Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

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 ...

What a fun adventure. I look forward to reading more about the Ketty Jay's crew. Full review at: http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/chris-wooding-retribution-falls/

Lemmed the Audible version. The reader just wasn't making it work for me. I may try it again sometime in print.

I had a feeling I was going to like this one, based on several fundamental details: airships, pirates, double-crosses. golems, and magically-infused steampunk-like technology. Then there's the Firefly comparison - the crew is just similar enough to the crew of the Serenity to warm your heart if you're a fan of that, but still different enough that they don't feel redundant.

Some people on here seem to give their 5 stars exclusively to books that supposedly change their lives and amounts awesome when mentioned in a serious conversation. There is nothing wrong with that, but I can't help just handing them out to books that were a fuckton of pure FUN in my opinion. This book is like that. Yes, you can say it's not the most original thing ever written by anyone, but I like to think of it as just... comfortably familiar, not boring and lamely cliché. What it does, it does well.
I have to point out that I've not seen Serenity (not really a sci-fi show fan, sorry), so Retribution Falls reminded me of anime instead, mostly Cowboy Bebop, Baccano!, with a tiny bit of FMA. The violence was stylized in a way that it really wasn't shocking or hard to read, and the same goes for all the angsty backstories of the characters. If you want something with plenty of action, without it being too too dark, this is a pretty safe bet in my opinion.
The characters are morally ambiguous enough to be kind of fun and honestly, I find them pretty much impossible to not like. My personal favourites were Crake (rich boy turned pirate because of a professional mistake) and Harkins (war veteran with a ton of issues).
Honestly, even though I have approximately 0 experience with steampunk, if it's like this, I think we will be good friends. Will definitely continue with the series, will recommend to my friends (aka throw it at their faces, sorry).
10/10, pure AWESOME