Wen Spencer

A very poor showing in an otherwise fantastic series, this is less a novel, and more a collection of drabbles, short-stories and novellas.
Lacking any discernable plot and without a coherent storyline, it would have been much better of as another Project Elfhome book, filling in the cracks and humanizing the city.
Based on this, I am not sure the author even knows how to progress or end the series, so instead she is fiddling her thumbs, trying to shoehorn every character and story arch into the main plotline.
I adore most of the characters, and welcome a chance to learn more of them, but this haphazard drive-by inclusion does not serve them or the story.… (more)

A Brother’s Price
by Wen Spencer
316 pages
In this book the roles between male and female are reversed. Women rule the world and men are chattel, without rights, used as breeders, care giver for the children he sires, and homemaker. The cover shows the moment that changes the course of a family's life. A very young girl defends a strange woman in uniform, the girl runs back to the farmhouse to let her younger sisters know what has occurred. Her big brother helps bring the unconscious back to the house, they don't know that she is a princess.… (more)

In a world where women dramatically outnumber men, Jerin Whistler spends his time cooking meals, tending his younger siblings, and hoping that his sisters will marry him off to a suitable family. But things begin to change after the Whistlers stumble upon a treasonous conspiracy and Jerin falls in love with five princesses.

A Brother's Price juggles plenty of genres -- science fiction, Regency romance, Westerns -- but cheerfully sticks to the lowest cliches. The shotguns and gunboats are flashy but inconsistent; the romance is entirely predictable; the SF themes are completely pasted on. The reversed gender roles have dramatic effect but no logic. In the end, your enjoyment of A Brother's Price will hinge on how amused you are to read the hero described as looking "adorable in his plum silk tunic and flowing trousers."… (more)

First of all, this story pulls together plotlines and characters from all of the previous books in this series. The war against the oni is heating up and all of the characters have different pieces of the puzzle and roles to play. Someone who has not read the earlier books (and probably, recently) will find this a very confusing story.

When the story begins, Pittsburgh has been cut off from Earth because Tinker wrecked the gate that kept shifting it back and forth from Earth to Elfhome. She needed to do so to rescue Esme and the tengu leader. Tinker is trying to build an infrastructure, figure out what the oni want, find a way to defeat them, and figure out what to do with her new, and previously unknown, siblings.

Louise and Jillian Mayer, Tinker's twin nine-year-old siblings, are on Elfhome in the secret haven that protects the tengu young and have come with a dragon named Joy and the fertilized ova of their three younger sisters and one brother who have been taught by Joy how to spirit walk and are known as Team Mischief.

Runaway Olivia has become Forest Moss's domi and has a detachment of teenage elven Marines watching over her while Forest Moss in part of the elven force trying to destroy the oni encampments. She is looking for seeds to plant in her new greenhouse to provide a food source since Pittsburgh has been cut off from Earth. She is also tasked by Tinker to find some of the missing independents since she was once one of them.

Jane Kryskill is still riding herd on Hal Rogers and trying to make a television show. She's newly riding herd on Nigel who has come to Earth to make a documentary. She has some help from Nigel's cameraman Taggart who is her fiancé. She is also secretly trying to set up a Resistance movement to unite humans against the oni.

There are other plot threads too. Law has one, Oilcan has one, Wolf Who Rules has one. So does Tristan who was introduced in Wood Sprites and who is definitely on the side of the bad guys. There are probably more that I've forgotten.

The story is fast-paced and entertaining. So much is going on. It reminds me, in its complexity, of David Weber's Honor Harrington series substituting magic for Weber's technology. Fans of complex worldbuilding, complex fantasy/urban fantasy will enjoy the adventure. However, it ends with an epic cliffhanger that made me want to throw my Kindle against the wall.… (more)