I realise I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as the sixth instalment is due out in three days, but that only makes me regret not having read it sooner. Anyway, I’ve not done much reviewing for a while, so here goes…
I recently heard a radio interview in which Neil Gaiman was discussing the work of the late Brian Aldiss. Science fiction, suggested Gaiman, is a vehicle for speculation – a genre which should always make us ask ‘what if?’ It is precisely that curiosity, that desire to interrogate and push at the boundaries of possibility which drives Fletcher DeLancey’s novel The Caphenon. What would happen – the book asks – if empathy could be used as a defensive weapon? What if faster than light travel were possible? What if gender fluidity were the norm?
These are the kinds of questions which feed into the compelling narrative of this novel – a story which fuses romance with adventure against a well realised backdrop of interplanetary politics. DeLancey’s world building is simply outstanding. From the beginning, the reader is thrown headfirst into the language, culture and traditions of Alsea, largely seeing it through the eyes of aliens who crash land their ship onto the planet. Suspicious of each other at first, Alseans and Gaians are forced to confront issues of trust and respect if they are to have any chance of defeating a common enemy, .
While I worried at first that the main characters came across as being just a little too perfect – a lot of angst and soul searching took place within the opening chapters – they turned out to be flawed enough to seem genuine and attractive. There was always just enough tension and mistrust between Alsean leader Lancer Andira Tal and Gaian captain Ekatya Serrado to make their relationship a fascinating one. And the engaging quickfire dialogue between Serrado and her anthropologist girlfriend Lhyn was offset by scenes which revealed just how deep their love really ran.
My only misgiving about the book was the fact that – particularly towards its end – there was a tendency to relay certain scenes through Tal’s thoughts and memories, effectively info dumping. And while I understand that this was because the author probably had other priorities to focus on, some sense of the characters’ firsthand engagement with these events would have given the action greater immediacy.
However, that’s a very subjective observation. Overall, I just thought this was sci-fi writing at its very best and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the series.
Kate Cudahy 