How to review Locklands? A question for the ages. How do you review a book (or even the entire series, if we’re honest) which blew your mind? It’s a difficult prospect.

Locklands opens up about a decade after the end of Shorefall and you’re thrust right back into the action. In the interests of keeping this review spoiler free, there’s not a whole lot I can say about the plot. But it’s not a plot that waits for you to catch up. It doesn’t hang around and summarise just what’s been happening in these years, you’re expected to pick it up as you go along. And Robert Jackson Bennett is an author who does the balance between telling you enough and letting you infer the rest so well.

As with the previous two books in the series, it’s the characters who drive a lot of your interest. That’s not to say that the plot is at all slow—as I said before it throws you in there straight away—but the reason you care about any of it at all happening is because of the characters. In this one, Sancia and Berenice take centre stage, with some POVs for Clef and an initially unnamed figure. The characters are as vibrant and fleshed out as ever, as they have been from the first book, and it was so much fun to come back to them again (also painful, but that’s another matter).

But, character-wise, what I especially loved about this book related most to Crasedes and Clef, actually. After the reveal of Shorefall, you get to find out more about them in this one, about their past especially and about how they came to be as they are now. And, honestly, I think it safe to say I never expected that Crasedes would have my favourite character arc of this book (possibly even of the series).

An underlying core of this series has been about family, I think. Firstly, Sancia with Berenice, Orso and Gregor forming her own family in books one and two, and secondly, with Clef and Crasedes (and [redacted]) in the final book. I didn’t duck out of studying English literature for no reason, so I’m not going to embarrass myself by attempting to elaborate, but there’s something about SFF books where the underlying themes are about human connection that just hits different.

In all, then, if Foundryside is a series that you haven’t yet picked up, I would urge you to do so right away. It’s the perfect timing, with book three upcoming, to get yourself absolutely wrecked over this world.

This is the final book in Robert Jackson Bennett's The Founders Trilogy and it did not disappoint. A brilliant series so far with an imaginative world and very likeable characters. Without spoiling anything about this book, it manages to have a fulfilling ending with plenty of twists and reveals. It feels like Bennett's writing just gets better and better with every new release. If you haven't read anything of his yet, I would highly recommend.

Wow that was too much emotion. Standing ovation for the finale. Terrific work.

The first instalment took me by surprise, I instantly took to Sancia and Cleft. The support cast where also very likeable and the bad guys were fleshed out. Now the finale has completed the series and Sancia is a hero that we all need.

There’s only a few books that I feel I am competent engrossed in the characters and can visually see them as real people and know what choices they’d make. This is one of them, very well written. I don’t want to say too much as it’s the final book and most of the story will be spoiler territory.

5/5 stars I encourage fantasy readers to dive into this series.

Aunque la trilogía de los Founders empezó con un brillantísimo primer libro, para luego perder algo de fuelle en la segunda entrega, tenía bastantes esperanzas depositadas en la finalización de la trilogía. He de reconocer que en este libro vuelve a subir el nivel, pero no es el final épico que esperaba.


Han pasado ocho años desde Shorefall y Berenice, Sancia, Clef y los demás han organizado la vida de los que consiguieron huir de Tevanne utilizando todos sus conocimientos de la magia mediante la escritura para idear protecciones contra un ser que posee los cuerpos de muchísima gente.

Me ha parecido muy pero que muy original el uso de la mente colmena a lo largo del río, creo que en el mundo de la fantasía es la primera vez que me lo encuentro, no así en la ciencia ficción donde es un recurso más utilizado. También conoceremos más del pasado del algunos de los protagonistas, que hasta ahora había quedado oculto.

Sin embargo, el desarrollo de la acción que busca asombrarnos con las apuestas cada vez más altas se queda en un discurso grandilocuente pero vacío de contenido, porque las fuerzas que se enfrentan son tan poderosas, tienen tanta facilidad para modificar la misma realidad que al final pueden hacer lo que desean. El lector asiste al espectáculo de fuegos artificiales, pero no se encuentra inmerso en él en ningún momento. Quizá sea debido a la ingente cantidad de explicaciones sobre el sistema mágico y sus aplicaciones, o a que los enemigos que se enfrentan están tan por encima de la realidad que resulta difícil aprehenderlo.

Por otra parte, me parece maravillosa la relación entre Berenice y Sancia, cómo ha ido evolucionando con los años, y cómo son capaces de sacrificarlo todo por el bien común. Son un contraste tan grande respecto a los otros seres ultrapoderosos que pueblan el mundo que consiguen brillar con luz propia.

Creo que la trilogía merece la pena, aunque me parece una oportunidad perdida por parte del autor porque tras un comienzo fulgurante, ha ido perdiendo algo de chispa en las siguientes novelas.

After the HUGE downer ending of Shorefall, I couldn't wait to read Locklands, and I wasn't disappointed! This book is epic- and I don't mean in the slangy, it's great way, I mean it takes on huge, operatic themes and vast expanses of space and time, and uses them as energy to power through to a very human climax that fits perfectly with the themes of redemption, love and loss that Bennett has been talking about all through the series.

It's written well, too- one of the things I love about Bennett as a writer is his ability to take mind bending scale and turn it into compelling, almost cinematic set pieces, and that's fully in evidence here. Mountains fall, the sea drains, reality does backflips, and it's all, for the most part, easy to follow and imagine, which is no mean feat. The human drama, too, with Sancia and Berenice, is compelling, though I feel like it suffered a little compared to the huge tricks of reality-bending going on around them. Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book- enough to give myself a raging headache reading the second half in mostly one sitting!

A powerful conclusion to an excellent trilogy.

This is high-concept fantasy, different from anything you'll see elsewhere. The characters are living in a universe which allows certain skilled people to "scrive" it, to magically convince parts of the universe that they are somewhere different, or the same as another thing (allowing something like the Law of Contagion to operate, where something done to one of the pair happens also to the other), or denser, or affected by gravity in a different way, or changed in various other ways. The author takes this promising premise and thoroughly delivers on it, coming up with remarkably clever uses for his unique magic system.

On the one hand, there's a powerful thread of action, in which the ensemble cast struggle desperately against a vastly powerful being which arose in the previous books and is dominating thousands of people, turning them into, effectively, its drones, and sacrificing their lives to power "edits" to reality. Its mad goal is to find an entrance to a place where it can access the laws of the universe directly and... they're not initially sure what it will do then, but it won't be good. There are frantic and suspenseful battles using unique magical technology and clever strategy, causing destruction on a vast scale, and there are cunning infiltrations and heists using other imaginative applications of the magical tech.

Meanwhile, the characters are torn between their duty to protect the world and their desire to live normal lives with the people they love. And everything is complicated and made more awesome by a technique they've discovered which enables people to be joined mentally in teams or larger groups, some of which have taken on collective personalities and important roles in the new society they're improvising. They don't have a single leader, which makes it very difficult - and that's how they know they're doing it right.

Between the high concept and the skilled execution, I had no hesitation in calling this a five-star book. It's not perfect - the author could use the verb "hurtle" about 60% less often, for example, though he does at least use it correctly and not confuse it with "hurl". And even though I read the previous book only about six months ago, I could have done with a bit more subtle reminder of some of the characters and their relationships; Claudia, in particular, was a bit of a cypher to me, since I'd forgotten her backstory and it didn't get much replay. It's still very, very good.