The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Book page

Cover of Locklands

Locklands

core novel 2022 The Founders Trilogy

Record

First published2022
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating4.00 (16,328 ratings, collected 2026-09-14)
First-edition ISBN9781984820686

Synopsis

In the concluding volume of the Founders trilogy, Sancia, the sentient key Clef, and Berenice have built an unconventional society out of scriving technology, using it to oppose a vast and expanding threat: an intelligence that spans much of the known world and uses scriving to seize control of both objects and human minds. Although they have managed to free some of its captured hosts, the entity continues to advance steadily toward an ancient doorway said to lead to the very origins of scriving itself. Facing an adversary that seems impossible to stop by ordinary means, Sancia and her allies begin piecing together the buried history of scriving's creation, aware that a spy may be hiding within their own ranks and that their enemy still holds secrets they have not uncovered.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (The Founders Trilogy): A completed trilogy, confirmed a 3rd, wholly unrelated universe from Robert Jackson Bennett, already in this canon twice over (Shadow of the Leviathan; The Divine Cities) -- no shared setting, characters, or continuity with either. A magic-as-programmable-code ('scriving') heist-fantasy setting. The trilogy itself was a 2023 Hugo Award for Best Series nominee; Foundryside individually was a 2019 Dragon Award finalist (Fantasy Novel, including paranormal), a 2019 British Fantasy Award (Robert Holdstock Award) finalist, and placed 4th in the 2019 Locus Award reader poll for Fantasy Novel.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

  • Publication order, within the series The Founders Trilogy: position 3 of 3: previous Shorefall (2020)

Sources

← The Founders Trilogy dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.