Tinker, the 18 year old genius tech wiz in a Pittsburgh that spends all but a day of each month in the alternate world of Elfholme, has her life upended when she rescues an elf just as the city returns to earth. She knew she had family connections to the murdered scientist who developed the star gate technology that caused Pittsburgh's shifts, but that was long before she was born - in human time. And within days present, past, and an undreamed of future are hurling Tinker though adventures and mishaps. Fast, fun, and interesting, this book is very hard to put down. ( )

If this book hadn't been so full of gleeful geographic references to Pittsburgh, I probably would have put it aside. There were so many tiresome tropes played out in the same ol' way, primarily the one where a seemingly-self sufficient woman suddenly needs protection from a man, thus revealing herself to be the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Spencer's prose is stuttering and poorly organized, sometimes knotted, sometimes too loose. Her obviously well-researched tech-speak feels tacked on and comes in infrequent, dense bunches. No character has any compelling dynamism, or goes through any change that feels authentic (Tinker decides that she wants to stay with her Elf boyfriend? Boring), and I feel like she introduces the bad guys too late in the narrative. Maybe she was planning on hooking the readers and dragging them on into the other Elfhome books, but I won't be going along for the ride.
( )

This science fiction/urban fantasy story takes place in the near future. A future where a interdimensional gate has been invented to let people travel to distant planets. There is a side effect, though. Pittsburgh - or a big part of it - finds itself shifted to Elfhome every time the gate is turned on and returned to Earth when it is off.

Tinker is about eighteen and has spent her whole life in Pittsburgh both while it is on Earth and when it is one Elfhome. She's never actually visited any other places on Earth and isn't really interested. She a technical genius who own her own scrapyard. She was raised and educated by her grandfather who kept her a secret. After his death, she has her cousin Oilcan and friends including half-Elf Tooloo and Xenobiologist Lain who have been her mentors and teachers.

When wargs chase an Elf lord into her scrapyard and she saves his life, her life takes a totally new turn. It was already starting to shift because Lain convinced her to take the entrance exams for Carnegie Mellon which put her on the radar of the NSA because her answers indicated that she might be able to build another gate. It also put her on the radar of the Oni from still another world who want her to build them a gate so that they can conquer or expand to Earth and Elfhome.

The elf she rescued was Windwolf who happens to be the Viceroy of the part of Elfhome where Pittsburg appears. Cultural misunderstandings on both their parts finds them married and finds Tinker changed into an elf herself.

Then she's kidnapped by the Oni and forced to build them a new gate because they have threatened everyone she loves if she does not. But Tinker is a genius and her plans include foiling their plans and saving herself and those she loves.

This story had great characters and intriguing worldbuilding. I liked Tinker. I liked that she was torn between Earth and Elfhome. I liked the elf magic and the way Tinker dealt with it even though her own focus was on physics.

This is the first of a five book series which was published between 2003 and 2016, It looks like a sixth book is scheduled for publication in 2022. ( )

This science fiction/urban fantasy story takes place in the near future. A future where a interdimensional gate has been invented to let people travel to distant planets. There is a side effect, though. Pittsburgh - or a big part of it - finds itself shifted to Elfhome every time the gate is turned on and returned to Earth when it is off.

Tinker is about eighteen and has spent her whole life in Pittsburgh both while it is on Earth and when it is one Elfhome. She's never actually visited any other places on Earth and isn't really interested. She a technical genius who own her own scrapyard. She was raised and educated by her grandfather who kept her a secret. After his death, she has her cousin Oilcan and friends including half-Elf Tooloo and Xenobiologist Lain who have been her mentors and teachers.

When wargs chase an Elf lord into her scrapyard and she saves his life, her life takes a totally new turn. It was already starting to shift because Lain convinced her to take the entrance exams for Carnegie Mellon which put her on the radar of the NSA because her answers indicated that she might be able to build another gate. It also put her on the radar of the Oni from still another world who want her to build them a gate so that they can conquer or expand to Earth and Elfhome.

The elf she rescued was Windwolf who happens to be the Viceroy of the part of Elfhome where Pittsburg appears. Cultural misunderstandings on both their parts finds them married and finds Tinker changed into an elf herself.

Then she's kidnapped by the Oni and forced to build them a new gate because they have threatened everyone she loves if she does not. But Tinker is a genius and her plans include foiling their plans and saving herself and those she loves.

This story had great characters and intriguing worldbuilding. I liked Tinker. I liked that she was torn between Earth and Elfhome. I liked the elf magic and the way Tinker dealt with it even though her own focus was on physics.

This is the first of a five book series which was published between 2003 and 2016, It looks like a sixth book is scheduled for publication in 2022. ( )

This science fiction/urban fantasy story takes place in the near future. A future where a interdimensional gate has been invented to let people travel to distant planets. There is a side effect, though. Pittsburgh - or a big part of it - finds itself shifted to Elfhome every time the gate is turned on and returned to Earth when it is off.

Tinker is about eighteen and has spent her whole life in Pittsburgh both while it is on Earth and when it is one Elfhome. She's never actually visited any other places on Earth and isn't really interested. She a technical genius who own her own scrapyard. She was raised and educated by her grandfather who kept her a secret. After his death, she has her cousin Oilcan and friends including half-Elf Tooloo and Xenobiologist Lain who have been her mentors and teachers.

When wargs chase an Elf lord into her scrapyard and she saves his life, her life takes a totally new turn. It was already starting to shift because Lain convinced her to take the entrance exams for Carnegie Mellon which put her on the radar of the NSA because her answers indicated that she might be able to build another gate. It also put her on the radar of the Oni from still another world who want her to build them a gate so that they can conquer or expand to Earth and Elfhome.

The elf she rescued was Windwolf who happens to be the Viceroy of the part of Elfhome where Pittsburg appears. Cultural misunderstandings on both their parts finds them married and finds Tinker changed into an elf herself.

Then she's kidnapped by the Oni and forced to build them a new gate because they have threatened everyone she loves if she does not. But Tinker is a genius and her plans include foiling their plans and saving herself and those she loves.

This story had great characters and intriguing worldbuilding. I liked Tinker. I liked that she was torn between Earth and Elfhome. I liked the elf magic and the way Tinker dealt with it even though her own focus was on physics.

This is the first of a five book series which was published between 2003 and 2016, It looks like a sixth book is scheduled for publication in 2022. ( )