Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft – Review

Published: January 16, 2018

Publisher: Orbit Books

Genre: Fantasy

Series: The Books of Babel #1

Pages: 448 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

The Tower of Babel is the greatest marvel in the world. Immense as a mountain, the ancient Tower holds unnumbered ringdoms, warring and peaceful, stacked one on the other like the layers of a cake. It is a world of geniuses and tyrants, of airships and steam engines, of unusual animals and mysterious machines.

Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.

Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he’ll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassination, and the long guns of a flying fortress. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.

This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.

---

This may be a weird way to start a review, but I’m really happy for Josiah Bancroft – he started out as a self-published author, but through the efforts of he and his readers he’s now been picked up by Orbit! That’s a big deal!!! I initially heard about Senlin Ascends when it was going through the rounds of SPFBO – I was curious but just didn’t have the time to pick it up. I wasn’t cool enough to check it out before it was mainstream, but now that it is….

Thomas Senlin is a schoolteacher – a quiet man in a world of his own, until he marries Marya. Marya is a bright young girl who’s basically the exact opposite of Tom Senlin. The unlikely couple marries (somewhat scandalizing their neighbors) and goes to honeymoon at the Tower of Babel, a marvel of construction, with each level of the tower being a kingdom (or Ringdom) unto itself. The tower sounds like a nightmare to a solitude loving introvert like myself. Too many people, thievery, filth, noise, and lurking evil. Or open evil. It depends on the ringdom. Anyway, Tom loses Marya about 32 seconds after exiting the train and spends the next 400 pages trying to find her. She is well and truly lost it seems, but Tom Senlin continues to search for her, going to greater and more extreme measures with each floor of the tower he ascends.

This book had an interesting but slow beginning. It wasn’t plodding, but merely going at its own steady pace and I enjoyed it. As the book goes along, things pick up and Tom gets bolder and more streetwise. At the beginning he’s basically a walking target for any criminal in proximity and is taken advantage of and gets in so many traumatizing situations that I occasionally had to pause and collect myself. I was practically chewing my nails off because I was like, stressed out for this fictional character. And then I was horrified by the corruption and the treatment of people. The floor with the plays was one of the most disturbing, mostly because of how infractions to the rules were dealt with. Ohmygosh. I shudder thinking about it.

I would definitely recommend Senlin Ascends if you’re looking for a book that’s practically its own genre. It’s so creative and I can only imagine how much thought was put into creating this soaring tower of debauchery and delight. I was fond of the element of redemption presented throughout the story. Many of Senlin’s enemies or aggressors become his close companions, though I hesitate to trust they have entirely honorable intentions and won’t betray him. I really enjoyed this book overall, but didn’t passionately love it enough to grant it 5 stars. I’ll absolutely be checking out The Arm of the Sphinx as soon as it’s available!