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Tinker Elfhome Book 1 Wen Spencer 9780743498715 Books

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Tinker Elfhome Book 1 Wen Spencer 9780743498715 Books

I'm not usually a reader of sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Maybe I don't have the D&D gene, or perhaps I just miss the internal consistency of reality-based fiction. This novel is an exception.

Start with the accidental translation of a chunk of American city into a parallel universe. For 20-plus years, part of Pittsburgh has been rotating for 29 days out of every 30 into Elfhome, where passenger pigeons exist side-by-side with leg-chomping wargs and flesh-eating willows.

Add in the Elfin Interdimensional Agency, charged with insuring that only adult residents of Pittsburgh and their dependents may remain in the city as it returns to Elfhome. Toss in two minors, Tinker and Oilcan (not their real names, of course), orphans who have held on to their home despite the death of their grandfather. Stir in a soupçon of elven politics, and a dash of nasty orc-ish oni villains, and the stew is bubbling.

Did I say Tinker is a girl, a genius who owns a scrapyard? Anyone with that much cold iron is a force to reckon with in fairyland. And Tinker has the opportunity to save the life of an elven lord fleeing a pack of wargs when he runs into her scrapyard. Tinker teeters from rescue to rescue, managing to set the entire Elfhome world on its ear as she goes.

Like Tinker the genius girl, "Tinker" the novel is consistently delightful, and internally consistent as well—you won't learn anything special from this book, but it is a lot of fun.


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Tinker Elfhome Book 1 Wen Spencer 9780743498715 Books Reviews

I wholeheartedly recommend the Elfhome series by Wen Spencer. It's the perfect blend of fantasy, scifi, action, humor and romance (though a bit too explicit for Young Adult readers). And, though it could (and I hope will) be continued, the first thee books complete the "Tinker" story; however, the forth book, Wood Sprites, is just as good and very much worth reading.
One note of warning, in the edition of Wolf Who Rules, where there would normally be a space between sections when there is a change of subject or point of view, etc., the spaces that are present in the print version are missing in the version. So, in one sentence you'll be reading about Tinker at one location, and in the next sentence you'll be reading about Windwolf at a different location without anything to indicate the change.
I was reminded of 'Podkayne of Mars' as I read Tinker. Like Podkayne, Wes Spencer's protagonist is young, brilliant, irrepressible, and not fully aware of herself as a woman (but sure knows she wants to be one!). Wen's conceit of his protagonist as the polymath genius owner of a junkyard set in a dimensionally-displaced Pittsburg is genius in itself. "Tinker", the book is a genre-bending book. It's certainly fantasy There are elves, magic, monsters, mythology, and mayhem galore. But he writes with a rigorous Science Fiction sensibility. Tinker is working on a quantum theory of magic. You draw spells like circuit diagrams. You can even order AC to magic inverters from the electronics parts house! Spencer also does a great job creating the civilization of Elfhome that lives just outside the Pittsburg city limits. I haven't read a better meditation on how greatly extended life affects society. Overall, this book is excellently written and is an utter page-turner. Did I mention there are sequels? Squeee!!! Highly recommended.
This is a review for the whole series. Tinker is the best of the four; on its own, it merits four stars, but the lower average of the rest drags it down.

There are many things to like about Elfhome it's a fascinating, imaginative world; the action moves along at an enjoyable clip; and the dialogue is often very witty. The first few scenes of the first book, when Tinker saves the life of the elf viceroy of Pittsburgh, are excellently plotted and tons of fun. Even as the plotting gets progressively less plausible, the books remain enjoyable escapism--with a few important caveats.

First, the protagonist becomes increasingly less plausible as the book/books go on. Even at the beginning, she's an enormous Mary Sue. A mechanical genius/child prodigy (a fact we're beaten over the head with every other page), she's also gorgeous (Spencer constantly stresses that Tinker doesn't care about her appearance, but the absurd behavior of many male characters around her makes the reader unable to share her lack of concern). Once she becomes an elf, she also develops unprecedented magical powers, and that really kind of kills the plotting. If you have a character who's a super-powerful super-genius, how do you justify her being continuously in and out of dangerous scrapes? You have to come up with really far-fetched excuses for why she hasn't had the time to learn how to use her powers, or why she does something really dumb to break her spell-casting arm right before she turns out to need it, etc. It gets old, and by the third book, Tinker ends up coming off as a bit of a self-indulgent nitwit whose ultra-intelligence only comes out when it's convenient for the plot (other times, she does phenomenally stupid things), and can't be bothered to get serious about learning how to use her gifts, while her friends and family sing her praises constantly despite her reckless endangerment of them.

Second, the series displays a disconcerting animus toward conventionally attractive women--or at least women who put effort into being conventionally attractive--to the point that it really conditions the plotting. It appears to be a rule in the series that if a character other than Tinker is described as being beautiful, she's bitchy, petty, and probably working with the bad guys (Tinker is allowed to be beautiful and still good because she has short hair and likes to get dirty and wear combat boots). By the third book, this trend had become so obvious that I was able to predict the book's major plot twist within the first few chapters, just because a "gorgeous" new female character was introduced. There's also a really harrowing bestiality/rape scene towards the end of the first book that was pretty unnecessary for the plot; the character it happens to is one of aforementioned shallow female characters, and the scene honestly reads like revenge porn.

Third, these kind of graphic torture scenes recur with disturbing frequency as the books go on. The books' villains, the Oni, are so evil that it's stomach-churning to read about them. There are many gratuitous scenes thrown in just to remind us how incredibly, mind-numbingly horrible they are--they eat children! they rape women with giant dogs!--so I guess we don't feel any moral compunctions when the heroes go around killing them on sight? They would have been much more interesting if they had their own, well-developed culture and sane reasons for wanting to oppose the elves.

Finally, the science is not interesting. I originally started the series because I like speculative science fiction, and thought Tinker might scratch that itch in an interesting/different fantasy setting. But while it's certainly a central part of her character (and thus the whole plot) that Tinker is a child genius, the supposedly advanced physics she always pulls out to save the day is really incoherent. Yes, it's a fantasy novel, but there are ways to create interesting, kind-of-plausible fantasy science constructs that work. Among other "soft" sci-fi writers, see Catherine Asaro's work, for example--she has a PhD in physics, and it shows (although you have to wade through enormous amounts of soap opera-style bodice ripping to extract the ideas). Spencer throws around terms like "quantum wave fields," "inter dimensional hyperphase," etc. but I don't get the sense she has much idea what the words she's using actually mean or how the relevant dynamics work. Science becomes an unpredictable deus ex machina rather than a rich backdrop for the world she's created.
I'm not usually a reader of sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Maybe I don't have the D&D gene, or perhaps I just miss the internal consistency of reality-based fiction. This novel is an exception.

Start with the accidental translation of a chunk of American city into a parallel universe. For 20-plus years, part of Pittsburgh has been rotating for 29 days out of every 30 into Elfhome, where passenger pigeons exist side-by-side with leg-chomping wargs and flesh-eating willows.

Add in the Elfin Interdimensional Agency, charged with insuring that only adult residents of Pittsburgh and their dependents may remain in the city as it returns to Elfhome. Toss in two minors, Tinker and Oilcan (not their real names, of course), orphans who have held on to their home despite the death of their grandfather. Stir in a soupçon of elven politics, and a dash of nasty orc-ish oni villains, and the stew is bubbling.

Did I say Tinker is a girl, a genius who owns a scrapyard? Anyone with that much cold iron is a force to reckon with in fairyland. And Tinker has the opportunity to save the life of an elven lord fleeing a pack of wargs when he runs into her scrapyard. Tinker teeters from rescue to rescue, managing to set the entire Elfhome world on its ear as she goes.

Like Tinker the genius girl, "Tinker" the novel is consistently delightful, and internally consistent as well—you won't learn anything special from this book, but it is a lot of fun.