Megan O’Keefe’s science fiction output has been impressive over the last handful of years – a few completed series to acclaim and now a standalone, The Two Lies of Faven Sythe recently published (June 2025) by Orbit Books. I enjoyed her work in the past, so when I was offered the opportunity to review this standalone science fiction novel, I couldn’t say no – I wanted to work more Science Fiction into my reading and I knew from experience that O’Keefe could spin an entertaining tale.
A search for a missing person uncovers a galaxy-spanning conspiracy in this thrilling standalone space opera from award-winning author Megan E. O’Keefe.
The Black Celeste is a ghost story. A once-legendary spaceship collecting dust in a cosmic graveyard known as the Clutch. Only famed pirate Bitter Amandine knows better, and she’ll do anything to never go near it again. No matter the cost.
Faven Sythe is crystborn, a member of the near-human species tasked with charting starpaths from station to station. She’s trained to be a navigator her entire life. But when her mentor disappears, leaving behind a mysterious starpath terminating in the Clutch, she is determined to find the truth. And only Amandine has the answers.
What they will find is a conspiracy bigger than either of them. Their quest for the truth will uncover secrets Amandine has long fought to keep buried – secrets about how she survived her last encounter in the Clutch, and what’s really hidden out there amongst the stars…
Faven Sythe, as one might surmise, is one of the two protagonists of this novel. Not quite human, but rather of a near-human race known as Cryst-born, Faven is trying to locate her mentor who has gone missing in a dangerous, almost mythical region of space known as “the Clutch.” The other protagonist is Bitter Amandine, a space pirate whose story intertwines with Faven’s: Amadine is one of the only people to make the trip into the Clutch and return.
From the start, O’Keefe starts building a lot of empathy and sympathy for Faven’s plight. She’s something of a lost soul trying to find the person who can most help her know herself and her purpose. She’s a bit on the naïve end of the spectrum despite being quite smart…intelligence without the wisdom, you might say. Faven is extremely driven, she’ll ignore things like orders if it means she’ll get closer to that mentor of hers.
Amandine is a more world (or universe) wizened character…she’s seen things, she’s experienced things, but finds herself drawn quite powerfully to Faven. In addition to these characters having a delta of wisdom separating them, there’s a political imbalance, too. Faven, as a Crystborn, is part of the group known as the Choir of Stars, also known as the group that rules the galaxy. Amandine is a pirate, opposed to such rule. They are literally star-crossed in their budding romance.
But this is also a science fiction novel, and what would a space-based, futuristic science fiction novel be without some form of non-human, post-human, or alien characters. Case in point, the race Faven is part of – the Crystborn. They look human and interact very much like human beings, but they are not quite the flesh and blood that humans are. They have a different life-span, different birth process, and have different afflictions that can strike them down. There’s also an intriguing mystery about how the Crystborn came to be in the universe.
Amandine and her crew of “pirates” are a fun bunch of characters, they have a great feel together and have a port they call home. How this pirate crew deals with the challenges of the plot of the novel make for some great movements in the plot and even greater twists.
The Two Lies of Faven Sythe delivered exactly what I hoped it would when I started turning its pages – cools science fictional ideas, engaging characters, and mostly brisk plotting that kept the story moving along very nicely.
Recommended
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
Orbit Books | June 2025
Trade Paperback | 352 Pages
https://www.meganokeefe.com/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Orbit Books
