> Fennel is little more Lua-with-parens.
Totally. And Clojure is Java-with-parens; Janet is C-with-parens; LFE - Erlang-with-parens; Elisp is a Stallman's erotic fantasy, neatly wrapped in parens. Only Common Lisp is an "actual Lisp for immortal souls" - the rest is for peasants.
Common Lisp, Racket or Scheme with a good REPL and editor integration are light years ahead than Fennel which is little more Lua-with-parens.