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Foundryside
by Robert Jackson Bennett
This one is a Fantasy story about a professional thief by the name of Sancia. It takes place in an imaginary world with lots of magic with an original approach. Sancia has been hired to steal an item she knows little about from a safe. This takes her sneaking into a compound through sewage, ensorcelled blade on guard.
Many items have magic in this world, referred to as scriving, a sigil-based spell method which in this world is defined as magical writing. The item she is after has a few surprises which will lead much of the progression of events. It is well-written, if perhaps a little cliché as thieves in Fantasy worlds tend to be. The world building is quite workable though and I found it an enjoyable read.
I was thrown off a little by the voice of a certain magical item because it sounded too modern day and pulled me out of the fantasy world a little. Also, a few occasional phrases pulled me out like "Praise God" in a world where religion hasn't been an element in the story up to then. Otherwise the characters were as you would expect for the genre.
I found myself deeply engaged with the story and have to give it a high rating for that, but this expertly constructed alternative world is both stressful and depressing and makes me think I may pass on the sequels. It also had a blatant 'buy the next book' ending and I'm finding myself less and less enamoured of those. Why must everything be a series?
