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Locklands: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy) Hardcover – June 28, 2022
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“It’s so rare to love every single book in a trilogy, to admire the aim, precision, and storytelling stamina this much.”—The New York Times Book Review
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Quill to Live
Sancia, Clef, and Berenice have gone up against long odds in the past. But the war they’re fighting now is one even they can’t win.
This time, they’re not facing robber-baron elites or even an immortal hierophant, but an entity whose intelligence is spread over half the globe—one that uses the magic of scriving to control not just objects but human minds.
To fight it, they’ve used scriving technology to transform themselves and their allies into an army—a society—unlike anything humanity has seen before. With its strength at their backs, they’ve freed a handful of their enemy’s hosts from servitude, and even defeated some of its fearsome, reality-altering dreadnoughts.
Yet despite their efforts, their enemy marches on. Implacable. Unstoppable.
Now, as their opponent closes in on its true prize—an ancient doorway, long buried, that leads to the chambers at the center of creation itself—Sancia and her friends glimpse a last opportunity to stop this unbeatable foe. To do so, they’ll have to unlock the centuries-old mystery of scriving’s origins, embark on a desperate mission into the heart of their enemy’s power, and pull off the most daring heist they’ve ever attempted.
But their adversary might have a spy in their ranks—and a last trick up its sleeve.
And to have a chance at victory, Sancia, Clef, and Berenice will have to make a sacrifice beyond anything that’s come before.
- Print length560 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication dateJune 28, 2022
- Dimensions6.45 x 1.67 x 9.53 inches
- ISBN-101984820672
- ISBN-13978-1984820679
More items to explore
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Compelling, full of action, and has characters to care about . . . Locklands completes another excellent trilogy from an author producing some of the most original and compelling fantasy in the genre.”—New York Journal of Books
“Bennett provides a poignant but uplifting conclusion to his spellbinding, fast-paced Founders Trilogy, expanding the complex world with more innovative concepts and new characters.”—Booklist (starred review)
“A thrills-and-spills conclusion to the adventures of Sancia Grado. Bennett concludes his Founders trilogy . . . with characteristically high-spirited mayhem. Great fun, with nonstop action.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Gods collide in the high octane finale to Bennett’s epic fantasy Founders Trilogy. . . . Fans will find this a satisfying end.”—Publishers Weekly
Praise for Foundryside and Shorefall
“Absolutely riveting . . . I felt fully, utterly engaged by the ideas, actually in love with the core characters . . . and in awe of Bennett’s craft. I went to bed late reading it and woke up early to finish it.”—Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review, on Foundryside
“Another stunning novel that shows exactly what this genre can do and why we love it . . . As packed as this book is, I still could’ve spent another four hundred pages in [Robert Jackson] Bennett’s story.”—Tordotcom, on Shorefall
“Endlessly inventive . . . Even when it’s dark, this story is a joy.”—Vulture, on Foundryside
“Prepare for ancient mysteries, innovative magic, and heart-pounding heists.”—Brandon Sanderson, on Foundryside
“Complex characters, magic that is tech and vice versa, a world bound by warring trade dynasties: Bennett will leave you in awe once you remember to breathe!”—Tamora Pierce, on Foundryside
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Are you ready? whispered a voice.
Berenice opened her eyes. The morning sunlight reflected brightly off the ocean, and her vision adjusted slowly, the forms of the city walls and the ramparts and the coastal batteries calcifying in the glimmering light. She’d been meditating so deeply it took her a moment to remember—Am I in Old Tevanne? Or somewhere else?—but then her senses fully returned to her, and she saw.
Grattiara: a tiny fortress enclave balanced atop a thread of stone stretching into the Durazzo Sea, all ocean-gray walls and cloudwhite towers and wheeling gulls. It wasn’t quite a town as much as a residue of civilization clinging to the battlements, the homes and huts like barnacles spreading across the hull of a ship. She watched as the little fishing boats trundled up to the piers, their sails pale and luminescent. They reminded her faintly of bat wings catching the first rays of dawn.
“Hell,” Berenice said quietly. “It’s almost pretty.”
Almost. Claudia moved to stand next to her at the balcony, her eyes hard and sharp under her dark metal helmet. Her voice whispered in the back of Berenice’s thoughts, quiet but clear: How far we've fallen, to find a little shithole like this pretty.
Yes, sighed Berenice. And yet, it's up to us to save it.
Claudia picked her teeth with a length of wood. Or at least the people here, anyways. She flicked her toothpick away. So—you ready?
I don't know. Maybe. How do I look?
Like a grim warrior queen, said Claudia. She grinned. Maybe a little too grim. This is a Morsini fortress, mind. The governor might not take to an imtimidating woman.
It's going to be a grim conversation. But I'll make sure to do a lot of smiling and bowing, she added acidly. She adjusted the way her cuirass hung on her shoulders, feeling the flex and bend of the pauldrons, then plucked at the leather shirt at her neck to let some of the humidity out. Their armor was a far sight from anything like a lorica, as it only covered critical exposures while leaving the joints free to move, but it was still hot as hell in the Grattiaran sun.
It'll have to do, Berenice said. She slung her espringal over her back, then checked to make sure her scrived rapier was sheathed at her side. Are the espringals rigged up properly?
We'll have to get within line of sight with them, said Claudia. She pointed to a small plate on her right pauldron, then the same on Berenice’s armor. But they'll come to us when we call them.
Good.
Still think it's wise to bring weapons to this chat? I mean—they're going to make us disarm before we see the governor, yeah?
Oh, almost certainly, said Berenice. But being asked to disarm is a terrific opportunity to show off how many armaments you're packing.
How cynical. Claudia’s grin flashed again. I approve.
The winds shifted, and the reek of rot wormed into Berenice’s nostrils—undoubtedly from the refugee camp sprawling beyond the city’s fortifications. She slipped out her spyglass and glassed the camps on the hills to the northwest.
It all made for a cruelly pointed contrast: the town of Grattiara remained more or less impeccable, its scrived coastal batteries huge and hulking along the sea, the towers of the innermost fortifications still tall and elegant; but mere yards from them lay field upon field of ragged tents and improvised shelters and spoiled waters—a reminder of how much the world had changed beyond this tiny fortress town.
Claudia whispered: We've got movement, Capo.
Berenice turned to look. A small group of men were making their way down the stairs from the central keep’s gates, all colorfully dressed in shades of blue and red. She studied the keep above, its towers bedecked with espringal and shrieker batteries—scrived models she knew were at least four years out of date. And the walls, of course, weren’t scrived at all, just brick and mortar and decades of patching: no sigils, no strings, no arguments embedded in them to trick them into being preternaturally durable or strong.
“Once it gets here,” she murmured aloud, “it’s going to tear through this place like a hot knife through eel fat.”
Yeah, said Claudia. She peered out at the refugee camp. And all those people are going to die—or worse.
How long do we have, again?
Last estimate was two weeks, she said. It'll have to go through Balfi to the north, and that should slow it down, we hope. We should have at least a week before it's at the gates here, Capo.
Berenice wondered whether those estimates were accurate. If she had a massive army, and intended to use it to annihilate everything in its path—what road would she take, which rivers, and how fast would she move?
How tired I am, she thought, of such grisly questions.
You still haven't answered me, Ber, said Claudia gently. Are you ready?
Getting there, she said. She walked to where the two other members of her team sat on a small bench before the end of the stairs. Diela, the younger and smaller of the two, popped to attention immediately, standing up so fast her helmet rattled on her head. Vittorio stood languidly, smirking as he unfolded his tall, lean form to stand beside her. He held a heavy wooden crate in his arms, about three feet wide and tall, built of plain wood with a hinged top fastened shut.
“All good?” said Berenice.
I'm ready to put this thing down and get out of the sun, Capo, whispered Vittorio in the back of her mind. He made eye contact with her, and his smile grew. You sure they're going to let me into the keep with this?
“They will,” she said. “Remember, both of you—this is purely a diplomatic operation. Just keep your eyes open, keep your gear tight and accessible—and if they make a move on us, remember your training.”
If it comes to that, fighting off a bunch of merchant house thugs should be easier than what we're used to, said Vittorio, now grinning.
Diela blinked beside him, and Berenice felt a slow anxiety building in the back of the girl’s thoughts.
It probably will not come to that, Berenice said to the girl. Again, this is a diplomatic mission. But even if you haven't seen fighting, Diela, you still know what we know, and you've seen what we've seen. I have no doubt you'll succeed.
Diela nodded nervously, and said, Yes, Capo.
It's time, Capo, said Claudia.
Berenice looked up. The men from the keep were close now. She put on her helmet, adjusting it so her eyes looked through its visor properly, and strapped it tight. Eight years I’ve waged this war, she thought, and I still can’t get one of these goddamned things to fit right.
She stood there, tall and assured in her dark armor, and watched as the Morsini men descended the stairs. Once men like this would have frightened or at least worried her, but those days were long since gone: there had been too many battles, and far too much death and horror, for merchant house men to haunt her thoughts.
I’m ready, she thought to herself. I’m ready for this.
Yet she felt a flicker of insecurity, sensing an absence like she’d forgotten something critical. She pulled her spyglass from her pocket and peered through it once more, though this time she glassed the distant ocean, far to the south.
At first she saw nothing but sea, yet then she spotted it—a tiny dot in the distance, just on the horizon.
Sancia and Clef, she thought. Keeping their distance. But they’re there. She’s there.
She heard footsteps, and quickly stowed the glass away.
God, my love. How I wish you were with me here today.
A voice from the stairs, prim and assured: “The governor will see you now, General Grimaldi.”
“Thank you,” Berenice said. “Please lead the way.”
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey (June 28, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 560 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1984820672
- ISBN-13 : 978-1984820679
- Item Weight : 1.75 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.45 x 1.67 x 9.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #39,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,466 in Fantasy Action & Adventure
- #2,671 in Epic Fantasy (Books)
- #3,524 in Paranormal & Urban Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Robert Jackson Bennett is a two-time award winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, an Edgar Award winner for Best Paperback Original, and is also the 2010 recipient of the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, and a Philip K Dick Award Citation of Excellence. City of Stairs was shortlisted for the Locus Award and the World Fantasy Award. City of Blades was a finalist for the 2015 World Fantasy, Locus, and British Fantasy Awards. City of Miracles is in stores now, and the entire Divine Cities trilogy is currently nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Series.
His eighth novel, Foundryside, the first installment of The Founders Trilogy, will be released August 23rd of 2018.
Robert lives in Austin with his wife and large sons. He can be found on Twitter at @robertjbennett. You can subscribe to his Writing Advice newsletter here: https://www.patreon.com/robertjacksonbennett
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Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2023
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I haven’t read the book yet. Just warning people who want a collection that matches perfectly.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 22, 2023
I haven’t read the book yet. Just warning people who want a collection that matches perfectly.

Please keep writing…
All that said, I did feel it had some serious in-universe logical gaps. Surely there were other people who were permanently disconnected, right? We heard about the blades being used frequently during the war with Tevanne. Don't you think there would have been enough for a small community, even if Berenice chose not to live with them? The post-human minds clearly cared for their ancestors, so was there was no way to also loop them in? I was also expecting a bit more narrative exploring the levels behind the world, where Sancia was trapped, even if the novel ended more or less in the way it did, so maybe a little rushed in that way.
Still, you can't complain that it didn't tie everything up nicely, as well as I think it could have.
Before delving into specifics, I want to note one of my issues is that this final book of a trilogy feels FAR too similar to City of Miracles, the end of Mr. Bennett's first trilogy. It's not that the specific events are close (though one could talk about how in both series reality nearly is remade/unraveled by a singular entity), but that the scale of forces and thematic concerns are (e.g. the pain of being human is too great and warrants a re-creation, a kind of theodicy-related concern). I felt serious waves of Deja vu, and I don't mean in a "cute callback" way. I mean in a "this kid plagiarized a paper he wrote for me previously" way. It was significant enough I felt that I should mention it.
In terms of pacing, I think that starting this book eight years later is drastic, especially since eight years of major technological changes have happened, particularly the development of Cadences (more on that later). We never get a chance to get comfortable with this new state of magical development, since every event is functionally humanity-ending. By introducing a time jump PLUS extreme developments PLUS no time to process, we are left feeling rushed as important concepts pop up. Also, if you need to draw a diagram to explain your concept in a book, I think there is a problem with the concept. To be sure, I like apocalyptic final books on which rests everything, but I would rather watch how these event impact our characters as opposed to seeing how brand new magic is changing, really, what it means to be human.
This brings us to Cadences; in short, they are people who have Twinned, or completely connected so as to copy, their minds into large groups. They become gestalt consciousnesses in which there is no privacy or boundary from one person to the next. It is not so much that the concept is a problem. In fact, it seems like a fascinating subject for moral wrangling in a book. The problem is that it is treated as an unalloyed good. There are handwave moments in the text that mention everything is voluntary, but it should seem that there would be moral quandaries to the end of the individual as a singular person, that a group consciousness would, by definition, heavily influence and maybe overwrite the desires of a person. It is a concept that I want explored, but Mr. Bennett apparently doesn't want to explore, instead telling us "nah, bro, this is great and we should all want this level of connection." It just seems like such a contradiction that in a gritty fantasy like this, we have something of a Pollyanna-ish solution to human suffering that is portrayed in the epilogue. Just off of the top of my head, I can't imagine how being in a cadence would impact a neurodivergent person, and how their presence would affect others in the cadence. It seems...wrong...to introduce something this new at the eleventh hour and not explore it.
This novel does what Mr. Bennett is good at; if you are a fan, you will still appreciate his work here. These other issues do coarsen the overall work, however, and I think this makes for his weakest book in a long time.
It's attempted woke. Woke looks like it's been 'written-in' as a marketing afterthought. Absurd woke principles & applications are awkward. Patronizing. None of the attempts has relevance or value added to the interesting storyline.
Top reviews from other countries


Review
I have to admit that rating the book was rather hard for me. It wasn’t easy getting into the story, because eight years have passed after the enormous battle and the chilling end of „Shorefall“. And the world, the battle and even the opponents have changed so much that they are nearly unrecognizable.
Yet the wonderful broken world with its astonishing magic is as awesome as it always was. And even though the POVs changed, too, I liked Berenice, even though I missed Sancia. She has noticeably less pagetime and everything that had happened to her has changed her (well, not her voice as a character, mind you). But yes, there were a great many changes in the setting from the first heist in „Foundryside“ to the battle for the whole world in „Locklands“.
And it gets even bigger in the course of the story, when slowly the plans of the incredibly powerful enemy become clear and finally the story of Clef and Crasedes is revealed, as is its connection to the things that happen today.
There is action, battles, scheming and some heart-wrenching moments that had me think of Sanderson‘s original „Mistborn“ trilogy. And that made me in the end give five instead of four stars. It may not be what I expected it to be, but it is a fitting and satisfying end to an incredible story.


I thought the earlier books lacked character development, but this final chapter makes up for it.
