Early Review – Locklands (The Founders Trilogy, Book 3) by Robert Jackson Bennett (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 560 pages
Publisher:‎ Del Rey
Release Date: June 28, 2022
ASIN: B09DP5YKRL
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Founders Trilogy
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars

“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.”

Series Info/Source: This is the third (and final) book in The Founders Trilogy. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: This book starts us off a number of years in the future. Sancia and Berenice have worked to start a new and peaceful community. They are also trying to rescue and protect other parts of the world from Tevanne (a gigantic entity that is taking over human minds).

I am not going to try to explain the plot any more than the above, it is complicated. Needless to say a lot of the plot ends up involving Clef, his son, and his history in general. I continue to enjoy the idea behind scriving but some of the concepts around editing realities gets a bit abstract in this story. The concept of many humans joining into one entity mind is also explored a lot here; mainly from the angle of how much more peaceful this makes society. It is an interesting concept.

I did have some issues with this book though. It is long and it feels really long. I kept falling asleep while reading it and really struggled to read and stay engaged with the story. The characters don’t really grow or change much and aren’t very relatable. There are a lot of characters here and we do engage with Berenice and Sancia quite a bit. Clef continues to be one of my favorite characters but he felt strangely distanced in this book and there was a lot less of his humor to lighten things up. The story also starts to feel repetitive; they hunt down a part of Tevanne, have a lot of trouble, retreat, make a new plan, and do it all over again with various variations to their actions.

I also had an issue with how much page space was given to describing the scrivings. At this point we understand the concept of scriving and we don’t need to read how they are made and used in gritty detail over and over. This drew out an already long story and could have been edited some to make this story tighter and more exciting to read.

I know I am complaining a lot but that’s because the main feeling I felt when I finished reading this was relief to be done with it. It is decently written, there is a cool world here, some neat concepts and I enjoy the action scenes. However, most of these aspects were introduced and described in the first two books. As a result, this book just feels more like a “playing out” of what had to happen to tie up the story. There weren’t any huge surprises and I didn’t really enjoy reading this but I did want to know how everything was going to wrap up. My favorite part of this whole book was the afterward where Bennett talks about writing this book during the pandemic.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this book was disappointing to me. It was decently written and did tie the story up nicely (even if things get a bit abstract and strange at the end). It just felt really long. The characters are somewhat distanced, the plot gets repetitive, and the amount of page space given to covering (and re-covering) scriving techniques was excessive. Was it worth the 8 hours it took me to read? Eh…not really, but if you are engaged in this series you probably want to finish it up. At the beginning of this series I was eager to read Bennett’s other series, after this book…not so much.