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Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett is the second book in the Founders fantasy series. Mr. Bennett is an award winning author including the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and a Philip K Dick Award Citation of Excellence.

In Foundryside, Orso Ignacio and Sancia Grado are having a tough time with their scriving startup firm. Scriving involves encoding everyday objects with magic (code?) to make them do things they are not meant to do. The firm started a trend where scrivers leave the big merchant houses of Tevanne to start their own businesses, and the big merchant houses of Tevanne don’t like that one bit.

Soon, however, the merchant houses will have something much more powerful and sinister do deal with than a bunch of scrivers. A powerful entity has resurrected. This one is that of an ancient scriver that wields god-like powers which can destroy Tevanne, and is intent on doing so.

The first book in the Founders series, Foundryside, was a fantastic journey into a world which uses magic as technology and the dangers that come with it. When I finished the novel, I was immediately ready to immerse myself in the continuation, alas I had to wait.

When I got the opportunity to read Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett, I immediately jumped on it. This book takes the ideas from the frist book, builds on them, and vastly expands them. In my head, I always thought of “scriving”, the process of coding inanimate objects like walls, wheels, etc., to computer code. Thriving on instructions, blocks of code, structures and more, this fantastical world seemed very familiar.

The sequel expands not only on world building, societies, and technologies, but also questions what the author created. He explorers the reality of politics, faith, and of course the humanity of his characters. These two books touch on the very relevant subject of technology, and asks its readers how can something which is generally seen as beneficial to humanity, can also be used for evil by enslaving, corrupting, and influencing power.
And we didn’t even get into the privacy aspect of it.

This novel continues with the story of Sancia, an ex –slave and thief, who can “talk” to scrived objects as an experimental scrived human. Orso, an genius scriver who worked for a big merchant house, and Gregor, a soldier who is about to learn his destiny. Sancia’s girlfriend, Berenice, gets a lot of attention in this book, while all the characters grow somewhat, her arc is the most significant.

There is a lot going on in this book, it feels almost claustrophobic, which allows the characterization to suffer in favor of plot progression. Despite that, it’s a

While I was excited to be back in the world created by Robert Jackson Bennett in Foundryside, I ended up being slightly disappointed with this book. I absolutely loved Foundryside, so some of this could be unreasonably high expectations on my part, but I did not get wrapped up in this book in the same way. I felt like the story jumped from one crisis to another without much in between. I think I would have appreciated a few more breaks and periods of calm to break up the action. I also couldn't help but feel disappointed in the ending of this book that ends without much resolution - a cliffhanger that won't be resolved for at least another year.

Shorefall, Robert Jackson Bennett's much anticipated sequel to 2018's Foundryside, builds upon the success of the original and improves on the formula in every discernible way.

This novel begins with an exhilarating, intense sequence of events that grips you from the jump and never lets go. We are introduced to adversaries with Machiavellian ambitions that would make most J-RPG villains go, "Uh, yikes." Bennett's experience writing Horror really serves this story through his ability to build tension and make every encounter seem intense and captivating, albeit with a looming sense of dread.

But beyond the exciting action sequences, what makes this novel special are the cosmological and ontological elements that sit at the heart of every decision and action made throughout the story. When a book can have you question the nature of self and the boundaries of existence, all while making things go boom, you know it is a winner.

Given that the first book received such glowing praise from Brandon Sanderson tells you that this is not exactly a hidden gem, but I would say it is a series that certainly deserves more attention and acclaim. To quote Gregor, "Every human being should feel obliged to try this once."

~~~~ 3.5 Stars ~~~~

You know what we have here? What we have here is a chaotic, action packed sequel that doesn't fall prey to the dreaded 2nd book blues. There were some issues with convenient problem resolutions that (too) easily moved the plot along in order to circumvent some sticky spots. This always rankles me. I'm not good with easily obtained powers, accomplishments, or love. Is that a dealbreaker this time? No, maybe because it wasn't rampant. There was, however, an inordinate amount of action. There was SO much going on that it became TOO much... with a constant barrage of high octane action, it was hard to savor and enjoy myself completely. I think I was numb there for a while. There were times when I zoned out and had interesting inner conversations that can only be had with oneself. I'll spare you the details BUT even though I entertained the idea of skimming, I took deep breaths, tenaciously dialed back in and resisted the urge... I refocused and you know what?? Besides digressing abysmally... it turned out being well worth the renewed effort!

SO, why did I drift off you might wonder? Well, I'm not quite sure the exact reason why Shorefall didn't tick all the adrenaline steeped boxes for me BUT all was not lost... for out of nowhere... BAM... the ending blindsided me. The ending totally made up for the rest of the mind-numbing parts and then there were the reveals. The few twisty bits SEEMED to be easily sussed out beforehand but I doubt you'll see where the most important ones lead.

On the technical end: The world development was strong. The writing was well done and the characters... The characters in Shorefall were multi dimensional and nicely fleshed out. They were both full-bodied and relatable... even the bad guy... guys... things??

First up were the Sapphic dynamic duo. I happen to love Sancia & Bernice as a couple... I am SO here for them. I even loved how close they got in this book. It could easily have been too much, saccharine sweet closeness but instead... it worked.

Next was Orso. Orso shrugged off his know it all, pain in the butt persona and seriously redeemed himself. By the end I even found myself, hands waving in the air, riding on the Orso bandwagon. I appreciated his mental dexterity that he so graciously added into the mix. I treasured the close-knit connections he formed with Sancia et al. AND most importantly, I kept my fingers, toes and eyeballs crossed hoping that the literary Gods would deem him fit for survival. His life was in constant peril... it's a good thing he has talented friends.

The last MC I'll mention is Gregor. Gregor's plight really sucked!! Not only did it suck to read his dreadful situation on paper... errr screen... but it also sucked putting myself in his tortured headspace... especially as the story progressed. He was such an excellent good/bad/good(again?!?) guy that I'm sure you'll (most likely) love him like I did. You'll both love him and root for his deliverance from his every day suffering to some sort of zen-like existence... no matter how that's achieved... well, kind of... you'll see.

Anyway, do you know who had a pretty good excuse for being bad bad bad and batshit crazy??... wait for it... Ophelia and Crasedes. The whole cast's backstories were poignant, and some came from way further out than left field, but they all had compelling reasons for acting the way they did. It was fun finding out everyone's origin story AND the way each character's background was parsed out was extremely satisfying.

I, like many, absolutely love a great "Holy Shit, where did that come from?" moment. You know, the kind where you curse out loud and put the book down just to take it all in... well, this did happen once here maaaaybe twice (depending on your literary constitution). Good stuff right?!? Well, on the flipside, even though there was a lot going on, if you exclude the ending, parts of the story felt too convenient and the rest? Well the rest felt a bit like WWIII was being waged on my senses. BUT I'll chalk up my annoyance to "it's probably a me thing" because if you break the story down to its main components... the Trifecta of Awesomeness (Writing + World Development + Character Development)... Shorefall comes out looking like a shiny new penny.

{{{ting}}}

Soooooo, what's the final word?

Overall: it's all about that ending. It really redeemed itself in the final 20% of the book. The rest was good. Though I wasn't fully swept away nor dragged down into the trenches of this tumultuous story... fighting tooth and scrived nail to survive the impending magically technological apocalypse... even considering all of that, I still can't say it was disappointing. Now, that might sound underwhelming and like a shite recommendation BUT please keep in mind that I LOVED Foundryside and I had extremely high hopes for Shorefall. Yes, it never reached my exceedingly high expectations BUT it was a damn fun book to read and really, what more could you want with some quiet Me Time?

Will it be worth looking out for, and committing more time towards, book #3? I say, without hesitation or compulsion, that if you enjoyed Foundryside and are interested (at all) in seeing where the characters end up and what they get themselves into... and mostly... somewhat... out of (or at least "out of" adjacent) then I say go for it!!

~ Enjoy

*** I was given a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ***

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett, the second book in this series. Picks up with our favorite characters, battling against a powerful foe, with suspect allies who have murky agendas. How will they navigate these obstacles and come out on top?

I actually re-read the first in the series before this just to refresh myself. Once again Mr. Bennett hits it's out of the park! The only downside is now having to wait for the next installment. Thank you Netgalley.

This picks up the story of Sancia and her Foundryside compatriots three years after the events of Foundryside. Sancia, Orso, Berenice and Gregor have worked to establish a free guild of scrivers not beholden to any of the major campos. They are ready to set off their big idea to bring down the campos from within when the worst happens, Ofelia Dandolo brings back a hierophant. The rest of the novel deals with their attempts to overcome this challenge and how they find out the true story behind Valeria, Crasedes and Clef.
Overall the story was good enough. There were some interesting developments in the magic/scriving system and a somewhat surprising ending (to me, at least). I just kept getting bogged down by too much exposition about what they were doing or going to do instead of them just doing. I would read for a bit, get bored, put it down, and then go, oh yeah, I should see what happened. It didn't hold my interest until the last 75 pages or so. Not bad, but not great.

This is a book series for fantasy readers who love the details and intricacies of a magic system. Personally that’s not my favorite part of a fantasy series, and I felt there was just so much exposition. I had hoped that being into the second book in the series we’d start to move beyond that, but I think that is just part of it.

I really enjoy the action sequences, and I was really interested in what happened and where the book was going. I like the characters, and I’m going to stick with the series. But these books just don’t have the effortlessness of the authors other major series.

All in all, a less exciting follow-up to the terrific Foundryside. Sancia remains a fantastic character, although her inability to put two and two together regarding her physical health was strikingly out of character. This book seems to have fallen afoul of 2nd-book-in-a-trilogy syndrome, with many pieces being arranged in order to move the characters and plot along to where the author wants/needs them to be for the big finale. And unfortunately for me, I'm not that excited by that direction. However, despite that the plot did chug along nicely and the scriving universe continues to be a fun one to inhabit.

This review will also be posted on my Goodreads account, which is provided in the link. Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me give a honest review.

“He looked up into his mother’s beaming face. I have died for this. And I will gladly die again.”

Ladies and gentleman, he’s done it again! I had never heard of this author before I read Foundryside but now I plan to read more of his books. I stayed up late for 2 nights reading this book because I couldn’t put it down!

This book starts off with action and is wonderfully paced! More amazing magic, more of the unique, fantastic world we were introduced to in the first book and the same group of “friends” we grew to love. And CLEF (which made me extremely happy)

The action was well written and didn’t lack in any area. The banter and smart remarks from Orso were familiar and enjoyable. I cried at the end, and I need to see what Gregor has become! although this was supposed to be a duology, I’m hoping the author decides to add another book. ( or two haha)

I highly recommend everyone grab a copy of this book when it’s released.


5/5 🌟’s

In this episode, my expectations were elevated...

Friends, friends, friends.

Welcome back to Teatime Reading where there are books in progress. In 2018, Foundryside delighted me with its creative take on a harsh world. Merely seeing the cover and the jacket description in my local bookstore got me intrigued enough to go back and read author Robert Jackson Bennett’s previous series. Reading the actual book blew me away with the constant peeling back of layer after layer. Sancia was a compelling heroine, and the supporting characters also felt real, convincing, and interesting.

In the sequel, titled Shorefall, everything was amplified. I missed the presence of one of my favorite characters through the first part of the story, but there was more than enough to make up for that character’s absence. In the spirit of keeping things spoiler-free since this book isn’t set for release until the middle of April, I’ll just say this. There was a real sense of danger, a real sense of things falling apart narratively, and it all worked.

The big bad was dangerous, and the narrative was unpredictable in the best way. This book was not a book that made its story easy to digest. It was violent, cruel, and unpleasant while retaining the aspects of Sancia, Gregor, Orso, and Berenice that worked best. This book didn’t feel unnecessary because the story was directly connected to the threads that Foundryside set up.

I was stunned, awestruck, and blown away by Foundryside, and I’m so glad that I got to read it a little early.

Until the finale of this trilogy, I’ll have to distract myself with other books.

Peace, Love, Pages.

I had been eagerly awaiting this second novel in the Founders series. I am fascinated by this world. The story is strong with some wrap up but also an open ending for book 3. The characters are still wonderful, but I felt their was less of the great interaction that I enjoyed. Still there, but not as much. Overall, a great second installment. You will want to read them in order.

Hell yeah! Funny yet dark, a fully realized world you'll long to return to.
The stakes are much higher then before, more to come closer to publication.

The first book in this series was a 3.5 for me which I rounded up to 4, and I did not enjoy this book as much, so I guess I have to give it 3 stars. I will always be on the lookout for future RJB books, although I won't finish this series.

It is hard for me to put my finger on what falls flat for me: Maybe the magic system seems to have so many arbitrary elements that just happen to work out for what the plot needs at the moment; maybe the dialog gives me a distinct YA feel from what is otherwise not a YA book. There were some excellent sections, but most of it I could barely hold enough interest to skim.

Sarya is the last human and she has spent her entire life hiding the fact that she is human because humans were destroyed for a reason. Unfortunately Sarya does not understand why humans were so horrible that the entire race had to be destroyed (and neither does the reader). Set in some unknown future where people are rated by their intelligence (and put into ‘tiers’), Sarya is rated quite low (since her adopted mother, from a murderous insect like race had to get her papers to explain her somehow and the one she can pass for is not a high tier). She has lived her whole life on a space station where everyone knows their place and those of sufficient intelligence are connected to the Network, something Sarya has only experienced thru a less than ideal connection. As the book begins, this lack of connection is about to change for Sarya. This is an interesting read by an author who has done some well thought out world/universe building.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3124722698

Robert Jackson Bennet has mastered textured world building. His books create societies and technologies that both mirror our reality and extend into the fantastical. He consistently explores deep questions of society, humanity, faith, and politics throughout his work. It's hard to walk away from reading anything he's written without being haunted by his narrative, characters, and philosophy. His books are never comfortable and his characters complex and flawed.

Over time, his books have become more open to general readers, becoming more adventurous and engaging. He first "broke out" with City of Stairs, the first of a trilogy that asked readers to consider religion and what happens when humans create gods. This series, Founders, looks at class inequity and how power is a corruptive influence, even though Founders is framed as an action-adventure tale.

The success of each book then generally depends on whether he's pulled us into the lives and backstories of his characters and flavored those with enough tension and growth to satisfy our curiosity and connection with them while entertaining us at the same time. The second book of his Founders series delivers the world but falls short on the characterizations. Yes, there's lots of excitement but I think Bennett works best in single volumes where truths are revealed as layers scraped away. His series lose momentum too quickly otherwise.

Founders is written 10 minutes into the future and a hundred-and-fifty years into the past where an alternative Venice's marketplace is built around shaping reality through technology. Four great families rule but as of the start of this volume, their rule has started to crack. The self-made man is starting to rise and the time-out clock on plantations and indentured servitude is ticking quickly.

Shorefall begins with an entirely successful action piece, leaving the reader on the edge of the seat. It's a rousing start as our familiar heroes encounter a new and menacing threat and then...it sort of stops. Each of the characters has spent three years off-screen and they've settled comfortably into a middle-class existence building their routines and growing their enterprise. It's ripe for disruption but that disruption takes the form of an external threat that arrives on-scene without agency.

In the first book, we've already discovered ex-slave Sancia's dark and troubled background, and ex-company-man genius Orso's doomed love. It's soldier Gregor who I'd imagine should take lead here as we learn why he is like he is and how he will change his destiny but we don't and he doesn't. An out-of-nowhere "girlfriend" for Gregor feels thrown in for no good reason. As in Book 1, Berenice is a paragon of intellect and virtue without earning any of it. She's just Sancia's tissue-paper-thin girlfriend and as a character she deserves more depth and growth than that.

There are two other characters, both non-human, who played (if you forgive me) key roles in the first volume who are off-screen almost entirely through this second volume in order to let the plot progress and that's a shame. The dribs and drabs of the Dandalo reveals are insufficient to fight off the claustrophobic storytelling of book two. Characters suffer because there's just so much plot and set-backs taking center stage. Shorefall deserved more than to be a "move the plot forward" middle volume.

Yes, there is marvelous world-building but that isn't enough to pull me fully into the narrative for book two. Even so, a lesser Robert Jackson Bennett is better than most books out there, pushing me from a Goodreads three to a Goodreads four star rating.

How I loved returning to Sancia! My biggest gripe is that it had been a while, and there isn't a ton of memory refreshers. I found myself going back to page through the first book to remember where I last saw her and her cohorts. Funnily enough I remembered Clef the best, though he was a big key (ha) to the first tale.

Well written, engaging, and I couldn't put it down (except, like I said, to recall where I left them before). Very glad to have received this - Robert Jackson Bennett is an absolute jewel. Whenever I put off reading one of his books I always end up kicking myself when I pick it up later.

A solid middle book to this extremely imaginative trilogy-in-the-making. Bennett continues to demonstrate more inventiveness per page than most writers manage in entire novels. A breathless plot, full of twists and turns, the appearance of new characters, the reappearance of old ones (!), and extraordinary worldbuilding, all make this novel hard to put down as Bennett raises the stakes, then raises them again. Yet even as his plot expands exponentially, he never loses sight of the human hearts at the center of his story.

You definitely will want to start with Foundryside before you jump into Shorefall. You could probably figure your way through it without reading the first book, but you won't want to. Great world-building. Characters that stay with you long after the book is finished. The only problem is I now want the next book and THIS one isn't out until April.

I received this arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The book starts off right in the beginning of a daring mission and really doesn't slow down from there. It's hard to get in plot developments without really giving away elements of the book but all the same characters return with new twists and deadly enemies.
The pace of this book impressed me more than anything. I haven't seen anything like it this in Robert Jackson Bennett's novel since American Elsewhere.
This series is a definite departure from the City of Stairs novels but very worthy of any lover of intelligent fantasy time.