Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

‘collection of energies’ or a ‘focusing of minds’ and ‘thoughts all captured.’

There are many dangers here, child, she’d said once. Many. Many ugly things you’re going to have to do. It will be a great contest for you. And you’re going to think: How do I win? And the answer is—so long as you are alive, you are winning. The only hope you should ever have is to see the next day, and the next. Some here will whisper of liberty—but you can’t be free if you aren’t alive.

“Traditional,” she echoed. “What a curious word that is. So bland, and yet often so poisonous.”

I want to run, but I’ve nowhere to run to.>

Every innovation—technological, sociological, or otherwise—begins as a crusade, organizes itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world.

Many believe I am but walls,> said the Mountain. <And floors. And lifts and doors. But Tribuno wove sigils into my boundaries, my bones…and when he finished I became something…more.>

And I felt the pressure in this place, like I was deep under the sea…And I can only converse with an item when it’s touching me, right? But what if, whenever you’re in the Mountain’s

“It’s a…representation. You’re doing what people have always been so talented at doing—reinterpreting what is before you in understandable terms.”

“I’ve lived in your thoughts for a long time. I’ve been inside your mind. So, now that you have the tools, it’s perfectly possible for you to come into mine.”

Any given innovation that empowers the individual will inevitably come to empower the powerful much, much more.