Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is excellent, well written with a unique magic system and world building, interesting characters, lots of action, and feels-real conflict.
Characters
Good fantasy needs good characters, people we get to know, people we want to succeed, people we believe could be real. The best character is Orso, the inventive genius behind much of his city’s and his employer’s success. Orso is funny yet determined. He’s loyal up to a point, and that point changes from time to time. He turned his back on his first employer (for good reasons) then we watch him working to help his current employer, the Dandalo merchant house, finally to leave Dandalo to form his own house to save his life and that of dozens of others.
Sancia, the main character and heroine, is a little too successful and survives far too much danger to be believable. She is a thief, extremely talented in part because she can touch a building and learn everything about it and who is inside.
Sancia loathes this ability because it comes from a horrific ritual that put a metal plate inside her head. Sanchia escaped the island where she was enslaved, and came to Tevanne where she survives by stealing and by her wits and strength. She is a little over the top, for instance she survives dangers that would instantly kill anyone else. She changes from solely worried about survival to worried about other people, about the rest of the world and the dangers that she and Orso and the others are trying to head off.
Magic System
The magic users in Tevanne use commands, written in a language they do not really understand, to alter reality. They create self-propelled carriages by convincing the wheels that they are going down a hill or support buildings by convincing rotten timber that it is foundation stone, dug deeply into the earth.
I’ve not seen this approach before; it is somewhat like artificial intelligence because it uses language to create the outcome in the real world. People in Tevanne create a complete society based on this magic and the “Foundry” part of the title refers to the merchant houses using foundries to produce these magic items.
World Building
The world itself is presented as-described, but it is a world that could not possibly exist. Sancia shows us campios – the protected, secure enclosed cities where the merchant houses live and operate – and the Commons where everyone else lives. Yet the merchant houses apparently buy and sell their production to someone. But who is there to buy?
A city or a world must have people produce food, others produce tables and chairs and houses and clothes, others entertain and others operate stores. Yet we don’t hear about any of this. Sancia would not herself be interested in these enterprises (other than to steal from them) which excuses the books blank spots on where the food comes from and who are the customers who are not themselves in Campios yet able to purchase goods from them.
(I always wonder about the economics and commercial underpinnings of imaginary worlds. The best imaginary worlds make and inspire a sense of awe.)
Writing
Bennet writes well with good pacing and he provides anchors to the scene when he switches point of view. We know we are with Orso or with Sancia or any of the other point of view characters because he shows us that right at the beginning of each scene. This shows real talent because he does not use the “Well Bob,….” dialogue technique where the narrator clues us in but shows clues with the setting.
There will be sequels. The book ends without a cliffhanger but with many loose ends and open problems that must be fixed.
Overall
I’m not sure whether to give Foundryside 4 stars or 5. I certainly enjoyed it and the story is novel, interesting, the characters good except that Sancia is a little too over the top. Oh, let’s be generous and go with a 5!
I got an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon links are ads that pay commission to blog owner.
Leave a Reply