Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Caphenon by Fletcher DeLancey


The Caphenon
by Fletcher DeLancey
Pages: 400
Date: March 14 2015
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Series: Chronicles of Alsea (First in the series)

Review
Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0
Read: January 6 to January 7 2016

My first book by this author.

I went into this both interested and somewhat concerned. Interested because the story itself sounded interesting. Concerned because everyone seems to love the book (with around 9 exceptions, or in other words, 70% of the people who rated the book, rated it 5 stars).

The book kept my interest from beginning to end. And the interesting little description, turned into an interesting read. If I keep using the word interesting, it will begin to lose its meaning.

If I recall correctly, this is the first science fiction book I’ve been able to get myself to dive into and complete, that involved lesbians (at least one that wasn't based on earth). That lesbian part is/was both important and not important. Though the more important part was the relationship itself, regardless of the person, or genders involved. As in, the issues and conflicts (like, say, conflict of interest), would have been the same regardless of the genders involved, same sex or otherwise. In other words, the nature of the relationship was an important plot point in the story, but the book itself is more of a science fiction book that happens to have a couple making up two of the prominent characters, as opposed to a romance that happens to have a science fiction backdrop. Hopefully I’ve worded this coherently enough.

I went into this book with some vague idea that this was a reformatted, reworded/worked Star Trek Voyager fan fiction novel. I know this author has written those, but I’m not actually sure if this is one or not. My point in bringing this up is that I went into the book with this idea, so that kept popping up in my mind as I was reading. It was more something that would pop up as a remembrance, rather than a ‘ha-ha *points* that’s Voyager like!’ I’ve read 15 Voyager books, and seen, I believe, all episodes of the television series. Though I’ve a vague recollection that somewhere along the way I might have skipped an episode here or there. I write all this to note that I wish I hadn’t had this vague idea before I went into the book. Because it served as an unneeded distraction. This specific book here works quite well on its own merits. And the book was, obviously enough not a Star Trek book (obvious as in it uses different words for things, like Protectorate instead of Federation; and while it had something of that ‘seeding alien race’ thing that popped up on Star Trek the Next Generation, that isn’t a theme that only appears in Star Trek, it’s also in other science fiction universes (there’s a whole series of Larry Niven books that involve both a seeder race, and seeded races)). There were similarities but this had its own little self-contained universe to play in.

Well, the book itself, or, I mean, the story – the book opens as a watcher type watches a screen, watching stuff fall onto a planet. His planet. He is all excited because He’ll be able to direct various scientists to great finds. Then more falling objects appear. Then one breaks apart into tiny bits, while the other continues to fall. And is really really huge. And is headed directly towards a city. People are warned, specifically one Lancer Tal, evacuation orders are begun to be ordered. Then something strange occurs – the object looks as if it is starting to glide away from the city. Though it will still land nearby.

Lancer Tal and a group of guards head out to the crash site. And stare at what appears to be an alien ship. One long running question has been answered. Aliens do in fact exist. Tal watches as three figures stumble out of a hatch onto the ship and begin the slow process of walking across the ship down a ladder.

Lancer Tal comes face to face with Captain Serrado. It’s a relatively slow process but eventually the nature of who and what these ‘aliens’ are discussed and revealed. They are Gaians. And they accidentally ended up on their planet because their fusion core was about to explode. Damaged, as it was, during a battle against a third group of aliens, the Voloth (sp?). The Voloth were there to invade and conquer. The Gaians had been there to observe the Alseans (that being the name of the planet), and intervened when Voloth forces attacked.

First contact occurs among these ‘primitive’ Alseans and these Gaians (I don’t actually recall Alsean actually being used in the book, though it might have been). The primitives turn out to be a lot less primitive than expected.

This is a book that feels longer than it actually is, at least I felt that way when I was at the 40% mark. I don’t mean that in a bad way. More in that a lot of stuff, interesting stuff, was happening.

Hmms. I should probably scrap this write up and start over. I’m not really doing a great job conveying what I want to convey. I say this knowing I’ll probably just leave it as is. But hey, I might come back and ‘fix this’ later.

I liked this book. I might read the next book in this series immediately. Haven’t determined that yet.

January 7 2016

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