Jamie Sedgwick

The Tinkerer's Daughter by Jamie Sedgwick
Story starts with Breeze is she is walking us through her life at the age of four or so. She explains how her mother was from an elf group and her father was human. She has parts from both and that gives her special powers.
She is left at the tinker's house as her father has been called to fight in the war. It's amazing how the man takes care of her as she discovers all kinds of cool things at his foundry and barns. She loves walking among the trees as they talk to her.
Love when she is given small pieces of wood for him to burn. They also warn her of danger. As she gets older she wants to attend school and he helps her with help from the school teacher who is also owner of mercantile in town.
She tinkers right along with him and learns all he can teach her. They are able to build phenomenal things: planes, steam wagons, etc.
I usually can not stand to read about elves and wood creatures but this one captured me attention throughout as she was helping others just like her father did.
Love older years as she helped so many and she learns of her mothers side of the family also. Things don't go according to plans and her life is in danger but she has much help.
Can't wait to read more about her as the saga continues in the next story. Excerpt is included at the end.… (more)

I wish I could have liked this one. It started out with an interesting premise.

This may sound weird for a fantasy novel, but I just had too much trouble believing it. First, there's the technology: somehow, this tinkerer is astounding, accomplishing more in a few months than the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford and Thomas Newcomen (steam engine inventor/perfector) did in their lifetimes. And somehow he works in a vacuum--there's nobody who taught him, nobody who shared ideas with him. Somehow, just tinkering around with scrap metal in his yard, he comes up with all of this.

Then there was the perpetual motion fallacy. This is a fantasy novel, so that shouldn't be a problem, right? I guess it would have been all right if it had been magic. But this was the steampunk technology part. Sorry, perpetual motion is a big no-no.

And there was the character who could heal anything (but apparently nobody else could?), who discovers this without any training. And has a few more astounding, regrettably unbelievable abilities as well. I suppose with all these gifts, it's not surprising that a five year old girl (no, I'm actually not joking) saves two kingdoms, resolves centuries of racism, and brings lasting peace (at least until the sequel, I guess; I'm not likely to find out).

Those are just details, though. The thing that really got to me is that everybody is just good. (Except for that one bad guy who gets killed.) That war that's dragged on for centuries--nothing more than a minor misunderstanding. If we all sat down together and said "Let's be nice and talk out," it would end in a day and we'd all be on the same side. Everybody really wants to help, even the school bully, if only they understood. And the monsters, who eat humans for dinner--well, they're all pretty darn reasonable once you get rid of the one bad guy.

Oh yeah, and the dead mother is... [spoiler suppressed]. I wondered, when we were told about the mother's people, if that was where the author was headed. No, couldn't be. That's absurd, especially on top of everything else. And then I got to the end and found that, oh no, the author actually did that. Sigh.

As I said, I thought this story was quite promising when it started out. I'd be willing to forgive a lot of mistakes and inaccuracies and even absurdly superhuman abilities, if the characters felt realistic instead of angelic. I would hope the author could produce a less pollyannaish story someday; I'd read it. This story wasn't bad--I didn't really have any trouble getting to the end, hence the "ok" rating--but my eyes were a little sore from all that rolling.… (more)

I wish I could have liked this one. It started out with an interesting premise.

This may sound weird for a fantasy novel, but I just had too much trouble believing it. First, there's the technology: somehow, this tinkerer is astounding, accomplishing more in a few months than the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford and Thomas Newcomen (steam engine inventor/perfector) did in their lifetimes. And somehow he works in a vacuum--there's nobody who taught him, nobody who shared ideas with him. Somehow, just tinkering around with scrap metal in his yard, he comes up with all of this.

Then there was the perpetual motion fallacy. This is a fantasy novel, so that shouldn't be a problem, right? I guess it would have been all right if it had been magic. But this was the steampunk technology part. Sorry, perpetual motion is a big no-no.

And there was the character who could heal anything (but apparently nobody else could?), who discovers this without any training. And has a few more astounding, regrettably unbelievable abilities as well. I suppose with all these gifts, it's not surprising that a five year old girl (no, I'm actually not joking) saves two kingdoms, resolves centuries of racism, and brings lasting peace (at least until the sequel, I guess; I'm not likely to find out).

Those are just details, though. The thing that really got to me is that everybody is just good. (Except for that one bad guy who gets killed.) That war that's dragged on for centuries--nothing more than a minor misunderstanding. If we all sat down together and said "Let's be nice and talk out," it would end in a day and we'd all be on the same side. Everybody really wants to help, even the school bully, if only they understood. And the monsters, who eat humans for dinner--well, they're all pretty darn reasonable once you get rid of the one bad guy.

Oh yeah, and the dead mother is... [spoiler suppressed]. I wondered, when we were told about the mother's people, if that was where the author was headed. No, couldn't be. That's absurd, especially on top of everything else. And then I got to the end and found that, oh no, the author actually did that. Sigh.

As I said, I thought this story was quite promising when it started out. I'd be willing to forgive a lot of mistakes and inaccuracies and even absurdly superhuman abilities, if the characters felt realistic instead of angelic. I would hope the author could produce a less pollyannaish story someday; I'd read it. This story wasn't bad--I didn't really have any trouble getting to the end, hence the "ok" rating--but my eyes were a little sore from all that rolling.… (more)