Robert Jackson Bennett, author of the Divine Cities series, launches...an absolutely riveting secondary world fantasy ... To say 'I couldn’t put it down' is a cliché ... So when I say I couldn’t put Foundryside down, what I mean is this: I felt fully, utterly engaged by the ideas, actually in love with the core characters for their differences and the immensely generative friction between them, and in awe of Bennett’s craft. I went to bed late reading it and woke up early to finish it ... a magnificent, mind-blowing start to a series I’m hungry for.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned reading Robert Jackson Bennett, it’s that when you think you know what he’s going to do at any given moment, you’re most likely going to be wrong ... Bennett is firing on all cylinders, taking what at first seems to be something a little standard, a little rote, and infusing exhilarating new life into it through expert writing, complicated and distinct characters, and an intriguing, deadly, wonderful new city ... While on the surface this seems like a story we’ve seen before, Foundryside is immediately infused with Bennett’s eye for unique systems of magic, what makes people complicated beyond just being good or bad, and a city that has been pushed so far past being a capitalist dystopia, it’s a wonder it’s still functional ... Foundryside lives and dies on its characters, and Bennett’s novel more than thrives with the people he focuses on ... Foundryside is an excellent first novel in what promises to be another home-run series for Bennett.
Bennett (City of Miracles, 2017, etc.) inaugurates another series of imaginative, thoroughly idiosyncratic fantasy novels ... Mona Lisa meets The Matrix in Bennett’s introduction to the carefully constructed world of Tevanne ... If you accept the notion that the laws of gravity are just suggestions, this makes for a grand entertainment.
The diverse, multifaceted characters, meticulous world building, and complex interhouse conflicts will draw readers into this new, action-packed fantasy series.
Robert Jackson Bennett has thrown us into yet another fantastical world. He hooks us with the first scene ... His female thief turned heroine is the best part of the book ... Jackson Bennett mixes dark humor with fast-paced adventure.
...[a] stunning fantasy ... The endlessly inventive Bennett (the Divine Cities trilogy) brings humor and empathy ... This is a crackling, wonderfully weird blend of science fiction, fantasy, heist adventure, and a pointed commentary on what it means to be human in a culture obsessed with technology, money, and power.
