Review: The Caphenon by Fletcher DeLancey

I'd give this more than five stars if I could. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The basis in Star Trek fan fiction is there, but the changes are really interesting. I loved the plants as a ship system, the hullskin technology, and the world-building for the Alsean civilization. I couldn't put this down, and I can't wait to carry on with the next in the series. This is a great sci-fi space opera, with battles and politics, ancient alien gods and interesting creation myths. It's got first contact with a really interesting pre-warp civilization (with awesome gender/sexuality/reproduction stuff going on) and great characters. I found it while browsing 'also read' recommendations for lesbian romances, and it does have lesbians. It's not a romance though, as the main couple are already together before the story starts. They are trying to balance careers that keep them apart, and possible accusations of conflicts of interest which was interesting. I liked them both, despite the fact that (even though they're all original characters now) Lynn still read rather like J/OFC Mary Sue. [I was actually really surprised (and a bit disappointed) when this didn't end up as a polyamarous relationship between Ekayta, Lynn and Andira. The acknowledgement of Ekatya and Andira's feelings at the end, and the sharing, felt like it should have been an ackowledgement that the tyree bond was bigger than the two of them, and would only be fully complete with Andira included. She had spent so much of her precious time emotionally supporting Ekatya and then sharing for Ekatya and Lynn, it seemed a bit of an anticlimax.

#scifi #spaceships #aliens #exfanfic