, an alcoholic doctor, a former slave, two outflier pilots and a mysterious young woman with a horrifying past. Frey takes a job forcing down a ship and stealing jewels being transported. But things go terribly wrong; people are killed and no jewels are recovered. Trying to figure out who set him up and why takes Frey and his crew all over the planet, including a search for the legendary pirate city, Retribution Falls. Of the many people chasing them, one is a woman Frey left at the alter, thereby turning her into the scourge of the skies.

These characters are rough and are all dealing wtih moral issues that have put them on the run and on the edges of society. Frey doesn't have the nobility of Mal and the other characters don't either. This turns out to be a good thing as the characters are not only fun to read about but have room for a redemption arc that isn't overdone. The writing was good, but the entire book could have been tightened by about 75 pages for an even faster read, but that is a very small complaint as I had a lot of fun visiting this world and will return to it in the sequel, Black Lung Captain.

The steampunk elements are present in the quirky technology and in the daemonism that ignites the magically based technology. These elements blend well with the rest of the story and are interesting in their own rite. Recommended to readers of adventure sci-fi and to fans of Firefly - as long as they aren't expecting a clone.