This story is a real mind-bender.  I struggled to start twice before I finally figured out that the science isn’t meant to be understood; just hitch a ride on the story.

Ellie was trained by her mother to maintain the hardware that runs a universe.  If I got it right, then our universe is run by hardware, aka skunkworks, in another universe, where their universe is run by skunkworks in yet another universe, and so on.  But I’m not real sure I got that right; because there’s a lot in there about how Ellie and her mom fixed problems that affected their universe.  They’re maintainers.

But Ellie’s mom is dying now.  Her cousin, Daniel, finds hardware that he brings to Ellie’s attention as he is a verifier who confirms problems, not fixes them.  And he wants Ellie to see for herself just what he’s found.  Once Ellie figures out what the skunkworks is designed to do; she just about loses her mind.  It’s there to keep her mom alive but not to cure her; it just keeps her on the knife-edge of not-dead and not-cured.  Basically, it’s a torture device.  And Ellie knows beyond any doubt that it has to be dismantled; and immediately.  Left alone, it will create changes to this universe’s physics which will be bad.  She also knows that doing so will make her mom completely dead.  And she knows without a doubt that this is what her mom would want; she never believed anyone should change the physics of a universe for personal gain.

Ellie has an extremely toxic relationship with her sister, Chris.  Chris has always belittled Ellie since they were children; Ellie did nothing right.  But she always thought that if she just tried a little harder then Chris would quit torturing her and they’d have a normal sister relationship.  Chris took over care of their mom when she fell ill and never allowed Ellie to help with anything while constantly denigrating her failure to help their mom.  Strangely, mom never believed that Chris had anything but her best interests at heart and refused to hear Ellie’s tales of torture.  But it was Ellie who helped her mom sneak out at night against Chris’ wishes; even though Ellie wasn’t sure just what mom was up to.  And it was Ellie who was mom’s chosen one to follow her career; which just about drove Chris mad.

But now mom is gone and Chris has quit trying to kill her; which is peculiar.  But the question remains of who built the skunkworks that kept mom alive and why.  Daniel and his mentor, Ahdi, are also interested in that answer.  While everyone thinks that Daniel and Ellie are still novices; they have skills and talent that aren’t yet fully realized.  And they might be the only ones who have both the talent and the motivation to figure out if there is a secret cabal of maintainers who are manipulating universes for their own personal gain.  Or…it’s just a glitch; could go either way.

In less than 300 pages, this book is a lot like folded space itself, or a Tardis; bigger on the inside than it looks.  The author has created a concept and a world that pretty much defies my ability to summarize; much less understand.  But I can follow a story.  Ellie has complete faith in her own abilities and yet when confronted by her sister, loses all that faith.  She is a broken person when in the same room as Chris.  Chris is a monster who manipulates Ellie over and over again; even as Ellie knows she is doing it.  Daniel is a very creative character; the author really loves this person.  Daniel is described as being extremely powerful, physically huge, but goofy and naïve.  He is a fascinating character to follow.  Ahdi is an experienced builder who seems able to do anything; which looks a lot like magic.  But he needs Daniel’s insight and Ellie’s fix-anything skills; and he’s not too terribly sure just what needs fixing – the skunkworks or all the maintainers.

Yeah, I know…not a great summary.  Truthfully, this story doesn’t exactly lend itself to a simple explanation.  I mean, I could boil it down to a three or four sentences but it would sound dull.  It’s the world-building that is paramount in this story.  It’s the mind-bending concepts of what it takes to maintain a universe, and even better, what it takes to break it; that make this story awesome.

The author has a beautiful palette of colors to use and he does; from descriptions of food to Daniel’s effect on people whether he’s trying to intimidate them or make them happy.  The book is just stuffed full of images that impress.  It was a great deal of fun.   ~~ Catherine Book