Cover art: Chris Wooding, Graham Joyce, Kim Stanley Robinson

More cover art goodness:


2312 is Kim Stanley Robinson's next novel, a big epic set in and throughout the Solar system in the titular year. Sadly, the original plan to release the novel on 2 March (2/3/12 in the UK dating system) seems to have fallen through, with the novel currently scheduled for May instead. Orbit will be publishing in the UK with the suitably epic cover seen above.


Graham Joyce's new novel, Some Kind of Fairy Tale, is apparently a fresh take on the English 'woodland fantasy' subgenre (well-exemplified by Robert Holdstock's definitive Mythago Wood and Paul Kearney's A Different Kingdom) and will be published by Gollancz in the UK on 15 March with some nicely-understated cover art.


Gollancz are also issuing fresh, YA editions of Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay sequence through their new Indigo line. The new Retribution Falls will be out on 5 January and will be followed by The Black Lung Captain later in the year. The new cover is striking and brings home the Western influence in the series, but I must admit at disappointment with the lack of airship action on this edition.

TALES OF THE KETTY JAY American covers

Del Rey have unveiled their covers for the excellent first two books in Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay series.


Retribution Falls is pretty much the same as the original, although they've moved the central airship around a bit, changed the font and removed the central figure. Still, impressive enough and Stephan Martiniere's artwork remains striking. The American edition is due on 26 April 2011.



The Black Lung Captain's artwork is completely new, by Raphael Lacoste, and is pretty awe-inspiring (the more reserved British cover is below), with a very impressive shot of the titular warship filling the entire sky over a city. The American edition is due on 26 July 2011.


Overall, some good work there, despite the pretty boring typeface they've adopted. The third book in the Tales of the Ketty Jay series (which will now be at least four volumes), The Iron Jackal, should be published in the UK in autumn 2011.

The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding

The crew of the Ketty Jay are down on their luck. A year after the events at Retribution Falls, Darian Frey is reduced to robbing an orphanage to keep his craft in the air. And when he can't even pull that off, it's clear that the crew need a lucky break. Enter Captain Grist of the Storm Dog and an offer that is too good to refuse: a mission to a hostile island to retrieve valuable artifacts from a civilisation dating back to before the dawn of time. The money is good, the opportunity for fame and glory huge. What can go wrong?


Obviously, the answer is a lot. The Black Lung Captain is the second volume in the Tales of the Ketty Jay series, following on from last year's excellent, Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated Retribution Falls. Readers of that book will feel immediately at home here, as Wooding continues his Firefly-meets-steampunk story of a clapped out aircraft and its crew struggling to make ends meet in a hostile world of shady deals and, at the fringes of civilisation, hostile savages.

The Tales of the Ketty Jay series promises to be somewhat episodic, with this book seeing the crew of the Ketty Jay embarking on another adventure. However, character arcs and storylines are continued from the first book. Pleasingly, these aren't separated from the plot and in some cases are vital for the resolution of the story. Those who were left wondering about Jez's unusual heritage and abilities from the first book and the dark secrets of the tormented daemonologist Crake will find these stories continuing to unfold in this novel. In fact, there's enough references to the previous novel and the backstories of the main characters that it would be difficult to recommend readers to start with this novel. There is a particularly satisfying evolution of the character of Trinica Dracken and the recurring supporting characters of the Century Knights (who are interesting and strong enough characters to possibly warrant their own spin-off novel or series at some point in the future).

On the minus side, The Black Lung Captain does not feel as immediately fresh and vibrant as the first novel. The callbacks to the first novel are part of this, but more notable is the fact that, just as with Retribution Falls and indeed Firefly and many of the pulp books and adventures which inspired this series, there's a slight sense of predictability to events. The number of times our heroes are double-crossed, held at gunpoint, swap sides and so on is quite high, to the point where, by simply assuming that the worst possible thing will happen at every story turn, you can almost predict what will happen next, at least until the major twists in the plot start happening towards the end of the novel.

These are minor issues, however. The Black Lung Captain, like its forebear, is page-turning entertainment from start to finish, packed with aerial battles, chases, intrigue and hints of much bigger stories to come.

The Black Lung Captain (****½) will be published in the UK on 29 July. A US edition is in the works for next year, but the UK edition will be available on import much sooner.

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Retribution Falls is the first novel in The Tales of the Ketty Jay, which promises to be a series of semi-stand-alone novels set in the same world and focusing on the crew of the airship Ketty Jay and its crew of miscreants and scoundrels. If I had to provide a quick soundbite for this it would be Firefly meets Crimson Skies, with a dash of Locke Lamora sprinkled on top.


Darian Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, a battered old freighter which he keeps running by the skin of his teeth, by accepting jobs on the dubious side of the law and trying not to get into too much trouble. When Frey is offered the chance of a lifetime - an easy theft in return for a massive fortune - he overrides his common sense and accepts the job. When it goes hideously wrong and a lot of people die, Frey realises he has been set up, and must prove his innocence even though he and his crew are now Public Enemy #1. Frey's quest to redeem himself takes him and his crew through multiple aerial dogfights, double-crosses, high society soirees and lowlife gambling dens. At the same time we get to know his crew, from the troubled new navigator harbouring a dark secret to the former aristocrat-turned-demon-summoner to the alcoholic ship's surgeon to the powerful and dangerous metal thing they keep in the hold...

Occasionally a book comes along which takes the concept of fun and turns it up to 11. Retribution Falls is one such book. The story powers along at a relentless, page-turning pace. The characters are a diverse and fascinating bunch and Wooding uses skillful economy in getting into their backstories and motivations quickly and convincingly without bogging the story down in unnecessary detail. The world of Vardia is a fascinating one as well, with its diverse landmasses, the dark, forbidding storms that wrack the planet, and a wide range of cultures and people. There are certainly a tremendous number of concepts introduced in this book that aren't followed up on, leaving open a large number of possibilities for future adventures with this crew.

What makes the book refreshingly different from so many fantasies is the setting and tech-level. Airships are the primary method of transportation and the cavalry charges and duels of traditional epic fantasy are here replaced by frigate broadsides and intense dogfights. The technology of the airships and how they work is depicted convincingly, and the battles are great fun and a nice change of pace for a fantasy novel.

As I said before, the book is 'FUN' but at the same time it is not lightweight. Some of the characters are carrying real demons around with them and Wooding doesn't wimp out of some the bad things they've done or had done to them. There are also some genuinely unsettling moments (one flashback sequence to an arctic location is pretty disturbing, which is all the more impressive since we know the character involved survives), and hints of greater, darker threats out in the world which could come into play in later books.

Retribution Falls (*****) is an accomplished and enjoyable novel, and hopefully the start of many adventures for this crew. The novel will be published on 18 June 2009 in the UK in hardcover and tradeback, and the tradeback will be available in the USA via Amazon after that date as well.