Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Shorefall picks up around three years after the events of Foundryside, when a small crew stand up against the mighty, powerful families of the city, stop their evil plotting and strike out on their own. They have set up their own, independent scriving house, making magical machinery, and helping others to do the same. A bit like BrewDog, but without the financially dubious shareholder arrangements.
In this world, magic comes in the form of scriving - bending reality to make objects behave in a certain way (persuading a door it cannot open without a specific person being present, convincing an arrow it is falling, so must accelerate accordingly, albeit in a straight line, etc). Most of the book's plot and action centre around this, and it becomes quite draining, and a stretch at times. I forgave the first book quite a lot in this regard, because it was world-building, but this much world-building in a second book seems wrong. And the mechanics of it are so much like coding that that is all you can think of. At times it is like watching an episode of 24, but instead of following Jack Bauer's thrilling escapades, you are watching Chloe coding a macro to speed up her timesheets while being vaguely aware that something exciting is happening.
The book starts very strongly, we are in the company of Sancia and Orso as they appear to be down on their luck and having to sell their work to make ends meet. Cue: exciting espionage scenes as Sancia sneaks off to steal.
Sadly, this opening chapter in which we had no idea what was happening was the best one. So many times throughout the book the crew were on some mission or other for some reason, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what or why, and nor did I particularly care. The plot just seemed to be in a backseat with the world-building driving with no sat-nav. And so was character development, as all the main characters just completely plateaud and didn't change in the slightest.
In short, I found the book very dull and drawn out and the second half was a real chore.

I really enjoyed this sequel! The character development was fantastic and the action just didn't stop! This was a book that I just couldn't put down!

What an amazing second book. This exploded the world and really expanded the story in the greatest way. I love the characters development.

I loved the first instalment and this one is on equal ground. The writing is awesome, the characters are really good and the story arc is thrilling.
In my opinion it is even better as book one and the best book of the author.
I love the original ideas and how he blends fantasy with sci-fi.
If you liked the first book, the sequel is a must-read!

Further adventures in magical coding!




Shorefall! The second book in Robert Jackson Bennett's Founders trilogy, continuation of Foundryside - one of my favourite reads in 2018 - and one of my most anticipated sequels of the year. NetGalley, the magical land of books that people sometimes let me have to review, tells me that I have had Shorefall on my virtual shelves since April. Goodreads, the not-so-magical land of unintuitive, Amazon-approved book tracking, says I tried to start reading Shorefall at the beginning of June. The top secret high-tech nerds of a feather scheduling system thankfully does not keep track of how many times I have pushed this review back in our calendar, but I'm fairly certain I have done it at least three times, as I consistently failed to actually read the book. But at last, dear friends, at last I have succeeded in reading a book. Yes, I will accept your congratulations.

With that start, you might be concerned that I'm about to tell you that Shorefall is the kind of book that lends itself to being enthused over and then accidentally not picked up for the best part of six months. Luckily, this could not be further from the truth. Shorefall is another gem of a book, returning to the city of Tevanne for the adventures of Sancia Grado, escaped slave turned reluctantly-magical thief turned less-reluctantly-magical co-founder of an open source magic coding movement, and her fellow open source magic coding movement co-founders Orso (old, privileged but getting over it, kind of great), Gregor (recovering from some very bad magic stuff, cinnamon roll, also great) and Berenice (magic coding prodigy, Sancia's girlfriend, really great). Raising the curtains three years after the events of Foundryside, Shorefall sees the Foundrysiders plunged into stopping a dangerous figure from Tevanne's past, and in doing so pits them once again against the campo families who still control the vast majority of Tevanne's scriving (that's the magical coding) and thus its wealth.

Like the divine magic of The Divine Cities trilogy, the system of scriving in Foundryside and Shorefall is absolutely central to the book's worldbuilding, giving it not just a particular fantasy flavour, but its entire sociopolitical system and power structure. Because scriving in Shorefall relies on knowing the right sigils to convince reality to alter for the particular objects they are applied to (so, for example, a magical projectile might be convinced that when it's shot from a gun, the direction it starts travelling in is "down" and it should obey the laws of gravity accordingly), and more advanced structures need the right infrastructure to shift reality in an entire area, its easy for a few powerful families to remain on top by ensuring that their sigils remain a closely-held secret. In Shorefall, the protagonists have begun to challenge that power by offering new innovations and assistance to scrivers who are willing to donate their work to a library that's open to everyone who visits them, and a community of small-scale scrivers has begun to establish itself outside the control of the noble families; the opening chapters of Shorefall seem to suggest that this continued power struggle might be the source of the book's conflict, but it soon takes a backseat to the arrival of Crasedes, a hierophant resurrected from the earliest and most dangerous days of scriving, whose presence threatens the freedom of Tevanne itself. Unfortunately, the only tools the Foundrysiders have which are powerful enough to take on Crasedes are either bricked or very transparently pursuing their own top secret agendas.

Another reviewer of Foundryside noted that it's effectively fantasy with a cyberpunk plot, with its focus on the overwhelming inequalities between the campos and the commons and the particular plight of Sancia, who was experimented on during her time as a slave and left with "scrived sight", the ability to sense and effectively talk to scrivings in the world around her (sadly, Sancia's "hacking" is a little less Pratchett-esque than some of my favourite scenes in the first book, but there's still some delightful moments where she gets to debate with inanimate objects about the nature of reality). Those dynamics are present again in Shorefall, but this time the focus is far more firmly on unknowable ancient powers, with the representatives of the campo families shown as being equally unable to respond to the threat, despite their greater willingness to attempt to exert control or assume that the chaos might suit their agenda. It's great fun - especially since Crasedes' power is shown to become greater the closer to midnight it gets, giving the book a great cyclical tension structure as we watch each day go by.

In shifting the focus so far away from the internal power struggle in Tevanne, though, Shorefall does drift away from what felt interesting about the set-up in Foundryside, and its own opening: the tentative democratisation of knowledge and power, even as most of the structures of the old order persist. Instead of continuing to tackle that head-on, Shorefall instead throws the question over to rival ancients (saying "they are literally literal deus ex machinae!" feels really trite but... they kind of are), who offer proclamations on humanity's inability to change and offer solutions about what they want to do about it, but don't leave the humans themselves a great deal of agency to decide for themselves. This being a second book, there's clearly plenty of scope for these perceptions to be challenged by plucky humanity in a future volume, but the decision to shift the goalposts from "characters overcome obstacles to make things better for their society, right now" to "characters now need to overcome the turning wheel of human history for their success to be valid" is... interesting. As it is, the tension of Shorefall certainly kept me entertained, but it's left me with more to chew on than I anticipated.

This is a relatively small, high-level niggle, though, and in the grand scheme of things Shorefall provides everything I expected from this series, an adventure with some excellent characters (while I haven't gone into it here, all of the Foundrysiders come away with deeply satisfying - if slightly heartbreaking - personal arcs) which doesn't shy away from tougher questions about inequality, exploitation and marginalisation. This is a series that cements its author as one of my favourites when it comes to juicy secondary world fantasy, and its certainly not a book that deserved to get shoved to the back of my pandemic-addled brain for four months after I intended to start it.

Foundryside was one of my favorite books of 2018 and Shorefall was a great successor. Excellently woven story with great characters and a complex magic/science system that is critical to the story.

ARC copy was almost unreadable due to formatting problems so in order to give the story a fair go I waited until I could get a paper copy, which due to COVID-related stock issues took AGES. Worth the wait though.

Shorefall is the sequel to Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. It is set in a world where life revolves around the magical power of scriving objects. Scriving allows a person to rewrite reality for an object, for example, make a wheel believe it is rolling downhill so it continuously moves. This books takes place three years after the events of the first book.

I really like the characters within this book. I think they are my favourite thing about the book. The magic system is very clever and complicated. I did found that it sometimes went a little over my head. However the characters is the book really push the boundaries of what is possible.

Intrigued for the next book in the series as things really do hit the fan at the end of this book.

I don't know if this is due to the lockdown and general weirdness of 2020, or whether I have finally encountered a dud novel from Robert Jackson Bennett, but I truly did not have a great time with Shorefall. I noted in my review of Foundryside that the book would do it for someone, it just didn't do it for me and I stand by this assessment even now - certainly the glowing reviews seem to indicate that in this instance I am very much in the minority. But the things I had liked about the first book (scriving as a concept, the small but well-defined and interesting cast of characters, Tevanne itself as a living, breathing city) are now overshadowed by the same complaints I had about it (the "telling not showing", the interminable sequences of characters talking to each other about what they'll do rather than just doing the thing directly) as well as the feeling that this is a middle book through and through.

We start off three years after the events of the first book, with Gregor, Sancia, Berenice and Orso leading their own firm. Things are changing in Tevanne, some for the better but most just seem to stay the same. And now to Tevanne comes the threat of the first hierophant, Crasedes Magnus, who is bent on his destruction of humanity. It is up to the Foundryside crew to try and stop him, though not all is as it seems and everyone has an ulterior motive. With no one to really trust but themselves, the four are now locked in a battle against a foe they cannot even begin to understand, with stakes that go beyond just their mere lives.

On paper, this should have been an exciting sequel. Change has come to Tevanne but some are much worse off for it than others and overall it doesn't feel like the events of the first book have really made too much of an impact on the characters. Yes, they're now more successful, but beyond this, I didn't feel that anyone had matured at all and the three years could easily just have been three weeks or months. Sancia and Berenice are lovely in and of themselves, Gregor is still his troubled self and Orso remains belligerent, but beyond this... I really struggled with this one. The appearance of Crasedes is timely and he makes for a very excellent villain, with some moments of genuine horror as you're exposed to the first of all hierophants. He was, to me, the highlight of the book, which says a lot because I was way more interested in the villain than the whole crew of characters that the first book spent so long setting up. Bennett really shines as an author in the horror sections and it really makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

But even so, there is a lot of bloat in this book. I actually had to stop at one point and literally read another book because the plot was just so bogged down in the minutiae of characters talking and discussing and talking, all without anything interesting happening. I understand that to an extent trying to fool a character as powerful and as Crasedes is difficult without retconning his abilities or something, but so much of the book feels like a fetch quest of sorts. I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, I couldn't really care about their struggles or foibles and at times it was just plain boring. It's a real shame, because I enjoyed the Divine Cities trilogy a lot and I really, really wanted to love this book, but it didn't come together for me. The climax itself is bombastic, which isn't surprising if you've read Foundryside and the way everything plays out does feel like it should be a lot more connected emotionally. I should care about the choices some of these characters make at the end, I should care about their fates but honestly I just kind of don't. They don't enthuse me, I don't really care about their motivations anymore and things that used to be core to their character (Sancia being a slave, Gregor's troubled relationship to his mother, Orso's aspirations and hopes), just get mentioned in passing, without any real bearing on the main plot or without any kind of influence on what happens.

Will I read the final book in the series? I've come this far, so yes I will. But I'm not super excited and I really hope Bennett pulls something out of the bag to really make all this effort worthwhile.

This book follows on from the first book in the series, Foundryside. I really enjoyed the first book, and I've been waiting for the next book in the series to come out, so I was super excited to read Shorefall. I would say that you should read the first book in the series to get the full experience and enjoyment from this book, but I think you could still read and enjoy this book without any prior knowledge.

The heroes of the first book have formed their own scriving company to rival the merchant houses of Tevanne. Orso Ignacio, Sancia Grado, Gregor Dandolo and of course Berenice have become a little family and are enjoying their new found freedom and happiness. They are gearing up to wage a war against the current status quo in Tevanne, but suddenly they become aware of a terrible threat coming to Tevanne - a hierophant, one of the first and ancient users of scriving magic, is to be awakened and must be stopped at all costs. Can this modest band of scrivers save their city and all who live there?

The plot is clever and unravels with twists and turns, peril and much pain and determination of all the main characters. It brings together the history of the characters and the whole of Tevanne in general, and the history of scriving itself. That is really the main focus of the story in this book and there are quite a few bombshells dropped! The characters are so real and the scriving magic is so well described and thought out I find it almost believable. My favourite character is Sancia. I love how she has survived and made it to a better place, from being a slave to having some freedom and happiness in her life. I have enjoyed how her individual story has progressed over the series and how she has overcome so many things and helped others as well.

I really enjoyed this book. The author is a talented writer, as shown in this book in the intricate world and web of magic and characters he has created there. There is a full history and world that simply come to life in this series, and it is so unique and well formulated. I am such a fan of this series and I really can't wait to see how the story continues.

I've been eagerly anticipating Shorefall ever since I read and loved Foundryside early last year, it's been one of my most anticipated sequels for a while, and now that I've read it I'm sorry to say I was a little disappointed by it.

Shorefall picks up around three years after the end of Foundryside, where our disaster found family of Sancia, Berenice, Gregor and Orso are trying to find a way to put their world's magic system of scriving to use to topple the powerful families who are in power, and bring an end to slavery and the foul treatment of the poor.

Initially it seems like they're on their way to doing just that, and I really enjoyed the first few chapters of Shorefall because so much of it was just watching this group of characters that I love try and do right by their city and its inhabitants. Unfortunately for them, the Dandolos, one of the powerful families in the city of Tevanne, have other, rather dangerous plans. A plan that involves bringing back Crasedes, a god-like figure who could destroy Tevanne as they know it.

Now in Shorefall's defence, I probably could have helped myself out by re-reading Foundryside before I picked up the sequel; because it was pushed back it's been over a year since I read this first book, so there were a few times I felt a little lost and had to try and remind myself exactly what happened in the previous book.

Having said that, I think one of the main reasons I often felt a little lost while reading this book is because it's so much more fast-paced than Foundryside is, and I don't think that works in the novel's favour. In many ways it left me feeling like I was being rushed through a story which, with a little more time and nuance devoted to it, could have been a wonderful five star read. Not only that but, considering this novel is closer to 500 pages than 400, not an awful lot actually happened. The novel seemed to fall into a pattern of Crasedes doing something naughty, Sancia escaping, and repeat, and it was a little frustrating.

There were still some really interesting discussions in Shorefall about human nature and our relationship with power, and I actually liked Crasedes a lot - he's the kind of villain I love because he's a villain whose point of view you can completely understand, even if he is going about his goals in entirely the wrong way - but I don't think the subject of trauma was handled as well as it could have been.

The fact that Sancia was a slave is dealt with beautifully in Foundryside - the relationship between objects and people thanks to the magic system of scriving, and how some people will be treated like objects by the wealthy and mighty, is so brilliantly done - but in Shorefall I felt as though we lost a lot of that feeling. Gregor's entire arc was very sad and, to be honest, a bit of a bummer. I don't expect all of the stories I read to be happy, and something I love about Bennett's work is how he isn't afraid to put every single one of his characters at risk, but something about Gregor's story arc just doesn't sit right with me, and I don't think I can put the why of it into words.

That aside, I do love the relationship between Sancia and Berenice. They were so sweet in Foundryside and, now that three years have passed, it was so nice to see two women in a happy relationship, with no unnecessary romantic drama to spice the story up. They're here and they're queer, and I am here for it.

It's clear that Robert Jackson Bennett loves writing fantasy stories about gods, but, as of right now, I'd say he does a better job of it in his Divine Cities trilogy. Shorefall isn't a bad book, and I still enjoyed reading it, but I know it could have been amazing, and that's what's disappointing.

I will be reading the third and final book in the series, whenever it's released, but I can't say I'm as in love with this story as I was with Foundryside.

Cyberpunk fantasy is not a genre that should work, but Robert Jackson Bennet pulled it off with the fantastic Foundryside. The sequel, Shorefall, keeps the brilliant magic system, in which magical objects are essentially programmed with "scrivings", but ditches the heist structure for something more epic.

The larger scope didn't work as well for me, but I thought the villians were well written with convincing motivations. The ending clearly sets up for a third book, so I think this does suffer sightly as the middle of a trilogy, but only because Foundryside was so good. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

From Goodreads:
A while since I read the first one and was slightly nervous that I wouldn't remember this world. No fear - was given enough subtle reminders.
The fantastic world created continues to cast its spell - great to catch up with some great characters.
The basically the ability to change reality - in big and very small ways. So, there are no wands or hairy wizards.
The workings of the reality bending magic made my head hurt a lot in trying to keep up - but mostly in a good way.
A cracking lockdown read - excited for the 3rd.

I found this book (the second in the series) exciting to read, and liked following the progress of Sancia and her friends since they got together in the first book.

Sancia is always finding herself in awkward situations, she has for as long as she remembers. But at least now she has friends around her as she enters into the next crazy adventure. They are breaking into the Micheal campo in plain sight trying to succeed in the craziest theft ever thought of.

Meanwhile the Dandolo's are working on their own plans to improve their own situation. Plans which the troupe will need to look into and prevent if they want life to continue as it want it to.

Sancia will need to be on high alert as the Dandolo project is very interested in her too. And he is extremely dangerous. She does have help from a 'construct', of ancient design, who in turn wants help from Sancia. The construct 'Valeria' wants Sancia to destroy the Dandolo project, so that it can be free.

I was disappointed when the book came to its end and realised that I would have to wait until the third book is released to find out whether.. I can't tell you that! Sorry!

https://theworldsofsff.com/2020/founders-01-shorefall/
4.5*

ARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shorefall is the second book in the Founders series, following the wonderful Foundryside making it one of my most anticipated releases in 2020. Does it live up to its predecessor? In short, absolutely!

The story picks up around three years after the events in Foundryside and is still based in the city of Tevanne. As with Foundryside, Shorefall explores a wide variety of issues, such as power, oppression, slavery, rebellion and redemption, all in a unique world that relies heavily on scriving. I loved scriving in the first book and was not sure what Bennett could do to improve or evolve it, but he does. In the first book we learn a lot about how scriving is used in the world—it is the source of power for the elite houses, the source of oppression for those who live outside the campos, and is used in every aspect of life. Scriving takes another step forward in Shorefall, in the form of heirophantic commands, which we learned a little about in Foundryside. These scriving commands, which the heirophants refer to as permissions and privileges, are extremely powerful and fun to read and learn about. Though, I do not doubt their scope will increase in book 3.

I feel it is hard for me to discuss this book much without giving away spoilers, so this will not be a long review. For example, twinning is used in a completely new way, but I do not want to tell you how.

“But it is a regrettable thing that in order to fix a monstrous world, one must become a little monstrous in one’s own right.”

Besides the Foundrysiders (Sansia, Bernice, Orsa and Gregor), other key characters are Gregor’s mother and two powerful beings, Crasedes and Velaria. The combination of each of these characters provides the story with a lot of depth and multiple story arcs which conjoin and overlap beautifully—Bennett gradually drops information from past into the current-day story in Tevanne wonderfully well and it gets you thinking about humans as a species. I thoroughly enjoyed the dynamic created by Crasedes and Valeria, I found myself liking and disliking each at times, I could not decide who I’d have sided with or who I thought was the ‘good’ one.

The final thing I want to mention is the ending. I was sure, at parts through the book, I’d knew how it would end, but I was totally surprised with the ending or this part for the story, which is the followed by a few more chapters which setup the next book in the series wonderfully well. It is great when a book you enjoy have an ending you could not predict or envision.

This is a must read if you enjoyed Foundryside. If you have not read this series; I would advise you to do so.

“If the children of men cannot rid themselves of their predilection for slavery, then the children of men shall be made slaves themselves. If they cannot make the right choice, then it’s better to just remove the choice entirely”

I think this series is one of the most original I read in a long time.
I loved Foundryside and I loved Shorefall. Both are great books that keeps you hooked and you cannot put them down.
I was happy to meet again the cast of characters especially my beloved Sancia.
The world building is as amazing as it was in Foundryside and I love to lose myself in this fascinating world.
Mr Bennet is a great storyteller and did a great job with the character and plot development.
I can't wait to read the next story by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Well, that was scrumming spectacular.

I very much enjoyed the first in this series, even though the setting is more dystopian, and the body count higher, than I generally prefer. This second book is even better. You will definitely want to start with the first one, since it's essential backstory; in fact, I could have done with a few more reminders, since it's a little while since I read the first book and I'd forgotten a lot of the plot.

The magic system, in which "scrived" objects are convinced that the laws of physics are other than they are through what amounts to hacking the universe, is terrific, and reminds me of the best parts of the Eli Monpress series. Also like Monpress, it features an incredibly powerful and completely psychotic antagonist who must somehow be defeated by people who, on the face of it, are not equipped to do so, by means including clever heists, desperate fights, and committed teamwork by a collection of damaged and hurting characters whose hearts are nevertheless in the right place.

The over-the-top nature of the magic (and the corrupt merchant houses that largely control it) also reminds me of the best parts of Max Gladstone's books. And the spectacular set-pieces and the logical unfolding of the worldbuilding into plot and even character calls to mind the best of Brandon Sanderson.

At the heart of the book is some timely reflection (though when would it not be timely?) on using technology for connection with others rather than to gain power over them. It's not a new thought in SFF - there's something very similar in Sherri S. Tepper's <i>Raising the Stones</i>, for example - but it's one that bears repeating, and here it's well handled and important to the plot as well as the theme.

I have to say, I was hoping for a more upbeat ending. But this is clearly far from the end of the series, and I have to regard that as a good thing, even if it leaves our heroes in dire straits for now. Each of them has a chance to shine during the book, and an opportunity for self-sacrifice and personal growth, and they seize them with both hands. The good/evil divide is exactly where I think it should be: between the people who will sacrifice others to their vision of how the world should be (and coincidentally will end up on top if that vision is executed), and those who will sacrifice themselves for the common good and to do the right thing. And all of this is presented in capable prose with a minimum of stumbles.

Definitely one of the best books of 2020 for me.

I could not believe my luck when I received a copy of the book via NetGalley. Many thanks to the publishers. I was so excited, I even broke my own rule and abandoned the other book I was reading to tear through this. Totally worth it.

So, you could say I was pretty excited to read Shorefall, and it did not disappoint. If I hadn't been so eager, I would have re-read Foundryside beforehand to get myself up to speed, but that didn't affect my overall enjoyment. Robert Jackson Bennett in his marvelous way, was able to easily thrust me back into the world to Tevanne and the trials of Sancia, Berenice, Orso and Gregor. He has beautifully built on the relationships of the first book, particularly that of Sancia and Berenice, which feel real and satisfying and enhance, rather than impede the racing action. And I just love how the magic in this world is so matter-of-fact, so reasonable, that I frequently asked myself why I don't have any scrived objects in my daily life, because surely we can do that. Robert Jackson Bennett has made it so.

Loved this book, love everything this man writes. Cannot wait for more.

This is fast becoming one of my all time favourite series. It is so inventive and original, with great characters and fantastic set piece action sequences.

The Positives: I really enjoyed the evolution of the relationship between our four main characters. Three years have passed since the events of book one, and in that time, Sancia, Berenice, Orso and Gregor have formed a really tight unit trying to help the needy, while still retaining their essential character traits. As I said, an evolution. The antagonist here was absolutely fantastic - an incredibly flawed and frightening individual doing horrific things with the best of intentions. I also really liked the deepening of the lore of the Hierophants and the expansion of the scriving techniques and possibilities, making for some brilliant inventions. There is a depth of emotion in the novel that I wasn't expecting, with some incredibly poignant scenes. The plot is well constructed and while very much more focused on one specific event than book one, definitely no lesser in enjoyment factor. The writing is intelligent without ever feeling inaccessible and the concepts are brain-melting without ever being incomprehensible. All in all, this is a masterful piece of fantasy fiction and I now will be waiting impatiently for the next book in the series. Just brilliant!

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Following from 2018's Foundryside, Shorefall is a return to the city of Tavenne three years later. In the previous book, thief and ex-slave Sancia Grabo teamed up with Orso Igacio to disrupt the technology of scriving - the use of mystic sigils as essentially a coding language used to reshape reality. Long dominated by the monolithic merchant houses, scriving has now been opened up to upstart firms, dubbed the 'Lamplands', prompting conflict between the Houses.

Meanwhile, revolts continue in the distant slave plantations, the islands which are the other pillar of Tavenne's wealth and dominance.

As Shorefall opens, Sancia, her girlfriend Berenice, and Orso are embarking on their most audacious scam yet, intending to open up the library of one of the houses, the Dandolos, to the scriving community. Sancia's aim is to 'move carefully and bring freedom' but the gamble she's now engaged in looks anything but careful, and likely to upset the fragile ecosystem of Tavenne,

As with Foundryside, I really loved the way that Robert Jackson Bennett creates a consistent, logical basis for what is really a form of magic; turns it into a recognisable technology; and lampoons the excesses of the tech world as it it is used to drive something like a magical-industrial revolution. The basis of scriving is well worked out, clearly explained and hangs together logically. In Foundryside we saw its social and political consequences, which made an absorbing and entertaining story - in Shorefall (named for the annual carnival taking placed as a backdrop to this book) the story is perhaps closer to a familiar, fantasy plot as beings of power toy with the fates of mortals.

Scriving is, you see, all about authority, about control and privileges - in the sense of a system admin. It's about who has been granted, or has hacked, the ability to direct reality at a more or less fundamental level. The very existence of the more mundane scrivings manipulated by the houses and by the Lampland start-ups, point to the possibility of more subtle code, deeper sigils, root privileges.

You can guess how it goes - start meddling with this things and something will wake up. Or perhaps, you might want o wake it up because you think it will serve you? So behind the struggles in Shorefall perhaps there may be something else. We caught a glimpse of this in the previous book with the mysterious Valeria and with Sancia's "friend" the artefact Clef. But there is much more to be discovered.

I really, really enjoyed Shorefall. Robert Jackson Bennet doesn't give us a reprise of Foundryside - welcome though that might be, this is the tricky middle book of a trilogy and things need to move on. During the first third of Shorefall that's happening very quickly and the reader has to recalibrate expectations several times. You can almost hear the mechanism shifting, the scope widening, before the story attains escape velocity and roars away into a tense and conflict-filled finale which will change Tevanne forever. But it's not only about that conflict - Sancia, Berenice, Orso and of course Gregor are well realised, three dimensional characters with flaws and histories. They have things to lose, vulnerabilities and, especially at the start, a set of motivations and ambitions that just don't match h up to the cosmic scale of what happens here (there is one character who appears briefly who is on top of all that but does not play a large part in the story but I suspect we'll be hearing more from here in the final book).

Those vulnerabilities and histories mean there are dangers - not only physical but moral - to be faced, and choices in a world where things suddenly seem very murky. This is far from being a straightforward fight between Good and Evil - just as you'd expect from Robert Jackson Bennett.

A good and absorbing continuation of the Founders trilogy and I look forward to the third and final part.