Reviews with content warning for Violence - 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.

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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

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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….

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lighterthaneyre's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

So, you start this book and if you're like me, you'll be worried this is going to turn into a story about a Dude who has to get by with his Masculinity and Violence and Self Reliance- really Fight Club shit.

Let me assure you that doesn't happen.

The main character does have a very well defined journey of growth and discovery, but he never loses sight of caring for others, even as it's proved to be risky. The characters learn it is risky, but ultimately the only thing that matters.

The setting of the Tower is fucking buck wild- this book clearly had a lot of exposition to set it all up, but it's interesting and dynamic enough to be engaging. Sometimes the pacing gets a little bogged down, but in a way you can tell won't be as big of an issue in later books (I haven't read the followups here, but my friend who recommended this one says that's the case)

There's also a diverse cast that has a lot of women that feel like individuals, not props. I think I'd swear fealty to Iren, which is usually a good sign of a well written woman.

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lores's review

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I really really enjoyed Senlin Ascends. The Tower of Babel is an incredible setting, as is well-advertised, and it functions both as a wonder, allegory, and a mystery. It drew me in most by the dynamic of the Tower, and this main setting was one of my favourite things about the book, but the cast in the background also fascinated me and I can't wait to read more about them. It is probably necessary to know that this is part of a series, and not everything will be wrapped up or finished, but the development of Senlin, Edith, Adam and made me so excited to see more.

Also - I will say that the flashbacks reveal that Senlin's wife was a previous student of his. While I have problems with positive modern depictions of such relationships, and this book presents it as a pretty neutral fact, I didn't feel like it disrupted my personal experience of the book and it felt appropriate in the context of the setting and characters so far, and may be explored as a dynamic in the future. However, if that's a hard line for you, this may not be the book for you.

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