Robert Jackson BennettFiction · Fantasy·b. 1984
Foundryside
Synopsis
Sancia Grado is a thief in Tevanne, a city of industry run by four competing merchant houses. Her work is scarred and hard-won, and she survives on skill. The city runs on scriving, the magical craft of persuading objects to ignore the laws of physics.
A job that looks easy sends her into a heavily guarded warehouse to take a small case. Inside she finds Clef, a key with a mind of its own that talks back. It is unlike any magical object she has met, and its theft draws the notice of Captain Gregor Dandolo, the nearest thing Tevanne has to a real police force.
Sancia is pulled into an investigation alongside Orso Ignacio, an eccentric master scriver, and his assistant Berenice. Meanwhile House Candiano wants Clef back and will go to any length to get it. As the pursuit tightens, Sancia finds traces of an older, far more advanced form of scriving buried in the city's history.
That discovery could reshape Tevanne and the world past its walls, for better or for worse. This is fantasy built around a heist and a chase, with a city of merchant power and magical engineering as its backdrop. It is the first book in the Founders trilogy.
How it reads
Prose complexity 6/10
Content warnings (1)
Violence
