Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (2009)
A ripping good yarn
Book cover blurb
Darian Frey is the roguish captain of the Ketty Jay, and leader of a small and highly dysfunctional group of layabouts. Frey and his gang run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves, all the while avoiding the Coalition Navy frigates.
A hot tip on a cargo freighter seems like a great chance for a simple heist. But when the robbery goes awry and the freighter explodes Frey suddenly finds himself public enemy number one, with both the Coalition Navy and hired bounty hunters after him. But Frey knows something they don’t; that freighter was rigged to explode and Frey’s been framed to take the fall. To prove his innocence he’ll have to catch the real culprit, surviving gunfights and facing down liars and lovers, Dukes and daemons along the way.
It’s going to take all his criminal talents to prove he’s not the criminal they think he is…
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My Review
You know those days when you're just sick of the world and everything about it? Those days when you decide you're just going to hide from everything and everyone? When you lock the front door, take the phone off the hook and turn off your mobile, grab all the ice cream and chocolate in the house, open that stashed bottle of expensive wine held back for that special occasion with that special someone, slob out in nothing but a pair of boxers and those holy socks that should have gone in the bin years ago, put on that old '80's action movie you know is now considered utter rubbish but you still absolutely love, settle back on the sofa, blast out the volume and not give a shit about anything for the rest of the day? Well, think about how good all of that ends up making you feel, before you puke after eating all that crap of course, and that's the feeling this book will give you without having to go through all that trouble.
This book actually opened my eyes, simply because I didn't realise these kinds of books were out there. You can just switch off your brain, read and enjoy. Basically, this is trying to be nothing more than a ripping good yarn. And it was exactly what I needed. There is no work involved with this book, everything unfolds as you read, it's not necessary to store away all those nadgery little bits of detail you usually have to put into place towards the end of a novel. Here you're told everything as you need it. Even the chapters are constructed to make things easy for the reader, all similarly short and self-contained, making it perfect to dive into for just minutes at a time if your life's a bit hectic, a bit like a thirty-nine-episode TV series.
This is by no means a put-down. On the contrary, this book is wonderful, filled with incredible imagination. Yes, ok, Wooding is obviously a fan of the Firefly TV series and had borrowed heavily from that, but to be honest I really didn't care about that. In fact, it helped me feel familiar and comfortable in this world right from the start. I think I was about five chapters into Retribution Falls when I put the book down just long enough to go and buy the next three books in the series.
This book is a fantastic rarity: pure unadulterated fun with no strings attached. Fabulous!
My copy of this novel
Gollancz Paperback edition.
Published in 2010
398 pages
ISBN 9780575085169