Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett – Book Review

Rating: 4.75/5

Genre: Fantasy, adult

Pubilshed: 2018

Author: Robert Jackson Bennett

Synopsis: 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 artefact of unimaginable power. Now someone 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 Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies.

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This book was such a delight! It’s been a while since I’ve completely LOVED a book so much. I loved every character (with one exception), I loved the writing, I loved the world, I loved the story. It’s just fantastic! Robert Jackson Bennett is now the newest addition to my list of favourite authors. 

The story is set in this steampunky urban fantasy type thing. That sentence made no sense, but I’m going with it. This has a magic system so unique and complex, I loved it so much. It’s probably one of my favourite magic systems I’ve ever read. It rivals Brandon Sanderson’s magic systems and even surpasses some of them. If not all. It just has so much character. The magic system itself is almost like a character. It’s fantastic and I adored it.

It’s been a while since I loved a cast of characters so much. I think they’re generally great, with one exception. I did not love the love interest. I really wanted there to not be a romance at all. The fact that there was is what actually bumped it down a quarter of a star. The love interest is… fine. I just found her to be kind of… bland. I think to be honest, my very, very strong desire for there not to be a romance definitely played  played a part in my dislike of the love interest, but I also just thought she didn’t really stand out in any way. One thing I really am not looking forward to is the romance in the subsequent books. It’s so hard to find books without any romance and I thought this might be one of them because the love interest didn’t show up until maybe halfway through. But yeah… that’s just personal preference and if you don’t have that same problem, you’ll probably love it. 

I also found the main antagonist to be just a tiny bit… moustache twirling. It was one of those things where they make the villain be every evil thing ever just because. Without any nuance. Like “This guy is super evil. He likes to kill people. And is greedy. And he’s a rapist. Oh, and in his spare time, he kills puppies. Because he is SUPER EVIL!”. However, there was so much going on that it didn’t bother me too much and it was mostly made up for in other ways. 

The story was so fast paced. It was just one thing after another. If you love heist stories, you’ll love this. If you love stuff like The Lies of Locke Lamora and Six of Crows and those kind of heist stories, you’ll love this. If you like stories about unlikely allies and found family, you’ll love this. It’s just got so many awesome things going for it. I would 100% recommend, though do be aware that it’s fairly gory.