Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

That was how scrivings worked: they were instructions written upon mindless objects that convinced them to disobey reality in select ways.

Behold, the moment when I knew this book and series was going to make my AuDHD brain extremely happy.

Sancia hated this sort of thing. The logic behind scriving always seemed so stupidly simple – barely logic at all, really. But then, scriving more or less bent reality, or at least confused it.

Food was even worse. Eating meat was out of the question – blood and fat did not taste delicious to her, but instead carried an overpowering sensation of rot, decay, and putrefaction. All those muscle fibres and tendons remembered being part of a living creature, of being connected, whole, bright with life. To taste meat was to know, instantly and profoundly, that she was gnawing on a hunk of a corpse.

Genuinely one of the most horrific things I've ever read.

<Hell . . . I don’t know how to put this. The scrivers figured out a way to combine sigils to make a bunch of new languages. Ones that are more specific, more powerful – ones that can convince items to be really, really different. So they can make locks that only open for one key in the whole world, and they’re completely unpickable. It’s not a matter of pressing and pulling on the right lever, or something – the lock knows there’s only one key it’s supposed to open for.>

‘You just used some magic-ear bullshit to find that damn thing!’ said Orso angrily, pointing at the door. ‘And a flying man just tried to throw me off the roof! Our idea of “crazy” is obviously in need of some updates!’

<Don’t hate Captain Dandolo,> said Clef as she set him down. <I think he’s broken, just like you and me. He’s just trying to fix the world because it’s the only way he knows to fix himself.>

PAINFULLY REAL. I adore Gregor, he's taken his trauma and done his damnedest to turn it into good.

‘And if it doesn’t work?’ ‘Frankly, I don’t have a damned clue what will happen if it goes wrong.’ She glanced at Sancia. ‘Still feeling experimental?’ ‘I’ve done dumber shit in the past few days.’

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.

so long as you think only of survival, only of living to see the next day, you will always bear their chains. You will not be free.

Every innovation – technological, sociological, or otherwise – begins as a crusade, organises 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. What goes forgotten, though, is that those who partake in this system undergo a similar transformation: people begin as comrades and fellow citizens, then become labour resources and assets, and then, as their utility shifts or degrades, transmute into liabilities, and thus must be appropriately managed.

‘I . . . I don’t want you to scrumming die, Clef! And I know it’s not really death, but it’s damned well close enough!’

‘Remember – move thoughtfully, give freedom to others, and you’ll rarely do wrong, Sancia. I’ve learned that now. I wish I’d known it in life.’

Tears. TEARS.

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

Truer words are rarely spoken, good GOD.