Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Senlin Ascends

This book was awful! I truly hated it even though I was so excited to start this series and I really wanted to be enjoy this one.

Let's start with what I liked about it. The book worldbuilding is based on Tower of Babel where each floor is a completely different world with different rules, and societies. The only thing that was certain was that the world is cruel and Senlin shouldn't trust anyone. I loved the idea and the author gets the credit.

Although, that's probably it. The whole execution was truly bad with the worst main character. Senlin was a British academic who had a lot of knowledge, particularly about Tower of Babel. He was very arrogant, full of himself and when it came to action, totally useless. He didn't have any drive to him, the whole plot just happened to him and there wasn't any driving force. His only motivation was finding his wife. And I do have a problem here, too. I didn't believe he loved her and he married her just because he had to marry someone. When Senlin talked about Marya, it always felt like he was talking about his favourite possession and not about a person he is supposed to be in love with. I didn't believe any emotion expressed by him as their whole marriage felt so superficial. Also, his descriptions of her were just sexist and dumb. In conclusion, I didn't buy it.

Apart from the main character and his marriage, the plot progression was just plain boring. Nothing happened. And when finally something exciting started happening, Senlin was very passive about it and eventually, I got bored again. I really think it was such of waste of opportunity because the world could be so intriguing.

The whole book Senlin is trying to find his lost wife but you know what got me? At the end of it, he still doesn't have any proper clue where she is and she's still missing! What was the point of it then? To only find a trustworthy crew for Senlin so he can finally start properly looking for her? Why was this book so long then?

I'm honestly disappointed as I had such big expectations that I would like it. I won't continue the series and I wouldn't recommend this one either.

Content Warnings

nik_a's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

cinhein's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

TW: Human Trafficking, Attempted SA, References to SA, Abduction

I can't really recommend this book as it was a slog to get through. If you do enjoy a main character who is too dumb or scared to do anything about the situation that they're in for four-hundred pages, this book is right up your alley. Otherwise, I'd steer clear.

If the things mentioned in the Content Warning section don't put you off, you'll probably be fine with this. It gets going in the middle and picks up the pace somewhat. However, every time it does so, it quickly brings everything to a screeching stop once again with detailed descriptions of human trafficking and slavery.

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kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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zw_books's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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sarasreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What a great, action packed read. Love the world building and all of the mysteries within the tower and the plot. Just a fascinating premise and a well thought out plot. Definitely more plot based than character based, which isn't normally my jam, but the plot makes up for it. In the beginning I also thought the characters were pretty flat, but they were more fleshed out as the story developed, which I appreciated.

I'm hoping for even more character development as the series continues. And I'm so excited to dive into the next one. I couldn't put this down. I listened to the audiobook, and I kept upping the speed, not because I was bored but because I had to know what was going to happen next. If I'd had a physical book I don't think I could have kept my eyes from darting to the bottoms of the page.

It was a bit brutal in places, but they were quick and even a wimp like me could take it. On to the next!

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

When I reviewed Red Seas Under Red Skies, I said that fantasy heist meets pirate adventure was tailor-made to my interests. Senlin Ascends proves that even when a book has one’s favourite elements, there’s no guarantee it will become a favourite. Senlin Ascends has an art heist!, piracy!, a group of misfits struggling against society! and yet I’m not at all sure I’ll ever read the next book in the series.

Senlin Ascends gets off to a bad start. The first two thirds of the book consist of Senlin’s episodic encounters with a world and a cast of characters that unrelentingly want to screw him over. The Tower of Babel was such a disappointing, chaotic place that I found myself wondering why I was supposed to want to read about it. To give full credit to Josiah Bancroft, that’s not entirely his fault: I made an early assumption about Senlin’s relationship with Marya which coloured his rescue mission as more cynically hopeless than intended.

Even an art heist wasn’t enough to get me on board, because although Senlin had to work with others to pull it off, there was no sense of connection to any of the characters. Tarrou gave the impression of being too superficial to ever be relied upon, and Senlin had left everyone else he’d encountered worse off than when he found them, which didn’t encourage much sympathy.

Fortunately, there was a turning point when almost everything I disliked about the book changed at once: Senlin took responsibility for the consequences of his actions, he started connecting with other characters who had stories of their own and I was finally able to hope that his quest might not be as doomed as I’d first assumed. The leaps of personality taken by Senlin came a little too quickly, but I was so relieved not to be miserable reading about this unpleasant place that I didn’t really mind.

The ending of Senlin Ascends is promising, which is a weird thing to say about the ending of a book. It left me torn about whether or not to continue the series; does the potential of a group of misfits attempting piracy on an airship outweigh the fact that I really didn’t enjoy most of the book? Fortunately, my TBR is long enough that I can put the decision off for several months….

Content Warnings

deedireads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Senlin Ascends, about a schoolteacher on a quest to find his missing wife in the infamous Tower of Babel, is such a fun adventure. I’d been meaning to read it forever, and I’m glad I finally did!

For you if: You’re a sucker for a bookish main character with a lot of room for growth.

FULL REVIEW:

Senlin Ascends, the first book in Josiah Bancroft’s recently completed Books of Babel quartet, has been waiting for me to pluck it off my shelf for at least two years. I’m glad I finally did! It’s a fun adventure with humor and imagination, but also substance.

The story is about a man named Thomas Senlin. He’s a schoolteacher in his small seaside village, recently married to a bright-spirited woman named Marya. They go to the famous Tower of Babel — a booming metropolis and reputed cultural center of the world that Senlin has long ached to see. But shortly after they get there, Marya disappears, and Senlin realizes the Tower isn’t all that he imagined it to be. His resolve to find her turns into a true quest as he makes his way up the tower’s “ringdoms.” (Yes, there’s an echo of Dante’s Inferno there.)

Certain parts of this book moved a little slowly, but there was, of course, lots of worldbuilding to be done. Anyway, it totally picked up at the end, and I love the hints at a nice little central mystery related to the tower itself, under the bigger mystery of Marya’s whereabouts. I also have such a soft spot in my heart for Senlin. He starts off naive and self-assured, but also clearly lovable. It was a delight to watch him start to change but also stay true to himself! And while there wasn’t much Marya in this book, the picture being painted of her makes me think I’m going to love her even MORE.

Fun fact: The first two books in this series were originally self-published, and they absolutely knocked people’s socks off. Orbit picked them up a few years later, reprinting the first two and finishing the last two. And it’s easy to see why. Book two, I’m coming for you soon!

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