I enjoyed Retribution Falls as pulp escapist fun, though sometimes it aped Firefly a little too closely even for my Firefly-loving tastes. Haven't read the second yet, though I'd like to.
My opinion,
Black Lung Captain is the better book, I really enjoyed both but the characters are more well rounded in the second book and in the case of Captain Frey more likeable lol
I love his YA books The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray, Poison, and Storm Thief, but wasn't as excited about any of his adult fantasy that I've read.
I'd not really heard of him before, I picked up
Black Lung Captain at random as part of a buy 3 for the price of 2 deal, I was pleasantly surprised. For some reason I've always been a bit wary of looking at YA books, maybe the labelling has always put me off!
Retribution Falls passed the time quite happily, but was pretty forgettable. The characters mostly felt more like constructions than real people. The Braided Path had some interesting ideas, but as a story it didn't quite work for me.
However, he writes quite well and is still young, so I'm hopeful he'll write some stuff I really like eventually!
Since I discovered Wooding and started coming back online I've heard some pretty good things about
The Braided Path trilogy and his other fantasy offering
The Fade, when I have the funds I mean to aquire both.
Took me a little while to get into Retribution Falls (probably because the world's quite unusual rather than being the standard medievalish of fantasy) but I liked both of the books. There's an interesting take on magical stuff, the characters are enjoyable and the pace is nice and fast.
Incidentally, the Iron Jackal comes out next month.
The setting threw me a bit at first (aircraft in a fantasy novel, not something I can say I've seen very often!) It works though and the magical side is fairly well explained and rational. I'm really looking forward to
The Iron Jackal, the excerpt at the back of the second book whetted my appetite.
I thoroughly enjoyed Retribution Falls -- tremendous escapist fun, reminiscent of Firefly as has been mentioned. One aspect I particularly appreciated was that, rather than the story concentrating entirely on one central character, each of the Ketty Jay's crew was given a back-story which unfurled as the narrative progressed, explaining why they are aboard the plane.
I was delighted when the book was shortlisted for the Clarke Award (and I know Chris was dumbfounded) -- an award that generally concentrates on the more intelligent, high-brow novels and overlooks the rollicking adventure-packed ones.
A third Ketty Jay book is on the way, which, in my opinion, is great news.
I think one of the things I enjoyed was that you didn't have to sit around and try to puzzle out what the author wanted to tell you, just sit back and lose yourself in the world, because sometimes a story really is just a story!
I read in one of his interviews that he's planning at least one more Ketty Jay novel after
Iron Jackal, I'll definitely put more pennies in his pockets and buy!!
Being a Martin fan I never thought I'd read a story where I'd end up cheering for a character called Frey lol
