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. 

Josiah Bancroft’s series, The Books of Babel, has been a virtual juggernaut over in the world of Book Twitter. The first two books, Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx, were self-published. Senlin Ascends caught the attention of Mark Lawrence after it was bounced out of the SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a wicked cool contest created by Lawrence). He adored the book, and apparently was instrumental in bringing this series to Orbit, and to a much wider readership.

Saying this is a special book doesn’t even begin to cover it. Senlin Ascends is wholly original and beautifully written…this book fucking astonished me with every turn of the page. Josiah Bancroft is a wonderful storyteller, and he deserves all the praise that’s been heaped on these books by the book community! 

This is the story of Thomas Senlin, the somewhat meek & mild headmaster of a very small school in a very small fishing village. He’s incredibly intelligent, a bit of a know-it-all,  quite bookish, nervous, anxious, neurotic…these certainly aren’t qualities found on the checklist of the Fantasy Novel Hero, and that’s what makes Senlin such a great protagonist. He’s unlikely. Unexpected. He grows tremendously as a character, and he grows on the reader as well.

At its heart, Senlin Ascends is a fucking gorgeous love story. The novel begins with Senlin and his wife, Marya, leaving for their honeymoon. They are going to the Tower of Babel, a place that Senlin has been obsessed with & studying his whole life. The tower is shrouded in mystery. No one knows when it was built. Or by whom. Some say it is still under construction. No one knows for certain how many levels there are. Each level, or ringdom, is its own world in a way. And after quickly losing Marya at the very bottom of the tower, Senlin begins his adventure upwards.

He soon learns that the Tower of Babel is not at all the near-utopia he had dreamed of. That while it is full of wonder in many ways, it’s also an incredibly dark & dangerous place. Thomas discovers quickly that he’ll need to adapt…not just to find his wife, but to survive the Tower himself. In a world of double-crossers and people who aren’t exactly who they claim to be, it’s difficult for Thomas to trust the friends he makes along the way. 

And the characters that Thomas meets are incredibly written…oof…Edith & Adam & Iren. I love them so goddamn much. The Red Hand is a supremely creepy villain. And of course Marya, who we only get glimpses of. As free-spirited as Thomas is inflexible, they make for a truly memorable pair. 

There is just so much to love about this book, and about this fascinating world Bancroft has created. Senlin Ascends is fun & full of surprises, and it is achingly & unapologetically romantic. It’s weird & wacky & a little bit steampunky. It’s so descriptive & evocative…you can smell the street food cooking and feel the humidity on your skin. The Tower of Babel is as much a character in this book as anyone, after all .