FoundrysideShorefallLocklandsby Robert Jackson BennettPublished by Del Rey I first became aware of Robert Jackson Bennett about ten years ago with City of Stairs, the first of his The Divine Cities trilogy. Blown away by the mix of high fantasy and industrial technology, I quickly devoured the rest of the series.
More recently, I have been reading his latest series, Shadow of the Leviathan, which is an even more compelling combination of crazy fantasy concepts, political drama, and good old-fashioned whodunnits.
Bennett's thing is worlds where magical forces and god-like beings exist (or once existed) but the humans have tamed that magic into kickstarting a magic-industrial revolution with functioning economies, strong central governments, and the bureaucracies that come with these. His later books in particular really have a solid sense of place and have interesting things to say about how humans interact with technology, even if that technology is fantastical.
That's five books (the sixth has just been published) that I really enjoyed. Between these two trilogies, Bennett wrote The Founders Trilogy, and only now have I got around to reading them.
The Founders Trilogy is trash.
But it's a good kind of trash.
Like his other books, The Founders Trilogy is set in a world powered by magic some time after a cataclysmic war that wiped out civilization. Humanity has relearned the secret of "scriving", a written language that shapes the physical laws of any object inscribed with it, kickstarting an industrial revolution based on magic instead of steam. The main character, Sancia, is a thief from the slums of Tevanne, hired for a heist that nets her an impossibly powerful ancient artifact. The policeman assigned to track her down, Gregor, soon realizes that she needs protecting more than the owners need their world-ending artifact back, so they team up.
That synopsis covers about the first 80 pages of the first book - things rapidly spin out of control. As with Bennett's other works, the setting is the best part; you can just about feel the heat rising off the damp streets of Tevanne. But here the story is all action all the time.
If you have read a fantasy novel and thought, "Hey, if they can use magic to lift a boulder easily, why can't they lift themselves or each other?", then The Founders Trilogy has you covered. The main characters (and the bad guys) very quickly figure out what they can do, and by the end of the last book they are basically Superman, zipping around the skies in what amounts to magical mechs made from scrived metal as they fight gods on a floating city.
For something that starts with a single theft and an interesting critique of industrialization and capitalism, these books very quickly devolve into glorious mayhem with devious plots, arcane powers, and ancient beings that must be fought. All the while the good guys are coming up with new magically powered gadgets and occasionally B2B solutions in their secret startup incubator as they learn more about the magic system.
I have a high tolerance for ridiculous plots, but even I had to shake my head at some of the developments. But what makes the books an enjoyable experience is that the characters are distinct and easy to like even while they are doing unbelievable things. I did roll my eyes when some of the secret over-the-top tragic backstories were tearfully revealed.Nearly everyone in these books has an over-the-top tragic backstory. I get that most of the characters grew up in a slum, but come on. Even the rich bad guys have tragic backstories.
When I said The Founders Trilogy is trash I was being harsh. It is trash, but well-developed trash by an author who knows what he is doing and is not afraid to take his ideas to their logical conclusions, even if that might be a collective mind made up of hundreds of people fighting a god who can rewrite reality while controlling a continent's worth of zombies.