What I should have done, of course, was to read the conclusion to The Founders’ Trilogy in the autumn of last year, after the first two books. It was a mistake to read The Divine Cities in between… It made me realise what Robert Jackson Bennett is capable of, and this book is not quite it.

Anyway. I couldn’t quite remember what happened at the end of book 2 (a bad sign), but I got my bearings quickly (a good sign). Eight years have passed, the characters are still battling the new enemy from Shorefall. It was cool to see Berenice as a great general – but why on earth does her team keep addressing her as “Capo”? Yes, sure, the word might not mean the same thing in this universe as in ours, but I jumped every time it appeared on the page and I imagined Berenice as a mafia boss, lol. Sorry, I digress.

The mind magic is wondrous, I liked what RJB did here – a new kind of society and a different way of being human. The “cadences” are awesome, and I wish all these ideas had been explored deeper. They got lost in the action and dark places, though.

Naturally, we are on a mission to save the world.

“But there is no dancing through a monsoon, my love.”

Does it make sense when I say that the plot did not bore me, but the endless action did? The book is almost 550 pages long, and I felt like celebrating when I got to page 300. The characters run, hide, shoot at things, use magic, things go awry, things go awry again, someone has a new desperate plan. Repeat. There is lot of screaming as well, I lost count of “oh no no no oh god no no no’s”. I should have had a drinking game with this, really. Also, the dialogues and the characters’ reactions to events seemed very YA. I grew tired of them all.

Crasedes, the villain from book 2, makes things more exciting when he appears. (It’s “the enemy of my enemy” trope.) He is too entertaining at times, so that the I felt guilty about having fun, considering what happened in the previous book. A false note, I’d say.

Clef’s and Crasedes’ backstory, when it was completely revealed, was interesting and emotional. Yet this got lost in the action too, so it wasn’t interesting and emotional enough.

I liked the epilogue!

P.S. I am still looking forward to reading more books by Robert Jackson Bennett :) ( )

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-founders-trilogy-by-robert-jackson-bennett/

I very much enjoyed Bennett’s previous Divine Cities trilogy; this is a different fantasy world, but one where magic and machinery intersect according to a series of complex rules. So often in books like this, worldbuilding stops at the point where the writer needs it to in order to drive the plot; I really don’t get that sense here, I feel that the writer is playing fair with us all the way through, and the barriers that the characters face because of how the world has been created don’t seem artificial. There’s also a good spectrum of emotional engagement, romance, parent-child dynamics, deep and committed friendships; and Bennett’s not afraid to kill off important characters as he goes. And the sense of place is very well realised, whether it’s a cityscape, a blasted heath or a vast natural fortress. ( )

Oh what a fabulous conclusion to the series! ( )

Overall thoughts: Very beautifully written. There are no awkward gaps in prose and everything flows beautifully. Incredible story-telling. Bennett really thought this out and the overall themes in this series shine through, especially post-covid. Additionally, the magic system is refreshing and interesting.

The reason this book and series only gets three stars from me is that there is very little character development from the opening page in book one to the closing page in book 3. Because of this, all the other wonderful work Bennett has done just falls flat. I'm not even a little emotionally invested in any of the characters and I know little to nothing about them. In fact, by the end of this book, the character I thought had the most depth and whose story I was a little invested in was Clef. Probably not the author's intent.

That said, if you don't care about character depth and LOVE the story and magic and want a wildly entertaining read, this series is definitely for you! But if you're like me and you need to slip into your characters and feel all the things, you should probably pass. ( )

I enjoyed this book! It wasn’t my favorite from the trilogy but still a very solid book and a fitting end to the trilogy. This book picks up a few years after the events of the previous book and a few things have changed for our core group of characters. This book had a whole lot of action and excitement and there were times that I wondered if Sancia, Berenice, and Clef would ever catch a break. There are some surprising moments and we do learn more about the past. I love this world that Robert Jackson Bennet has created and found it fun to escape for a bit with this entertaining trilogy. I listened to the audiobook and thought that Tara Sands did a fantastic job with all of the character voices and added to my overall enjoyment of the story with her narration.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Del Rey and purchased a copy of the audiobook. ( )