Senlin Ascends: Book One of the Books of Babel

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Edith’s character arc was executed well and somewhat predictable since book 2. Her being the Sphinx and that being a title, which is referred to earlier in this novel. But her transformation throughout the course of the series was fantastic. The resolution of her and Senlin’s relationship I thought was handled tastefully. My expectations for this book were astronomically high, and I'm thrilled to say that nearly all of them were met. Senlin was also discovering a more efficient means of advancing through the crowds. If he stopped, he found, it was difficult to start again, but progress could be made if one was a little more firm and determined. After a few minutes of following, Marya felt comfortable enough to release his belt, which made walking much easier for them both. I also think Marat killing his crew mercilessly did weaken his ideological clash with the Sphinx. I assume it wasn’t meant to be a clash of ideologies. But his action just gave him less depth. His villain gang was generally unremarkable, and the final combat exchange was just a mess. It was just badly executed, and Marat's demise was very anticlimactic.

I’m not sure if it’s me - if I waited too long between books to start this last instalment. Or if it’s just because the tone of this one seems so different to the previous books. Senlin Ascends was my favourite but I feel like this series lost its way as it went. The incredible final book in the word of mouth phenomenon fantasy series that began with Senlin Ascends. The book has three main plot threads, that (as you would expect) converge in the story's finale. Each, to me, highlights a noteworthy flaw in this book. The first thread focuses on Adam, absent from the series since the second volume, who has made it to the paradisiacal city that crowns the Tower and found that he and his sister are somehow well-known to its inhabitants. When Adam's fame was touched upon in volume two I worried that the book would go in a metanarrative direction, which thankfully it doesn't, but this aspect of the book has a different problem: I praised the first volume for revealing that certain plot points that initially seemed to rely on coincidence in fact were not based on coincidence at all, but in this thread (and throughout this volume) coincidence is key. It is only thanks to chance that among the hundreds or perhaps thousands of eyes sent up to Nebos, Adam’s eye was used to make a groundbreaking film by one of the most powerful people in Nebos, which led to the son of that person recognizing Adam and choosing to spare him against city regulations, and that also led to the daughter of that person to fall in love with Adam. Without that one chance out of however many eyes, Adam would be a charred skeleton on the roof of the Tower. And it’s not just Adam’s plot thread that relies on coincidence either, as by the end of the series it’s clear that the confluence of Luc Marat trying to take over the Tower (and relatedly grabbing paintings) and the crisis of the Tower’s internal systems coming to a head (which also necessitates having the paintings) is pure happenstance, with each crisis arising independently. While prior volumes made it seem as though Bancroft was crafting a story where each step forward understandably and predictably followed from the last, this final volume disappointingly reveals that such is not the case. The plot progression and the conclusion I thought was satisfying, both in the way the story played out and the interspersing of the PoV sections. It was steadily paced with a constant sense of story movement, though some of the action scenes I thought extended a tad too long. There are mysteries slowly being unravelled about the nature and function of the Tower after getting bits and pieces peppered throughout the previous books. One of my favourite aspects of any fantastical world is getting to know the lore, figuring out how all of it fits together logically. This series mostly delivers on that front, as there are awaited revelations about the various ringdoms and the Tower, as well as a deeper exploration of the workings of the mysterious red substance. To find her, Senlin must enter the Tower of Babel – a world of geniuses and tyrants, of menace and wonder, of unusual animals and mysterious machines. And if he hopes to ever see his wife again, he will have to do more than just survive . . . this quiet man of letters must become a man of action.

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But that’s not all. It actually took me another week to finish the rest of the novel; this makes The Fall of Babel the longest time I ever spent to finish a book. It’s insane, The Fall of Babel consists of 241k words but it felt like 600k words. For comparison, Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (460k words) took me a week to start and finish, and The Stand Uncut Edition by Stephen King (468k words) took me ten days. I don’t know about you, but often I can measure how invested and enamored I am by a book through how fast—not intentionally, but I always feel like I WANT to continue reading—I can read through it. Yes, the immense pacing issues I had with the beginning of this book could’ve been fixed simply by having all the POV characters appearing interchangeably instead of doing it in a large chunk. It’s also true that this worked in The Hod King, but it didn’t in here, not for me anyway. But The Fall of Babel felt like four novellas combined into one book, and the only sections I loved from the book were the four long chapters titled “From the Belly of the Beast” and some of the chapters in the last part of the novel, at least until the ending happened. A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children. Everywhere he looked now he saw groups of people roped together. Any movement through the crowd was made more difficult by the web of leashes. Why had the Guide neglected to mention that little nugget of wisdom? Bring a good rope.

In the third book, The Hod King, Senlin carries out a mission for the enigmatic Sphinx while he and his friends continue the search for Marya. The Los Angeles Times praised the book as "an easy, joyful read; the author's vibrant prose, simply incredible". [9] Today, Marya wore her traveling clothes: a knee-length khaki skirt and plain white blouse with a somewhat eccentric pith helmet covering her rolling auburn hair. She had dyed the helmet red, which Senlin didn’t particularly like, but she’d sold him on the fashion by saying it would make her easier to spot in a crowd. Senlin wore a gray suit of thin corduroy which he felt was too casual, even for traveling, but which she had said was fashionable and a little frolicsome, and wasn’t that the whole point of a honeymoon after all?Thomas Senlin, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, is drawn to the Tower by scientific curiosity and the grandiose promises of a guidebook. The luxurious Baths of the Tower seem an ideal destination for a honeymoon, but soon after arriving, Senlin loses Marya in the crowd. Senlin’s search for Marya carries him through madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassination, and the long guns of a flying fortress. She wouldn’t abandon us,” the older replied in a tone that suggested this was a well-tread argument between them. Marya jumped in her seat when a camel’s head swung unexpectedly near. Senlin tried to calm her by example, but couldn’t stop himself from yelping when the camel snorted, spraying them with warm spit. Frustrated by this lapse in decorum, Senlin cleared his throat and shooed the camel out with his handkerchief. Look, no one is more surprised than me that my most anticipated book of the year (and my life?) was not five stars. I still can’t quite get over the fact that the series is finished.