Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle.

  But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic–the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience–have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims.

  Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them.

  To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

Prior to reading Foundryside, the only book I’d read by Robert Jackson Bennett was his recent nightmare-fuel novella, Vigilance. And while the two books don’t share much in common, they are testament to the fact that Bennett is an obscenely talented & versatile writer.

I fucking loved every single thing about this book! From the outset, Foundryside just drew me into this strange & dangerous & magical world. I feel like this is honestly one of the most balanced fantasy novels I’ve ever read. While Bennett occasionally veers into some very dark territory with this one, there’s also a great deal of humor, and this pervasive sense of fun & adventure. The tone of this novel just spoke to me on every level!

Our main character is Sancia Grado, a thief living in the city of Tevanne. With just a few exceptions, Sancia keeps to herself. She owns almost nothing, and lives in a dangerous part of the city, Foundryside. Sancia has a special talent, one that helps a whole lot with the thieving…she can sense a great many things about the environment she’s in. For instance, she could press her hand up against a brick wall and almost hear its thoughts, and sense where a weakness in the wall may be.

So much of the magic system in Foundryside has to do with inanimate objects, and the ability to communicate with, or manipulate them. It’s called scriving, and it’s…complex. Confusing at times, even for the characters. The long and short of it is, specially trained scrivers put intricate markings upon inanimate objects, and are then able to “convince” that object to behave in a way different from what you’d expect. It’s almost like a fantasy novel version of coding. The best example (I think) in the book concerns weaponry…put a scriving on an arrow, and convince it that it’s actually falling down towards earth, picking up speed via gravity. The results of these types of scrivings are…gruesome.

The world building in Foundryside is fucking meticulous…you really feel like you are there. There are four Merchant Houses, each one walled off from the rest of Tevanne, creating clear lines between the haves & the have-nots. There are different sections to the city on Sancia’s side of these walls, each with a unique identity. But it is essentially lawless on the “wrong” side of those walls.

There’s so many moving parts in this story, but it’s never overwhelming or confusing. Bennett gives you just enough to grasp the concept of scriving, and as I mentioned, the characters themselves don’t fully understand it.

The cast of characters in Foundryside is diverse & delightful. Each one of them feels incredibly layered & complex…the always-cantankerous Orso, the brilliant & blunt Berenice, and oof…Gregor Dandolo. Positioned early in the novel to be Sancia’s opposition, he proves to be so, so much more. He & Sancia are the two main POVs in the book, and each one of them is more than a bit haunted by their past. The moments where these two look to their past to better understand their present are the bleakest, darkest moments in this book.

Foundryside captivated me entirely. That feeling when you just cannot wait to get back to reading your book…that’s the best feeling, no? That’s what Foundryside did for me. I sailed through this book at a much quicker pace than I ordinarily read at, because I just couldn’t get enough of this story, this world, and these characters. Foundryside is thrilling, unique, and remarkably well written. DYING for any news about the next book!!