The description of this novel did not capture me, but a sample chapter was provided by the author and publisher. The writing was exciting and I felt as if I needed to know Sancia's story. Where many stories about thieves can drag while the heist is planned out, Bennett begins his story with the heist and manages to continue to weave an engaging and very unique story about a thief, a guard, and a magical object. 

Bennett's characters are perfectly written. He produces flawed, realistic, and sympathetic characters that don't have to fall in love just because they are working together. I adore the clarity with which Bennett writes his characters, regardless of gender. I would put Sancia on my list of favourite thieves, in a place right next to Locke Lamora.

The world-building in Foundryside is brilliant. The world has a rich history that resembles the ancient world's relationship with European cities while managing to be intriguing and new to the reader. 

The mingling of magic and technology made my engineer self very happy with my fantasy-loving self. Bennett introduces a unique and well-developed system of magic that is interesting to learn about and actually believable.

Bennett gave the reader so much with this novel and let much more unanswered. I await the upcoming books in this series anxiously. Luckily, Bennett has other books out that I have not yet read to help pass the time.

Thank you to Crown Publishing, NetGalley, and Robert Jackson Bennett for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Robert Jackson Bennett Divine City series so when given the opportunity to read this advanced copy of Foundryside from the publisher, I accepted it without any hesitation. After reading it I’m sure when edited and published in August Foundryside will get the attention it deserves.

Like Divine City this is a new world of magic, something remaining from a long lost magic era. The other similarity is the female protagonist which this time is a thief. This time the main city is called Tevanne and it has two side, Commons and Merchant houses. Merchant houses are wealthy and corrupt and commons are poor and have a slave like life.
All main characters in the book are very likable and very well developed. If I want to say who my favorite was, it’s probably Clef the key, but still I enjoyed every character in its own role, even Orso.
The world Bennett has created is kind of mixing science and magic. Today’s human have access to part of a magic language of now a dead civilization and can utilize objects and change reality by scriving symbols of that language into objects. There are many lost symbols and critical missed parts that prevent them to fully use this magic science, until a small box with a Key in it is stolen.
This is a story of action, of mystery, of fighting for power and craving justice and highly recommended for fantasy lovers.

Excellent fantasy, as I am coming to expect from Robert Jackson Bennett. I really enjoyed how the beginning of this book played with a few bog standard tropes -- the girl thief, the divided city, magical technology -- before archly revealing new details and differences that made it all rise above. The worldbuilding is fantastic, as are the characters and plot. And the humor! For all its darkness, and there is hella darkness, this is is also a very funny book.

Sancia, the girl thief, is the cog around which nearly everything else turns. There is a meta aspect to this, as she is also the figure around which most of the book's heist action depends. The cast of characters soon grows into an ensemble, and while others do a lot of the planning, and the "magic" stuff -- this book's magic system is based on a system of sigil writing, or "scriving" -- it still falls to poor Sancia to do most of the hands on, dangerous execution. Sancia is not the only POV character, however, and each POV has its own distinct voice. It is often through others -- for example Gregor, ambivalent member of a ruling family and officer of what little law exists in the central city of Tevanne -- that we get a fuller picture of what's going on behind the curtain, the forces under which Sancia and others labor.

The metaphysics of the "scriving" is fascinating and extremely well-thought-out. Within the circumscribed rules of the novel, RJB actually made this stuff seem scientifically possible! At every step of the plot, I loved reading the details of how the scrivers would make objects do whatever they needed them to do. Very cinematic too; one can easily picture these methods of allowing people to fly high over buildings, or of making buildings implode or change form.

In 2018 it should go without saying, but sadly cannot, that the female characters here are great. They are numerous, varied, complicated, and not all good. That is to say, they are people equivalent to men. The story world does include some instances of misogyny, but it seems to be limited to the feelings of certain secondary characters on an individual basis, as opposed to anything systemic in the culture of Tevanne. And any sexual violence encountered is equal opportunity.

Is this a perfect book? No. I could name a few quibbles I have with the lack of clarity on how the merchant houses of Tevanne make money outside of Tevanne (which is ostensibly how they accumulate and retain wealth and power). There is also the treatment of slavery, for example. It is an important theme throughout the book, and actual slavery is of course depicted as wrong, but I think this could have gone further, and also poses problems vis-a-vis racial representation (the characters are of varying skin colors with seemingly no correlation to economic or class status, and yet the main slave character apparently happens to be the one with the darkest skin). But it gets sooooo much right, and as with RJB's previous series of books, it is head and shoulders above a lot of the current high fantasy novels out there.

I will have to wait a while, but am already impatient for the next book.

I really enjoyed this. It had an original, interesting premise, great characterizations, and a completely fitting ending that left just enough left dangling to make you look forward to the next book.

Foundryside takes some of the more interesting elements from Lies of Locke Lamora, Name of the Wind, and Mistborn, combining these with RJB's beautiful and cinematic writing style. The result is an exciting story with familiar elements, a fresh story and compelling characters.

The tone and feel of the story was very Lies of Locke Lamora and like the Thief video games. The magic system relies on people (scrivers) that convince things to behave in new ways by scriving them with instructions. For example, making doors stronger by convincing them that they're made of iron. The logical extensions of this technology have been taken pretty far and it's neat to see how the entire society has come to depend on this magical technology.

The characters are excellent. They're fairly standard; a thief, a sentient macguffin, a law enforcement type, and a powerful scriver with his apprentice.

Sancia is a fairly traditional thief character with a dark history and a good heart. She has a particular set of skills which are poorly understood, at first. We learn more about her as the story unfolds. The evolution of her abilities and what she can do, is a very cool aspect to the story. Her personal evolution is a little less interesting, except for a brief blip where her selfish side surfaces.

The setting is wonderful. Clearly based on Renaissance-y Italian city-states with a colonial component. The magic system is pretty neat and it's very reminiscent of rune-crafting or sygaldry (NOTW) but crossed with coding. Using letters and lexicons to re-write reality is very meta and RJB makes it pretty exciting with the ways in which his characters use this magic.

The story starts off in the middle of a caper, the consequences of which more or less kick off the main plot line. It isn't until the last third or quarter that we find out that the main story intersected with a much grander story, which is clearly going to be the arc of this trilogy. The pacing is good, it starts off fast and slows down between periods of increasing action; culminating in a satisfyingly dramatic climax.

There are definitely some issues, the drama with Gregor for example was foreshadowed a little but I felt it was resolved a little too easily. There was a real opportunity there for a proper moral quandary. I suspect we'll see that explored in the rest of the trilogy, and I certainly hope so. RJB has done a great job of exploring the consequences of soldiering in past works and I'll be interested to see this theme develop in Gregor. Orso and Berenice also seemed pretty thinly drawn, which was necessary to allow us to explore Sancia's character and back story.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the trilogy (I think it's going to be a trilogy? I certainly hope there's more coming!). I highly recommend Foundryside.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The industrial city of Tevanne is powered by magical technology developed by a long-lost culture, in which objects are given limited sentience and unusual abilities by "scriving" them with a special language. This technology is jealously guarded by the four merchant houses which rule Tevanne. Sneak-thief Sancia Grado steals a powerful ancient artifact from a waterfront warehouse and finds herself running for her life. Gregor Dandolo has turned his back on his heritage as son of a merchant house to bring proper policing to Tevanne, including catching the thief who burned down half the waterfront. But the people behind the merchant houses want to use the artifact to give themselves godlike powers, at the cost of thousands of human lives, and so Sancia and Gregor become unlikely allies as they try to prevent this from happening.

There are some similarities between this book and Bennett's earlier Divine Cities trilogy. Tevanne's got an industrial-fantasy-Italy vibe going in the same way that Bulikov was industrial-fantasy-Eastern Europe, and magic isn't something inherent in people but rather imbued in objects in both books. While each book in the Divine Cities explored a different theme - colonialism, warfare, and family -underlying them all was the question of the nature of humanity, and that is the theme of this book. What are the boundaries between humans and machines; what are the boundaries between humans and gods?

[Some mild spoilers below.]

The artifact Sancia steals is a sentient key that can open any lock, and it does this by talking to the lock in the language of scriving. Sancia can talk to the key as well, as she's got a scrived plate in her head from an illegal operation, performed against her will while she was a plantation slave. The key - named "Clef", which is a bit like a werewolf named Remus Lupin - is a wonderful character in his own right, and his conversations with Sancia and with the various scrived objects he talks to are great fun.

In the hands of any other author, I'd expect (and roll my eyes at) a romance between Sancia and Gregor. I appreciated the lack of romance in the Divine Cities, and the way that Bennett writes his characters such that most of them could be either male or female without changing the narrative much, and for the most part that's true here, though some of the plot is driven by the belief of the prevailing culture that women are not suited to scriving work (and the indignity of the women scrivers who are perfectly competent and perhaps better than the men who replace them). There is a tiny smidgen of f/f, though, which I liked very much.

This is definitely the first book of a series, and it ends with much left unresolved. But I really love this worldbuilding and these characters; it feels a bit as though the Invisible Library series collided with the Gentleman Bastards series by way of the Craft series, though that's selling it short. I'd say that Gregor Dandolo is totally Constable Carrot or Benton Fraser, but that would be selling it short as well. It's a great book, and I look forward to the next in this series.

Yet again, Bennett has created an intriguing world with fascinating magic. Merchant houses run a largely lawless city, because just about the only thing the houses can agree on is that they don't want the others having a say in how they can operate on their property. Thus, each merchant house practically operates as its own mini-kingdom.

More interesting, however, is the magic. Scrivers, who operate in R&D teams for the merchant houses and manufacture their products in foundries, can essentially reprogram objects so that they no longer obey the laws of physics. They do this through the use of magic sigils organized into code that tells the objects that certain aspects of their physical reality are different; the objects then behave as if they were operating in that new reality. This makes for some real revolutions in transportation, weaponry, etc. The whole thing is a bit steampunk, except that these mechanical devices are explicitly powered via careful magical intervention instead of more realistic technologies.

This is a dark and gritty world that doesn't wallow in darkness. That is to say, despite the brutal realities, there's still hope for the characters and some lighter moments.

I love the characters, who are all well-written (especially the women!). I love the way the magic system in this world immediately made me start considering its possibilities and intricacies. (It is, after all, logic-based.)

This book reminds me most of Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence because of the logic-based magic system. It's much less weird than Gladstone's series, though, and this setting can best be described as Italian noble merchant families in a magical early industrial era.

If you enjoyed Bennett's Divine Cities series, you won't be disappointed here. I highly recommend this novel and can't wait to read the next book in the series!

I have not enjoyed a capitalist dystopia like this since... I don’t even know when. Foundreyside is deeply intelligent. I think that is the most important descriptor. It is intelligent fantasy. It is a strange world — as unalike from Earth as it is possible to be, and yet it has been urbanized. The magic is sympathetic, the characters even more so.

The author has the imagination of ten men.

(A more fully realized review will follow on my blog closer to release date — it is impossible to discuss this book as it should be without unfairly revealing spoilers).

Robert Jackson Bennett has done it again. I am now fully invested in this series based off this first book. The characters are a bunch of assholes but they feel organic. Like I'm just hanging out with my friends on a regular day. The story is paced well and gets into the action pretty quick. The main character, Sancia, is well written and her troubled circumstances are portrayed well in her character and emotions. I would recommend this book to any fantasy lover, or someone looking to get into fantasy.

This was a struggle.

“Foundryside” begins with a thief on a mission that offers a sizable payout that could give her a brand new future should she succeed in the impossible task of breaking into a safe and stealing a simple box with the promise that she won’t look inside. When temptation gets the best of her she uncovers that all the trouble was for a golden key which quickly proves to be more trouble than she imagined as it talks to her and shares its talent of being able to unlock any door it faces. When the people in charge of her contract come looking for their prize she finds that there’s something more sinister at play and teams up with an unlikely group in order to save the world as she knows it.

Where to begin? First off when creating a fantasy type novel you have to have consistency in both the framework of your elements, the mythology and the language of the characters otherwise things start to fall apart and in this case we’re dealing with a bit of a steampunk feel granted by the work of Gods only said creations talk like they’re living in 2018 which is a hard contrast to the actual setting of the book.

There’s a lot of action in this and unfortunately it did nothing for me and I spent most of my time glancing down at the progress on my kindle willing myself to keep going because I was so bored. This is a long book and heavy with the exposition in order to explain the mechanics of the devices, the social order and the mythology and despite finishing this book exactly one minute ago I couldn’t tell you how any of it worked.

There’s a lot that didn’t appeal to me but please can we do away with the dick, excuse me ‘candle’ talk? There were so many moments when we had to hear about the underperformance of male characters in that regard and it’s like we get it, is there really no other insult available in this universe other than that?

It was with great effort that this wasn’t a dnf and I wish the best of luck to anyone who hopes to give this a try maybe you’ll love it and maybe you won’t but at least I can say I finished it.

**thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I can be very difficult when it comes to fantasy. As my finger reached to click open Foundryside on my Kindle, I asked myself: Ok, Mr. Bennett, what ya got for me?

World building: Tevanne is a port city run by four walled-off estates or merchant houses. I kept picturing some cross between Dunwall in that video game Dishonored, or Ketterdam in Six of Crows, but surrounded on three sides by jungle. I’m terrible at video games, but I loved that one, and Six of Crows has been one of my favorites since it came out. The merchant houses live like royalty and control everything, from trade to slaves to magic. Everyone else lives in The Commons, a slum full of densely-packed “rookeries.”

Magic: An ancient language known only by a few is written on inanimate objects; these “scrivings” are “instructions written on mindless objects told to disobey reality.” For example, the script might make a sword think it’s lighter or stronger. Or a scrived crossbow could send a bolt that, using perceived gravity, thinks it’s falling from 30,000 feet but actually flying horizontally. (Obviously, Bennett explains it way better than I do!) Bennett is able to utilize this magic in every part of the world, and logically extrapolate its basic tenets in a way that makes sense, and at times, make your head spin.

Creatures: None. I’m pretty sick of dragons anyway.

Characters: Sancia is a thief, and because of a forced experiment, she has a scrived plate attached to her skull. This enables her to put her hands on any object and sense weaknesses and strengths. It is a skill that has made her one of the best thieves in the city. Bennett has written her with great character depth, and an original voice. Her origin story is exceptional, which is masterfully rationed out. Captain Gregor Dandolo is the son of a merchant founder. He has turned his back on the wealth he could have and decided to try clean up Tevanne… Sancia is his first target. Clef is self-aware scrived key who Sancia ends up stealing. He can talk to Sancia, and is a real character. Clef is always giving Sancia the business, but at the same time he is the ally she really needs. These are only a few of the great cast of characters in Foundryside.

Plot: The novel opens with an absolute bang. Sancia is hired to steal a box from a safe at the well-protected waterfront. The deal ends up too good to be true as it seems the whole city is looking for her in an effort to get back an ancient artifact (Clef) that might be the pivotal implement in controlling power in the city.

Writing: Foundryside is filled with cinematic, white-knuckle scenes. Bennett goes a long way to explaining the world with holding just enough back. Flashbacks are expertly placed along the way as a device to add background to the characters and the world as a whole. There are  well-timed victories and failures along the way that always had me guessing.

Overall:  Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside passed all my tests. This is a perfect first book in what should be an exceptional fantasy series. The only downside is that I just couldn’t read as fast as I wanted to. Foundryside is much more than a simple thieving caper. Bennett’s use of politics, unique magic, and characters you can really care about elevate this story to a true epic.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crown Publishing, and Robert Jackson Bennett for the advanced copy to review.

Want some adventure? Foundryside is an <i>unrelentingly</i> entertaining read. I finished the book within a day.

I stayed up far too late and woke far too early so I could consume every morsel of the story. In the daze of my book hangover, I somewhat regret the rush. I'll never read this for the first time again and I got so caught up in reading, I forgot to savor it. This is the same remorse as reading Bennett's equally excellent City of Stairs.

Like his haunting earlier works (such as the Troupe), Foundryside incorporates deep characterizations with moral explorations. A healthy dollop of adventure makes the book, well, unputdownable. I'm so glad Bennett has returned to a place where the story's wonder takes center stage. I loved City of Stairs but merely liked its follow-up. I haven't yet gotten around to book 3 of that "trilogy".

The result, like City of Stairs, is page turning and exciting but Foundryside discards Stairs' narrative tics. Here, the prose is straightforward. It avoids the more challenging (read "weird") tenses used there. With CoS, I begged people to persevere until they could get past the odd writing to let the story sweep them up. Foundryside doesn't need that warning. It's action from page one.

Without spoiling matters, City of Stairs explored man's relationship to god. It asked how man becomes shackled by those miracles and wonders, which are ultimately created by faith. Bennett took on both orthodoxy and empire and the book emerged with full-fleshed characters who lived, suffered, and grew. He did this without sacrificing adventure.

Foundryside continues that commitment to both entertainment and moral engagement. It explores social systems in tandem with its storytelling. It's both a rip-roaring adventure full of death-defying action and a philosophical treatise. Agree or disagree with Bennett's politics, Foundryside is a great read.

Foundryside starts with one small theft that ends up disrupting an entire society. The heroine is a modified human with special abilities and deep struggles. The story takes place over a very short period of time, so get ready to catch your breath because the book moves very very fast. The protagonist starts off as a smart-mouthed trope-y thief and grows into so much more. The supporting players are well developed, making decisions and performing actions that are grounded in failable humanity. The prime antagonist is complicated. This person has a complete agenda and a backstory of overlooked talent and wasted opportunities.

Bennett's world building and magic system is nothing like you've seen before. Yes, you could say the book is heavily influenced by the merchant houses of Venice but that's too light a characterization. The setting builds magic into chartered corporations, explores the nature and corruption of concentrated power, and asks what self-determination and agency mean in a world with "temporary" slavery and "opportunity" for anyone to found (yes, as in "Founders #1") their own house of magic engineering. The Montagues and Capulets (okay, maybe Verona) have weaponized magic.

If ever a book were engineered to win awards, it's this one. It is entirely au coraunt with current trends in characterization, social justice, and representation. The author's viewpoint is certainly anti-capitalistic. His world reflects the hopelessness of a Dickens-like society and the salvation that self-achievement can bring. Like any great read, the book succeeds apart from its social justice mission.

And yes, although an important and complete chapter has been told, the book ends with the promise of a follow-on volume. I preferred City of Stairs's seeming standalone nature. (Even that became a Lecke-like trilogy in the end). I dislike dangling threads, which is what you get at the very last pages of Foundryside.

The book is written for adult readers but suitable for sophisticated teens who can handle the very adult issues of slavery, abuse, rape, and agency that thread throughout the book. There is plenty of philosophy to discuss and there is depth to explore, perfect for a bookclub read. Whether you like Bennett's politics or not, Foundryside is first and foremost an adventure. The rest is there for eyes who wish to see it.

Thank you Net Galley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.