Retribution Falls

The unputdownable steampunk adventure

By: Chris Wooding BA BA

Narrated by: Rupert Degas

Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes. Suddenly Frey isn't just a nuisance anymore - he's public enemy number one, with the Coalition Navy on his tail and contractors hired to take him down.

But Frey knows something they don't. That freighter was rigged to blow, and Frey has been framed to take the fall. If he wants to prove it, he's going to have to catch the real culprit. He must face liars and lovers, dogfights and gunfights, Dukes and daemons.

It's going to take all his criminal talents to prove he's not the criminal they think he is . . .

Read by Rupert Degas. Rupert Degas has narrated over a hundred audiobooks. He has recorded a diverse range of authors, from Andy McNab, James Patterson, Wilbur Smith and Chris Ryan to children's authors such as Derek Landy, Darren Shan, Jamie Rix and Philip Pullman. He has narrated books by Patrick Rothfuss, Haruki Murakami, Mervyn Peake, Rose Tremain and Cormac McCarthy as well as recording classics from Kafka, Conan-Doyle, Lovecraft and Wilde. Rupert has lent his voice to numerous cartoons, including Mr Bean, Robotboy, Gumball, Thomas & Friends and Bob the Builder and has performed in over fifty radio productions for BBC Radio 4, including The Brightonomicon and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He spent eighteen months in the West End performing in Stones in his Pockets and was in the original London cast of the smash-hit comedy The 39 Steps.

(p) 2013 Orion Publishing Group©2009 Chris Wooding

Firefly meets Steampunk perfection. Why no book2?

I've searched high and low. This is the closest thing to the Firefly TV series in print media. Other stories are great, like Expanse, but they lack the charm and captain tight pants. This cast aboard is incredibly interesting and the world reminds be of playing an old SNES game.

Audible, where are books 2-4?!

A Great Start!

Any additional comments?

A very entertaining listen! Great narration, an interesting world, and a charming cast of characters. Very well balanced, nice mix of action and character moments, very digestible worldbuilding. Really solid start to the series. I hope audible gets the next book, but this book does stand on it's own as well.

Great narrator

Narration was excellent, truly outstanding. I Liked this more than I expected when I started. Main character especially grew on me somewhat. Enough that I might try the second book.

Excellent!

A fun world, a fun cast of characters, and a great story to launch off the series.

Rather Good!

I'm rather liking what I've found in trying Tales of the Ketty Jay.

We have an interesting steampunk world - aircraft are buoyed by lighter than air gases, allowing for massive ships that can both hover and move with speed. We also see the rudiments of a low to mid power magic system, and political conspiracy.

There are several viewpoint characters on the crew, and all of them change over the course of the book as their relationships grow. Frey in particular has a multiple-book character story arc that leads him from being a very selfish man to one with growing if still crabbed empathy and maturity - despite having an intense need for adventure and thrills, a history of caring neither about his crews, nor the women he sleeps with.

His is actually a rather good story arc, if you don't toss the book aside in protest under the mistaken impression that the author advocates that behavior.

And I do I consider Chris Wooding a competent author, a competent writer who did good work in this series. He's given us characters with motivations and growth, interesting world building, action scenes and reasons for curiosity about what's next. His prose is descriptive without being flowery or drowning in details, and noticeably better than that of a couple of other writers whose works I tried this month.

This series is well written and well imagined, and is joining several others in my library. I consider this a solid 2nd tier steampunk fantasy (A- or B+, 4 or 4.5 stars), and I recommend it as worth a try.