Still holds up on the 2nd read, I missed this book! Need to write a full review. ( )

When the key starts talking, I hear a stand-up comedian. Something in between Eddie Murphy and the crustacean in that Disney movie with the Ariel story minus the death and sadness. Keeping in mind that the key in question is an ancient sentient artifact, and that the world in which it exist is a mix between Renaissance Venice and Ayn Rand's idea of heaven with magic, I hope you'll forgive me for putting the book down, kinda forever (no, I am not honest here. If I find a hardcover copy for free, I may use it to prop my tablet.)
I should have seen it coming. The walled, guarded waterfront from where nobody could escape short of a daring, dangerous, ingenious master plan going perfectly... Oh look she threw a magic version of a bomb in the yard and, of course, all the guards including their cunning, famous boss run to the explosion, leaving the entrance, well, unguarded. After the boss himself had heard something suspect in the SAFE vault. Yeah sure, Jane. This was the second scene of the first chapter. I should never have made it to the part with the talking key.
A pity, though. The idea of industrialised magic based on reality overwriting was extremely cool, which is why I kept reading after noticing:
- the juvenile use of language
- the improbable plot-solving mechanisms (see bombs in the yard) already abundant in the first ten pages (whoa)
- the total lack of flesh on the bones of the setting: we are TOLD that the city looks like this and that, never SHOWN
- the Katniss-copycat heroine (aaaargh). Sorry guys, I grew up reading adult literature since I was too young to do a lot of other things, even by problematic teenager standards. No YA in this house.

That key talking like that, though, was too much. I give in. What a waste. ( )

I'm obsessed. This book is like "Inception" meets "Six of Crows" meets "The Lies of Locke Lamora" and it was everything I feel like I'd been craving to read lately! The magic system is complex and unique, the mystery element has these great sneaky layers to it, and the characters are so wonderfully fleshed out and human. The whole story is just chock full of mayhem and chaos that drags you right down into the depths of it and holds you there. Like, things get so batshit wild and I was livinggggg for it. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy! ( )

Very good book. It has a Sandersonian magic system, and is well thought out (although it is more flexible than a Sanderson system, so the things that can happen are less strict). I had some trouble relating to the characters at first. Sancia is likable, but I had the feeling she didn't have very strong attachments to anyone. I guess she is supposed to feel strongly for her colleague, but it doesn't really come through. And Gregor is an insufferable smug bastard. I hated him in the beginning, with his lofty high ideals that he then applies to someone from the slums. I was disgusted by it. He says himself he has to start somewhere, but I think justice would demand starting at a place where people commit horrors to better themselves instead of committing crimes to survive.
Fortunately, he becomes more palatable as the book progresses, and the other characters also become more relatable.
I liked the tentative start of a lesbian relationship. ( )

I'm giving this five stars because I recognize Bennett's style now and I know that the book is the opening salvo in a much bigger world. I expected the book to be the floor and the frame of magnificent house and that's exactly what I got. ( )

I realy adored this book. The first adult fantsy book that i not only came near tears in but engagded me from start to end. I really loved the world builidng and the magic system in this read!! It was a well crafted world. As a new adult fantsay reader, this book had so many elements that i love, a fun unque character, a rag tag bunch of heroes, many POV and also heist at the heart of this read. I really loved the plot of this book and am dying for book 2!! ( )

I realy adored this book. The first adult fantsy book that i not only came near tears in but engagded me from start to end. I really loved the world builidng and the magic system in this read!! It was a well crafted world. As a new adult fantsay reader, this book had so many elements that i love, a fun unque character, a rag tag bunch of heroes, many POV and also heist at the heart of this read. I really loved the plot of this book and am dying for book 2!! ( )

Almost 5 stars, lots of fun, interesting ideas, just feels a little derivative ( )

This is an interesting book that is far far far too wordy. I found myself reading the center paragraph on each page and skipping ahead even from that when too many pages were about the same event or conversation. I don't think I lost any substantive info with those jump. Eventually I looked down and saw that I had gotten to only 22% and I quit.

Again, it's not that the story isn't interesting, it's that there is too much of it. If you need to read a long book for some reason, this one would do nicely.

I received a review copy of this book through NetGalley.com. ( )

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-founders-trilogy-by-robert-jackson-bennett/

I very much enjoyed Bennett’s previous Divine Cities trilogy; this is a different fantasy world, but one where magic and machinery intersect according to a series of complex rules. So often in books like this, worldbuilding stops at the point where the writer needs it to in order to drive the plot; I really don’t get that sense here, I feel that the writer is playing fair with us all the way through, and the barriers that the characters face because of how the world has been created don’t seem artificial. There’s also a good spectrum of emotional engagement, romance, parent-child dynamics, deep and committed friendships; and Bennett’s not afraid to kill off important characters as he goes. And the sense of place is very well realised, whether it’s a cityscape, a blasted heath or a vast natural fortress. ( )

The magic system in this universe is very well done. Basically, you warp an object’s reality to make it do what you want. It works a bit like computer programming, with some real science behind it. My nerdy heart was happy!

It seemed a pity to spend all this lovely world building on heist after heist after heist after heist, and capture/escape/repeat. I think I would also enjoy a slower book set in the same world. But I did like the speed of light plot – it was very exciting and kept me reading. There is also a lot of blood and gore and horrible things being done to people, so you’ve been warned.

Sancia is the most interesting character. Her special abilities are amazing, and the way she is handicapped by them is akin to some aspects of autism. I wonder if that was intentional? It’s a good idea, anyway. Also, I loved her interactions with Clef and wanted more of them.

The other characters were somewhat tropey – especially Orso, the genius with zero social skills. He does grow on you as the story progresses. Here is a fun quote: “Orso grinned deliriously and topped the side of his head. “I don’t know what it is about mortal panic,” he said, “but it keeps giving me the best scrumming ideas.” (Scrumming is a local swearword. They use it a lot. A lot.)

The plot is in such a rush, that some character development has to make way. For example, I thought our team of unlikely heroes started working together so smoothly way too fast. But it was fun to be around them. There was good banter :)
“I did not drive it into the building,” he said, indignant. “We crashed.”

Naturally, the stakes kept going up, up, up, and the ending is a cliffhanger. Give me the sequels, please!

Thank you, thank you, to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-book! ( )

Wow. A very unique, well-done story. Not what I expected, but I really (really) appreciated it. Hope there's a sequel so I call find out what happens next! ( )

I was constantly annoyed by the writing style. So much so that I seriously considered dropping it multiple times.
This book has a writing style full of unnecessary and cheesy narrator one-liners that made it feel cheap somehow even tho it is everything but.
Check out Merphy Napiers BT Review for a better articulated criticism about this.
Something else I found regrettable was that there was so much action going on constantly that there wasn't any breathing room to work through the mcs issues (among other things) except for her being bound/drowsy from right before or after unconsciousness which I found a shame. I wanted to know a lot more about how she lived with her ability and how normal life looked in general before everything went to shit.
The magic is a very intrusive kind and probably would change the entire normal way of life which we see almost nothing of.
The magic even tho you could consider it "hard magic" was softer than most soft magic systems in practice which makes it hard not to get the impression that rules are conveniently made up on the fly to fit the current situation.
Because the system at its core is so incredibly flimsy it's hard to accuse the book of contradictions in the magic but at a few points, things didn't quite add up imo.
Additionally, no one is aware at all of how much power their already discovered magic holds. This goes for the general scribing as well as the mcs special powers. Stealing? really? There are so many different, much less risky things I could imagine earning my keep with using this ability and it is specifically pointed out that she isn't a risk-taker by nature either.
Long story short, the magic is sadly more hole than plot for the most part even tho all its possibilities are fascinating.

The political plotting and manoeuvring between the houses was well planned out and thought through and seems to hold water and so is the rest of the general story.
I can totally see why people would rate this 4 or 5 stars but for me, there were just too many pet peeves annoying the crap out of me.

So I guess, I would recommend this? ( )

A solid, plot-driven story with an original magic system. The characters don't have a lot of depth, which is always difficult for me, but the story itself makes up for that deficit. It's nice to see a bad-ass female MC who isn't pretty or educated but still manages to find ways to stick it to the man.

It's a quick read, and enjoyable, as long as you can get past not really relating to the characters. ( )

{first in Founders series; fantasy, magic as technology, steampunk} (2018)

Foundryside is the name of one of the districts of the city of Tevanne. In this world four families (read 'corporations') create scrived objects in their foundries (and conduct more questionable experiments on their plantations away from the city) while jostling for power and control of Tevanne. Within their compounds their scrivers use magic to alter the way that objects are programmed, convincing them that physical reality is something else.

Sancia is an escaped plantation slave, now a thief in the city of Tevanne. She has a special talent which allows her to hear the 'thoughts' of living beings and inanimate objects (whether she wants to or not) which is bestowed on her by a scrived plate in her head, but using this talent causes her pain. Her current job should net her enough money to be able to get rid of her scar and this inconvenient talent which forces her to live apart.

However, the object that she steals is a powerful ancient artefact, a key created by long-gone mages and coveted by more than one of the families and so she has to go into hiding. Then she discovers that the key, named Clef, is sentient and, thanks to her talent, she can converse with it. Gradually she starts to explore what Clef's powers can do.

Meanwhile Gregor, scion of a privileged family but an idealist, wants to bring justice to the city. In the course of this theft Sancia caused a fire which destroyed a substantial part of the port district which he investigates. When he tracks her down he realises something bigger is going on than just a heist; someone is trying to exploit long lost magic of the ancients to change the balance of power in Tevanne.

I thought this was a good story but the writing could be a bit stronger especially at the beginning. There are lots of … pauses and - so on (dots and dashes) in the writing, which niggled a bit. Clef the key talks like Bruce Willis from an '80s film, which felt a bit dissonant, and there's a lot of cartoonish blood and gore, not to mention swearing, but it’s quite fun once it gets going. I did wonder when Sancia had the opportunity to learn to read, given her origins as a lowly slave.

The genre of this story falls somewhere between fantasy and steampunk. I felt it has some relevance to current debate about sentient AI. The narrative did seem to take a little while to get going but it became more interesting about a quarter way in. The magic (read 'technology') system was interesting and an unusual premise.

(May 2023)
3.5 stars ( )

Great book- very much like Sanderson, good universe, new magic system, ( )

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.

That was good. Can't wait for the next one! ( )

This was fantastic! I am more than a little mad at myself for waiting so long to read this book. I guess the good news is that I can start reading the next book right away instead of having to wait an entire year. I liked Sancia a lot. She has been through a lot and has found a life working as a thief. A good one at that. Her world is turned upside down when she steals an object and meets Clef. Clef is a sentient key and one of my favorite parts of this book. Who knew that I could fall in love with a key? Sancia and Clef soon team up with Gregor, Orso, and Berenice to get to the bottom of things. I listened to the audiobook and thought that Tara Sands did a great job with the story.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Crown Books and purchased a copy of the audiobook. ( )

I liked this, one of the better books I have read all year. Some interesting concepts (explained like a text book, thus only 4 stars), but the characters are amazing. Orso and Beatrice were my favorites. Mr. Bennett does a great job with cities and places, all the grit and splendor. ( )

this was pretty original, though all too loose in the setup at times. but i liked the characters, especially because their backgrounds and tones were so different from one another. and it was an interesting medieval steampunk/magic setting to investigate, and i personally appreciated the subversive economics of the principals too. so onward to see whether the second book of the trilogy can match the aspirations of his crew, and also i clearly need to find his earlier trilogy. ( )

a slow start but an exciting finish ( )

This is more like 3.5 stars for me. There was great world building and the author really took the time to explain the magic system which I appreciated. The only thing this lacked for me is human connectivity. The main character was not one I really enjoyed until the very end when we get more of her backstory and I didn't feel like I connected with any of the other characters at all. I take that back, I really liked Clef but I am not sure that counts since he is an inanimate/animate? object. Also there is a "twist" that was very predictable and I saw a mile away. I would be willing to read the 2nd book and see if it gets better. ( )

This is much better than I thought.

I mean, first you have to be able to get past the idea that the main character is talking to an enchanted key she unknowingly stole from the keeper of the "book of spells" or something. And you have to accept that the key, like pretty much all the other objects around her, could think and move by themselves, under the influence of those spells.

But the writing and the characters are so nice, I forgot I am not 9 years old anymore, and I found myself enjoying the book a lot.

And, of course, I am reading the book using the Text To Speech eVoice reader app I wrote myself :)
If you're curious, it's free, have a look.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lenntt.evoicereader ( )

So, apparently I missed the notice that I *WON* a giveaway! So I was beyond delighted when this was delivered earlier today.

And, as I hoped, it was incredible. Absolutely loved it, fell into it and didn't come up for air until I was done. Anyone who enjoyed his Cities trilogy is going to love this too. The characters, the crazy magic stuff, the action and tension - all there, all great. Wraps up - not everything- but all the things it should wrap up, while still leaving you wanting more of these people and their world. ( )