Foundryside - Robert J. Bennett

Foundryside is like a good, fast-paced heist movie in book form.

Well, ok. It has a talking key. And, yes, maybe not a typical setting for a typical heist movie, either.

The story follows Sancia, a young girl with a dark and gruesome past, as her latest robbery goes wrong and entangles her in a huge conspiracy. So far, so predictable. What’s fun about Foundryside, though, is the setting and world.

Sancia lives in the city of Tevanne where every-day objects can be manipulated by inscribing them with words of an old, almost forgotten language. These words will tell any object to behave in a certain way - for example wood becoming sturdier because the text placed on it makes it think it’s actually concrete. As you can imagine, the book finds many creative ways to extrapolate from this premise. Especially as Sancia learns to better interact with these inscribed objects…

One thing that I keep thinking about, though, is how the core conceit of this book is very close to the jewish Golem myth. In this myth a piece of paper with the name of god on it would “activate” the Golem - a lifeless creature made out of clay – once it has been placed in the Golem’s mouth. We humans seem to be endlessly fascinated by “The Power of Words” – how the simple act of writing something on paper can indeed change the world. This book is just the next iteration of this concept…

Anyways. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and I’m ready to dive back into the world of Tevanne with the next book in the series.