Great! A bit lighter in tone than the Divine City books but some dark stuff happens too. A cool magic system and an interesting setting, only a few viewpoint characters.

Just finished this absorbing read last night and am already anticipating the next in this new series! I’m always amazed when an author creates a world both familiar and alien at the same time—alien in this case meaning an ancient civilization that has left tantalizing clues and artifacts. I like a book where the characters stay true to form throughout—they grow, but none of the wishy-washy, falling-out-of-character nonsense. The characters in Foundryside are complex, yet simple—good or evil or trying to decide.... The main character, Sancia, is plucky, stubborn, resourceful, and a young girl to be reckoned with. She may not know exactly where she is going, but she sure as heck knows where she has been and is determined to be her own person in a world where she is simply trying to survive the day. The cast of supporting characters are strong and well-developed with distinct personalities and motivations who intricately interact with one another in this world of the “haves” and “have nots.” Sancia, I an hardly wait to meet up with you again!

I read 150 pages of this book, and simply didn't find any character development that helped me to care about the story line.

I was intrigued by the description of this book- and by the quotes from Brandon Sanderson and Tamora Pierce on the cover (two of my favorite authors). Foundryside follows Sancia, a mysterious thief on a job to steal a box. Of course, she looks inside, and ends up on the run for her life while carrying the item. I was a little slow getting into this book. It starts out just as another heist job. But the plot (and the action) soon speed up, and once I was about 15% in, I couldn’t put it down. It is slowly revealed that Sancia is located in a city ruled and run by four preeminent manufacturing companies called Tevanne. Tevanne has no laws outside the boundaries of each of the manufacturing compounds, which operate as fiefdoms within the city. These manufacturing companies produce items that are infused with magic- but not the wand-waving kind. I was very heavily reminded of the system of sygaldry created by Patrick Rothfuss in The Name of the Wind. It relies heavily on physics and logic, not so much unseen, unknown, mystical forces.

The “magic” system, called scrivings, quickly became my favorite part of the book. You see, Sancia, it is slowly revealed, has some unique abilities. And one of them allows her, and the reader, to “hear” the scrivings. I thought those parts of the story were particularly well done and entertaining. What would you say to your front door if it could talk? What would it say to you?

I also appreciated how we slowly learn more about the initially-mysterious Sancia. The peeks into her history come in dribbles and drabs, but I quite liked her as a character. I also enjoyed meeting the rest of the band (this is a caper after all, and no one can do it all alone). The slight possibility of a romance came as a wonderful surprise, and all of the characters had real personality.

The story ends quite abruptly, but leaves plenty of room for a sequel. I would recommend Foundryside to fans of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora and to those who appreciated the careful crafting and logic of the magic systems in books by Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss.

Reading Foundryside is like being in a dark room, and having the lights gradually tuned brighter, and then what is revealed in the light is far more disturbing than the unknown fears that lurked in the dark.

The primary POV for the story is Sancia, a world-weary young woman whose expert skills as a thief come at a heavy personal cost. She has unusual abilities that engage when she physically touches an object, allowing her to interact with the object and sense how to manipulate it for such things as climbing walls, picking locks and discovering if there is someone has been in a room. While these create unique opportunities, they cannot be turned off. As a result she never exposes her skin, and she never allows herself to be in contact with people. Even washing herself has this effect, and the use of these abilities fatigues her physically. She is alone, by choice mostly, and this is a miserable way to live.

The story gets started when Sancia is hired to steal an item, and her promised payment is to be introduced to the someone who she believes can cure her of these abilities. This is an offer she can’t refuse, and she quickly finds herself in the middle of a sinister plot that is far more involved and ancient than anyone realized.

We also see the story from Gregor’s perspective, a man whose primary purpose in life is to bring justice. He is loyal to his family, and chooses the path of integrity and what is right whenever possible. There is another supporting cast of characters who are all intriguing, and complex in their own ways.

The magic system that is so crucial to every aspect of their daily lives is actually a hybrid of magic and advanced technology. It works as objects are programmed to think that they operate in different ways than they normally do, causing bullets to travel much faster, doors become more secure, and people in special suits allowing them to fly. It is both extremely complicated, but written in a way that seems very natural and everyday.

This book is filled with likeable characters, witty and fun dialogue, and a plot that pulls you in with greater strength as the book races ahead. The last third of the book is extremely intense, and full of unexpected twists, and I was emotionally invested in where it would all end.

This book was a true joy to read, grabbed me early and didn’t let go until the end. I would easily recommend this book, and easily give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I'm not sure what initially prompted me to pick up Foundryside, but I'm glad I did. I turned out to be a really good fantasy with plenty of action and adventure. I look forward to the next book.

I received this free from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.
What a fascinating and interesting world Robert Jackson Bennett has created. If you have the right sigils to engrave on objects you can just about make them do anything you want. Very different magic system. Interesting characters. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

I DNF'd this book at 35%. The premise was interesting, but I found that I was not that invested in the story or characters. I may get back to it at some point.

This review posts on 10/3/18, 6:00 am.

Maybe you have heard of one of Arthur C. Clarke’s Laws, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”?

Foundryside is cyberpunk all the way with advanced technology controlled by the rich merchant houses while the poor, powerless masses and their underworld try to make do, but Robert Jackson Bennett creates a brilliant mash-up with fantasy where coding rewrites the laws of reality (i.e., magic). Plus, a good, old heist to shake things up a bit.

Foundryside is set in a post-apocalyptic and post-technological world called Tevanne that is also rather dystopic with capitalism at its worst. Tevanne is ruled by merchant houses, each have their own territory, and there is no unifying government or authority to appeal to. In between each territory are lawless ghettos for the rest who are unfortunate enough not to belong or work with the merchant houses. Each merchant house has power due to their technological ability called scriving, the ability to code objects that can contradict the laws of nature and reality. That is the status quo until a heist gets the action going, and readers can see how this world is both post-apocalyptic and post-technological when the past comes back to threaten the present.

A colorful cast of characters takes readers through this story. Sancia is the thief behind the heist and quite a few more. She has a dark past and a special ability to sense her surroundings, and she is desperate for the money from the heist. Captain Dandolo belongs to one of the merchant houses but wants to reform society, and he has his own dark past that has shaped him. Orso Ignacio has the top scriving position in one of the competing houses, is a genius but a bit of a jerk, and is obsessed with the technology of the past. Berenice Grimaldi is Orso’s capable assistant and a calm counterpoint to both Orso and Sancia. They are all connected by a living, talking key named Clef who is a mysterious relic from the past.



Bennett gives readers a well-written mash-up that has something to appeal to many. He offers an interesting premise, solid plot and twists, and develops an intriguing world and technology, character backstories, history, and politics. Scriving is a fascinating process that is essentially coding, and Bennett gets into sufficient detail of the system that takes it beyond "just magic." The characters are well-developed with plenty of chemistry, and the dialogue and interaction are lively, especially when they capture social differences, and, sometimes, quite LOL-humorous. This is the first book of a planned trilogy, and Bennett lays the groundwork for how the past society’s use of scriving led to their downfall, and their influence is far from dead or over.

Look for Foundryside in the VBPL Catalog. Try Robert Jackson Bennet’s other works, and keep an eye out for sequels. For more heists and cons in fantastical settings, try Artermis by Andy Weir and The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. Try Ian McDonald’s Luna series for more unusual societies, starting with Luna: New Moon (see review)

Review by Tracy V.

Foundryside
A Novel
by Robert Jackson Bennett
Crown Publishing
Crown
Sci Fi & Fantasy
This is hopefully the beginning to a series as it is perfect and ripe with more tales to tale. I immensely enjoyed the steam punk magic of it as well as the parallels with society and people. I would highly recommend this to any one that likes good fantasy as well as sci fi and look forward to the next book which I hope does come out

Sancia Grado is a thief. She's a very good thief, in fact. So good that she gets hired to sneak past multiple guards at the Tevanne docks and steal a magical artifact. And she does -- but she never realized how important and dangerous an item she was stealing. Now powerful people want her dead. She has two choices -- die, or learn to harness magic to save herself. Guess which one she picks?

This book is amazing! I love Sancia as a main character. She is intelligent, cunning and feisty. But...she still gets in over her head. Totally over her head. But, she's wily enough to do whatever she can to get herself out of trouble...which leads to more trouble, of course. This book has engaging characters, an entertaining plot and lots of creative story-telling. Loved it!

Foundryside is an excellent start to a new fantasy series. I will definitely be reading more! Robert Jackson Bennett has written several books including Mr. Shivers and the Divine Cities trilogy.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Crown Publishing via Netgalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

The main character of this book is Sancia Grado, a young thief who works for hire. Her current mission is to break into a safe and steal a box. The contents of this box cause her and her world a lot of trouble. Sancia has some special talents. For example, she can read stones and other objects by touching them and she can hear scrivings. Scrivings "were instructions written upon mindless objects that convinced them to disobey reality in select ways." These are the primary focus of the book.

I loved the author's previous trilogy that started with "City of Stairs" so I was really looking forward to this new book. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by it, and if anyone else had written it I would have stopped reading pretty early on. The book consists of a series of heists, followed by chase scenes and punctuated by fights. I was very bored by all the breaking and entering, despite the use of magic. These escapades are interrupted by lengthy descriptions of the complicated magic structure. While the magic is intriguing, there is very little other world building. I have no idea how (or when) people live, what their world looks like or how it fits into a larger world.

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher. However, after weeks of failing to get interested in it, I finally managed to finish it by borrowing the audio book from the library. I will probably try the next book in the series, but my expectations are not very high.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book had so much hype around it.
"Oh, it's going to be the next big fantasy!"
"Oh, it's so good!"
"Oh, the world-building is amazing!"

It took me a while to even get into it, so all that hype seemed like mush to me. It felt very Sanderson, almost to the point of being a melding of Mistborn and Stormlight Archives and feeling a little rip-offy (yes, I made that word up. stop interrupting!)

Then I decided to set that thought aside and give it a shot. And it went crazy! While it *is* reminiscent of Sanderson, the author has created his own unique magic system, developed a really interesting world, and introduced us to a very interesting cast of characters with depth. Most importantly, the story was FUN -- well, at least for the reader. The poor characters probably wouldn't have said any of it was fun at all.

Also, there was an unexpected but very welcome LGBT+ budding relationship that built over time, didn't feel forced, and I can't wait to see where that goes as well.

Trigger warning: There is a character who, umm, takes what he wants from women on every level (and to be fair, he does what he wants in every situation, no matter what, not just in getting what he wants from women) without care of morality or consequence. But he gets his. ;)

World-building and characterizations are superb in this fist book in the Foundry Trilogy. Combining non-stop action with like-able characters set in a steampunk-ish industrialized society where magic is liken-to computer coding and is used to make inanimate objects operate in ways that defy physics and normality; opens up a world of warring factions. The mostly lawless world is ruled by Merchant Houses that each seek to control. An ancient artifact has been found that could give the holder ultimate control and a thief has been sent to steal it. The story is about power it's use and misuse to gain supremacy. This is a fascinatingly intricate and enjoyable read. The author is a master story craftsman.

I enjoyed the book and think that Bennett has such amazing vision for magic systems and stories. I cannot feel a bit disappointed by this book when I think about it in comparison to Bennett's other series. It makes me a bit conflicted about aspects of this book that I both loved and didn't quite like as much.

On one hand, I love Bennett's writing and his ability to think of interesting ways to play with magic systems and call into question how similar are/can happen in our own world. With that being said, I felt that this book was a bit predictable. I figured a lot of the twists of the book out before they were revealed and that took a bit of enjoyment out of the book.

Bennett does an amazing job in this new release, the novel keeps you entertained and is delivered in Bennett's unique style. As always the character development in exceptional and helps the reader to understand this new age and how the world works in Foundryside.

Short Summary: In the city of Tevanne, a thief gets embroiled in more than she bargained for when she steals an item of imaginable power and the individuals she stole it from will stop at nothing to get it back.

Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed American Elsewhere and absolutely planned on reading Bennett’s The Divine Cities trilogy, but Foundryside fell in my lap first and, oh man, Bennett is such a spectacular storyteller. Everything from the world building to the characters to the magic was vividly imagined, felt fresh and new, and was incredibly thrilling to read.

Verdict: I never would have thought I’d say that a talking key was my favorite character in a book but a talking key was absolutely my favorite character in this book. I LOVED this and I’m so anxious for the continued stories in this fascinating world.

3.5 stars. Foundryside started very strong for me. I was instantly intrigued and enamored. It had all the aspects that I typically love in a Sci-fi/Fantasy series. A well-established world with a long and tumultuous history, an enigmatic lead character with a seemingly insurmountable problem, and a team of amusing supporting characters to round out the story. And I was hooked. Until I hit the middle of the book and suddenly found myself not wanting to pick it back up. So I procrastinated and it took me forever to finish it. The excitement did pick back up in the end, but the story just didn't take the direction I thought it would. I have a feeling, however, that this will be one of those series where the second book is better than the first, when the world and characters are firmly established and the real fun can begin.

You know that Jif Peanut Butter commercial? The one where the kid absolutely looses his mind every time he takes a bite because it’s soo good and every bite is like the first? Well, I absolutely hate that commercial but that irritating kid nailed it when it comes to how every page turn felt when I was reading this book.

This book blew me away. Right from the very beginning I was hooked. Usually I have two or five books on the go and they all have their own time to be read but I dropped everything for this one. The world and the characters Bennett has built are so incredibly complex but also so amazingly mind blowing that I just could not look away. Who knew that a magical, industrialized world complete with sentient inanimate objects would be JUST what I needed? I took this book with me everywhere and regret nothing!

One thing I really loved about this book was the character development. Although I wasn’t immediately drawn into Sancia, Gregor or Orso, as they, and their relationships with each other, grew in the story I found myself rooting for them more and more. Clef is now probably my most favorite character in any book and I need more of him (please?)!! I loved him immediately.

My only criticism with this book was the introduction of a romantic possibility. While I am normally all for a little tension and even some tasteful sexy time in the books I read (I normally encourage it actually), I didn’t think it was necessary here and found it didn’t really fit in with the general tone of the rest of the book. Maybe the author is simply setting the stage for something in the next book but I thought it was a little awkward, if I’m being perfectly honest.

I think that Foundryside has all the makings for an amazing new fantasy series and I can not wait to see what Robert Jackson Bennett has in store for Sancia and the crew next!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Crown, for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The best word I can come up with to describe this book is...interesting. The world of Foundryside was so very interesting. The magic system and the inner workings of this world read almost sciencelike in the attention to detail and the inventiveness with which they are wrought. In this world, reality can be melded in different ways by people who know how to do so, inanimate objects can be given commands to do things that go against their very nature. Wheels can be designed to continuously move for a driverless ride because they “think” that they are constantly moving downhill, doors can be designed to only permit certain people entry, and simple weapons can be rendered to have extra gravitational effect---launching themselves with deadly speed and accuracy. The usage of physics and technology in the descriptions for this fantastical world really made it feel almost like a blending of fantasy and science fiction to me.

All of this magical technology is operated through the use of scriving, which works via complicated codes drawn in sigils on items in order to create alternate or multiple usages for that item. The use of scrived objects and technologies has contributed to create a capitalist environment in this city, known as Tevanne, where the wealthy exist inside the different Merchant House compounds and everyone else is relegated to the outskirts of the city, surviving in the Commons. When we meet the main character, Sancia, she is a resident of the Commons and a very accomplished thief, about to take on her most intricate theft ever. Sancia has the unique ability of being able to listen to scrived objects and sense them, amplifying her abilities as a thief even more.

Sancia successfully steals the item in question, which then projects her into the middle of a plot that she had absolutely no interest in being in. Suddenly her life is at stake and she is wielding one of the most powerful artifacts anyone in Tevanne has ever encountered. In the midst of trying to save her own life and the existence of this sentient object she now holds, Sancia is introduced to a whole cast of characters, both good and bad, who try to unravel the truth of what is happening all around them.

I genuinely enjoyed the characters in this story and the magic system that revolved around this world. I appreciated how well thought out scriving and it’s many uses was, as well as the added depths to it that we learn about later in the story. All of this...and yet there was something about this story that just did not draw me in as much as I wanted it to. I would be enjoying what I was reading, but the minute that I put it down it was such a struggle to pick back up. I feel really torn about this because it was truly such a unique fantasy world and concept, and there are parts of the story that I want to continue but parts that felt like a drag to me as well. So I ended up knocking this down to 3 stars, but it’s truly more like 3.5 because I did really appreciate the world building in this. I just couldn’t get totally into this story and I think maybe it just wasn’t right for me, but I know there are plenty of people out there who are going to truly love this unique plot and magical system!