SHOREFALL
by Robert Jackson Bennett
Del Rey Books
April 21, 2020
From Goodreads:
The upstart firm Foundryside is struggling to make it. Orso Igancio and his star employee, former thief Sancia Grado, are accomplishing brilliant things with scriving, the magical art of encoding sentience into everyday objects, but it’s not enough. The massive merchant houses of Tevanne won’t tolerate competition, and they’re willing to do anything to crush Foundryside.
But even the merchant houses of Tevanne might have met their match. An immensely powerful and deadly entity has been resurrected in the shadows of Tevanne, one that’s not interested in wealth or trade routes: a hierophant, one of the ancient practitioners of scriving. And he has a great fascination for Foundryside, and its employees – especially Sancia.
Now Sancia and the rest of Foundryside must race to combat this new menace, which means understanding the origins of scriving itself – before the hierophant burns Tevanne to the ground.
Thanks to the good people at NetGalley and Del Ray Books for providing me with an eGalley in exchange for an honest review.
So, this is book two of The Founders Trilogy, and now I need book three. Now. Right now. Go ahead, RJB. I’ll just sit here and wait. *checks watch, looks around for 3 seconds, checks watch again* Okay, maybe I can’t just sit around waiting for it, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to keep living on in quarantine without the next book!
What was so good about it? Well, I’m glad you asked. My answer is simple. Everything.
It’s these characters!
In the start of book one, I didn’t know how to feel about any of them. Who am I supposed to like, and who do I hate? Who’s a good guy, who’s a bad guy? By the end, I still didn’t really know who was good or bad, but I loved them all. This rag tag group of survivors continue doing the one thing they seem best at: surviving while cutting you with sarcastic quips.
Between Foundryside and Shorefall, our cast of characters have been busy. They’ve been building. Creating a life for themselves that is part of what they used to be and partly something new. Their relationships have developed into something deeper and more meaningful and they’ve all changed a little as people. And none of this is given in an info dump. It’s something you see for yourself as the pages turn.
It’s this magic system!
This might be my favourite magic system I’ve ever read. RJB takes the time to acknowledge the science of how things work just before he shows you how the rules of physics, time, distance are snapped in half for our enjoyment. It’s not quite magic and science working hand-in-hand, but I’m a reader who really appreciates when science is addressed.
It’s this writer!
Robert Jackson Bennett might be a poet with prose, but I couldn’t tell you. Not only because I wouldn’t trust myself to make such a bold distinction, but also because I was relentlessly pulled through the pages without the time to look at sentence structure, style of prose, or choice of words. RJB is effortless to read. As someone who often stops dead in the middle of a page to ask myself, “why would the author use that word?” I can’t recall a single thing making me stop to ask myself anything.
It’s this trilogy!
When I found myself near the end of the book, and thinking I had reached the books ending, I felt a little disappointed. It was a better ending that I had read in a lot of books, but it wasn’t the kind of ending I expected after Foundryside. But the thing is, that wasn’t the ending. I turned the page, the ending began, and I could barely hold on to my seat! Chaos isn’t a wild enough word.
Shorefall takes everything you knew from reading Foundryside, and changes it all. You think you know the characters, and they change. You think you know the magic system, and it expands. You think you know Tevanne, and it sheds its skin and becomes something new.
RJB, if you happen the read this, just tell me what I need to do to get book three out of you. Keep in mind that the law frowns on human sacrifice. I’m not saying it’s off the table, just know the part about the frowning.
Great review! I really need to pick up this series!
(www.evelynreads.com)