Wednesday, February 12, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 21, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Shorefall is the latest novel by SF/F author Robert Jackson Bennett (The Divine Cities) and the second book in his Founders Trilogy, which began in 2018 with Foundryside (reviewed here).  Foundryside was easily one of my books of last year, with strong characters, a mechanic of the setting in Scriving that was really clever and allowed for some very tricky plot turns, and some strong themes of Power, Privilege, and Oppression that may be familiar to readers of RJB's Divine Cities trilogy, but were explored in some different and fascinating ways.  So it wasn't a surprise that I managed to finish my prerelease copy (eARC) of this book within a single day, despite it not being a short book at all.

Shorefall is a pretty good follow up, although it has some of the typical issues with second novels in trilogies which tell a single overarching story (in contrast to how The Divine Cities essentially told three stand alone stories which built upon each other).  The story remains clever, with some great characters, higher stakes, and some absolutely fantastic dialogue and plot developments, which continue telling a story with similar themes to its predecessor.  On the other hand, the wonder of some of the mechanics of this world are a bit lost in the process, as the story moves on from being a battle of mortals trying to shape reality to a battle of god-like beings.  It may be the weakest of the 5 RJB novels that I've read as a result, but it's still a strong work and I will be eagerly anticipating the conclusion.

Note: Spoilers for Foundryside are inevitable below, but I'll try not to go overboard on them.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
3 Years have passed since the events of Foundryside, and in those 3 years, the efforts of Sancia, Gregor, Orso, and Berenice have changed Tevanne dramatically.  Now, operating their own consulting merchant house, Foundryside Ltd., the group uses Sancia's gifts and their own skills to help other independent scrivers create new techniques and build upon the knowledge of how to alter reality, with the aim of undercutting the remaining major merchant houses that once unquestionably ruled the city.  And using Orso's twinning technique, they're about to conduct a heist of one of the Merchant House's most valuable properties - its entire lexicon - right under its nose.

But in doing so, Sancia is delivered a warning from Valeria, the god-like contruct she unleashed 3 years prior, that someone - most likely Gregor's mother Ofelia Dandolo - is about to bring back Valeria's maker, Crasedes Magnus, the ancient legend who once sacrificed thousands of humans in order to attain godlike powers of his own.  Crasedes legendarily destroyed countless empires and peoples in the past, and the group knows that his return would only end in more atrocities....if they're not able to stop it.

But as Sancia and the rest get involved in this conflict between gods, they find themselves forced to themselves go to the boundaries between life and death in search of the techniques needed to possibly stop Crasedes.  And even if they succeed in helping Valeria stop Crasedes, what will Valeria do with no one left to stop her?   In this battle of beings and people trying to alter the definitions of reality, nothing will ever be the same again....for the city, or themselves.....
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After a quick heist moment to get back into the scheme of things, Shorefall picks up right from where the cliffhanger of Foundryside left off (despite the 3 year time jump).  Things have happened to our major characters in the interim, but nothing super unexpected from where we saw them last (the two independent scrivers have moved on to other things, but that's about it).  And so Shorefall tells the story from their perspectives - mostly through Sancia's again, but sometimes through the perspectives of Gregor, Orso, and Berenice as well.

And these characters are still absolutely tremendous, from Orso's idealistic quest to ruin the merchant houses by sharing knowledge to Berenice's brilliance to Sancia's scrappy thinking and yet despair at being unable to fix Clef to Gregor's need to do good but fear that he cannot control himself due to what he is....all of the major characters are tremendous on their own.  And of course they're not on their own and the relationships between them - Sancia/Berenice's love, Orso's Mentorship of Berenice, Sancia's guilt over not fixing Gregor, etc. - are still extremely well done, making me care so much about all of them and their individual and collective fates.  And the book further develops minor characters from the last book - Valeria, Ofelia, for example - as well as newer characters introduced in this book, particularly, Polina Carbonari, an ex-slave (like Sancia) who woud rather fight more overtly for bringing the whole system down, since a system that enslaves people for work on the plantations should not be allowed to exist.

All of this is done in service of a plot that winds through twists and turns, from beginning to end, though nearly all of the twists are foreshadowed subtly beforehand so hey never seem like deus ex machinas.  It's incredibly thrilling to read, and all in service of a plot that furthers the last book's themes of Power and what people do with it.  Both of the antagonists of this story maintain the belief that power in all forms - greater technology, resources, allies, etc. - always leads to the strong oppressing the weak...they just differ in what they feel should be done about it.*

*Minor Spoiler in Rot13 of the Antagonists' motives: Bar nagntbavfg srryf gung nf n erfhyg, ur cynaf gb hfr nofbyhgr cbjre gb pbageby rirelobql vagb pbzcyvnapr jvgu uvf bja ehyrf ol erfuncvat gur ernyvgl bs rirelbar'f zvaqf.  Gur bgure srryf vafgrnq gung jvgu cbjre pnhfvat fb zhpu ubeebe va guvf jbeyq, gur orfg guvat gb qb jbhyq or gb gnxr vg nyy njnl, qrfgeblvat nyy vaxyvatf bs grpuabybtl fb nf gb fraq uhznavgl vagb n arj qnex ntr gb yvzvg gurve bja unez.  

Sancia and the group struggle with this issue as well, as they have been proceeding from the idea that by giving scriving definitions to EVERYBODY and taking away the monopolies of the Merchant Houses, they are equalizing the playing field and abating the potential abuses, but as the story progresses, they begin to seriously wonder if their actions are really doing any long term good at all, if shifting power only shifts who does the oppressing and who is the oppressed.  A large focus of the novel is of the protagonists wrestling with this dilemma as they discover more and more terrible powers, despite them seemingly being unable to do anything other than follow the course they're already going.  As this is a second novel, we don't get any clear answers to this question, but we do get an inkling in a suggestive use of power to counter this cycle of pain, which I won't spoil too much except as to say it's an idea that's certainly been done before in SciFi in noticeable forms, but executed extremely well in his novel.  Still, I remain hardpressed to believe the overall extension of that idea is where RJB is going after the explosive end of this novel, which naturally ends in a hell of a cliffhanger.

Unfortunately, Shorefall suffers from some typical second installment issues.  In particular, the wonder of what ingenius tricks can be put together with scriving has kind of faded, with the character's leaning extremely heavily on one technique - twinning - which with one exception - doesn't really provide anything new.  And the conflict between Crasedes and Valeria that forms the heart of this book doesn't quite provide that same wonder, since the two beings' godlike power is so ridiculous as to basically be magic, which feels a bit like a cheat compared to the logic of the rest of how scriving works.  The characters and plot arc and themes are well strong enough to carry this novel despite the above, but it does drop this novel quite a bit.

Despite that, Shorefall is an incredibly satisfying novel to read, with characters who are so easy to care for, great dialogue and a number of moments of great humor (despite this being not a comedy), as well as a plot that deals with some damn interesting themes.  I can't wait for the conclusion.

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