Senlin Ascends (Books of Babel, #1)

by Josiah Bancroft

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I have had this book on my TBR for a very long time, just didn’t expect the magical readthon of 2019 to be where I read it.

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The world Josiah Bancroft made up is very very interesting, I like stuff set in alternate universes where the main setting is in a place said to have disappeared a long time ago, just so I can see what the author comes up with. I honestly thought that, that aspect alone would be enough for me to enjoy any series, but I guess it’s not always the case. Senlin Ascends is very imaginative and Josiah Bancroft made the world as interesting and as brutal as he possibly can with a character who is not your everyday protagonist from my experience, but unfortunately, the book fails very hard at gripping me or gluing me to its pages.

It could be that I’m not very interested in either Sanlin or the people he meets in this book (who might I add are distinct in their own ways which is not something I expected so early in the series), but honestly, I believe that it’s the fact that I expected something else going into this book that I couldn’t really enjoy these events. I expected this epic quest where he will explore the tower in search for his wife, adventure, action and whole world of mysteries riddled with fantasy or science fiction that I’ll be having yet another experience as I was when reading Rachel Caine’s Great Library Series.

However, that never happened here. The series does indeed have some steampunk elements, but the focus here is more on Sanlin coming out of his comfort zone and trying to adjust to this world. I don’t recall why I came into it with expectations like those, but I do know that my pre-set expectations made enjoying this book very difficult and made continuing this book feel like a chore somewhat as well. It’s a damn shame given what I experienced here with Sanlin, the Parlour bit was probably my favourite part before the interest started dwindling down. There is something so strange about the way that segment went, strange in a good way by the way.

The Baths and New Babel weren’t as engaging as I hoped, but the former was still better than the latter in that regard. Maybe it’s because I still had some interest in me still, before completely losing it. I’m very annoyed by this since this is the first book in a while where the focus on romance was warranted and not cringeworthy as it was in the majority of my latest reads. I do want to continue experiencing the Tower of Babel with him and I may give the sequels a try but I honestly don’t see myself picking them up in the near future.

Final rating: 2/5