Foundryside – Robert Jackson Bennett

The city of Tevanne dominates the world, because it is controls the secrets of scriving - a technology based upon altering an object’s reality. For example, if a vehicle has the right symbols scrived on its wheels, pushing a lever might make the wheels think they are rolling downhill - causing the vehicle to accelerate - and pulling the lever might make the wheels think they are rolling uphill. (You can also make a bullet or arrow think it’s very heavy and is very fast, which helps with the domination.)

Scriving is controlled by a small number of companies. (There used to be a lot more of them, but over the decades since scriving was discovered, most of them have been crushed.) One of which - through intermediaries - has hired Sancia to steal what turns out to be an Occidental artifact. What Tevanne knows of scriving is scraps gleaned from the ruins of the Occidental Empire, and a scrived Occidental artifact is too valuable. Sancia is unlikely to survive delivering it.

Neat premise! Interesting characters! And the writing never falters. It starts well and maintains its momentum to the end. The end of the first book, that is; this appears to be a trilogy. By the end of the first book, it becomes apparent that whatever destroyed the Occidental Empire is still around.

asked Clef.

• A scrived key picking a scrived lock