Robert Jackson Bennett is the author of the wonderful "Divine Cities" trilogy, so it is no surprise that this latest novel is replete with muscular worldbuilding, a fascinating system of magic and a cast of characters that we readers can root for enthusiastically.
It is also no surprise that Bennett has a few things to say about the elements of freedom, about the way economic systems develop and evolve, and about who is able to benefit from economic advancement, and for what reasons. It is most eloquently shown in this story that without choices, freedom is a pretty meaningless thing to possess. Escaped slave and thief, Sancia Gordo is free enough to starve, living as she does on the chancy fringes of the Foundryside shantytown, itself clinging to the interstices between the grand compounds of the four great merchant houses of Tevanne. All of the benefits of economic advancement have accrued to these great merchant houses, not through their hard work alone, but through their ruthless application of power to crush their rivals. Gregor Dandolo, traumatised soldier is free to try to bring justice and order to the docks despite the disinterest of his family and virtually anyone else.
The system of magic which drives the economic wheels of the city is based on 'scrivings'. Elaborate sigils written onto inanimate objects serve to convince those objects that their reality has changed. A wheel is convinced to roll down an imagined hill. A gate believes that it must stay closed. These scrivings are designed and created by adepts in vast foundies, jealously guarded within the great merchant houses. And the origins of these strange devices, well these are lost in the mists of time, and in the rumour and legend of a vanished civilization of hierophants, who were as gods walking the earth. Rumours of lost artifacts brought to Tevanne's chaotic dockside provide Sancia Gordo with an opportunity to obtain the desires of her heart, and freedom from her afflictions of a sort. One daring heist would do it. Only of course, nothing could be that simple. And the attentions of Gregor Dandolo are the very least of her worries.
Eligible for the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and a very worthy candidate. The sequel (2nd of the planned trilogy) is titled 'Hierophant'
It is also no surprise that Bennett has a few things to say about the elements of freedom, about the way economic systems develop and evolve, and about who is able to benefit from economic advancement, and for what reasons. It is most eloquently shown in this story that without choices, freedom is a pretty meaningless thing to possess. Escaped slave and thief, Sancia Gordo is free enough to starve, living as she does on the chancy fringes of the Foundryside shantytown, itself clinging to the interstices between the grand compounds of the four great merchant houses of Tevanne. All of the benefits of economic advancement have accrued to these great merchant houses, not through their hard work alone, but through their ruthless application of power to crush their rivals. Gregor Dandolo, traumatised soldier is free to try to bring justice and order to the docks despite the disinterest of his family and virtually anyone else.
The system of magic which drives the economic wheels of the city is based on 'scrivings'. Elaborate sigils written onto inanimate objects serve to convince those objects that their reality has changed. A wheel is convinced to roll down an imagined hill. A gate believes that it must stay closed. These scrivings are designed and created by adepts in vast foundies, jealously guarded within the great merchant houses. And the origins of these strange devices, well these are lost in the mists of time, and in the rumour and legend of a vanished civilization of hierophants, who were as gods walking the earth. Rumours of lost artifacts brought to Tevanne's chaotic dockside provide Sancia Gordo with an opportunity to obtain the desires of her heart, and freedom from her afflictions of a sort. One daring heist would do it. Only of course, nothing could be that simple. And the attentions of Gregor Dandolo are the very least of her worries.
Eligible for the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and a very worthy candidate. The sequel (2nd of the planned trilogy) is titled 'Hierophant'