Senlin Ascends: Book One of the Books of Babel

Product Information

Bancroft, Josiah (3 December 2021). "Acquisition Announcement: The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft". Orbit Books . Retrieved 1 June 2022. Tower of Babel: The titular tower. There are hints that this is the Tower, albeit in a parallel universe. All of this sounds as if I'm preparing you for disappointment. And I'm really not. It's a great book. An easy 5*.

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case. There are passages that have dug trenches in my mind. In particular, when a character emotes love for the first time. Or when a long-teased action piece culminates into a terrifying, beautiful, and wonderfully sad denouement. But most of all, the simple conversations that feel so impeccably human: words full of fault, grief, apologies, and glimmers of hope. Bancroft's soaring prose and heartfelt characters have restored some of my faith that there is more good than bad in this world. Senlin could not help but to admire her grace, gruesome as it was. In her warring, he saw all the lessons she’d drummed into him, here com- Prose: Like the previous works by Josiah Bancroft, the prose in this book were pure brilliant. He outdone himself. Fiction Book Review: Arm of the Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 28 January 2020.And I still have to return to THAT ENDING. While I can‘t say it had been a true Deus Ex Machina, it was... almost absurd and definitely genre-bending. It had nothing to do with steampunk or urban fantasy – two of the genres one would probably associate the series with. No, it was something absolutely new, absolutely, I don‘t know, alien to the whole world and worldbuilding, that I‘m not even sure should I laugh or should I cry or should I just gape at it all. bined into a single, fluid reflex. He’d long suspected that she had been overly hard on him when they’d sparred, but now he knew just how No spoilers, but this adventure that gave us more Senlin and a great deal of Adam and others as well, is satisfying in a way that all huge epic fantasies can be. If you've loved the series so far, you will definitely love this as well.

Bancroft, Josiah (3 November 2019). "The State of Book Four". The Books of Babel . Retrieved 29 January 2020. So much happened. So many changes to the characters. And by the time we get to book 4, having undergone so many massive reveals as to the nature of Babel, the towering tower of a city, its makers, and the people who supported it, it kinda felt like there was nothing else that could have surprised me.Overall, it’s a wonderful conclusion to a unique series that features some great characters, an interesting plot, and fascinating worldbuilding. There is a lot of potential for further stories to be told as well. I’ll read whatever Bancroft puts out after this, whether it be set in this world or something completely new. con 2, the antagonists are kinda weak. It has generally been a series more focused on the protagonists, with the tower itself almost being the antagonist for the first three books. Unlike those in this book there is a group of people who were the antagonist, and they were just a leader who wasn't that interesting, with forgettable followers. As Marat's siege engine bores through the Tower, erupting inside ringdoms and leaving chaos in its wake, Senlin can do nothing but observe the mayhem from inside the belly of the beast. Caught in a charade, Senlin desperately tries to sabotage the rampaging Hod King, even as Marat's objective grows increasingly clear. The leader of the zealots is bound for the Sphinx's lair and the unimaginable power it contains. This book has more action than the first three. I don't think Josiah Bancroft is good at writing action. And I think he is good at writing basically everything that isn't action, so there is going to be a strong negative correlation in this series between quantity of action, and how much I like it. He goes very detailed, and blow by blow, but it just doesn't feel intense, or engaging. I almost wish Bancroft just cut his losses, and decided to just write action like Tolkien did, and just summarize it. 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.

Ending: Though I thought the climax was mediocre but I thought the ending was interesting. Certain developments I wouldn’t have predicted but I did see some aspects foreshadowed at the beginning of the series.Part 3 I thought was mostly excellent, especially at the beginning. There are some awesome reunions at the beginning, and everything was great until we head to the actual climax of the novel, which was underwhelming. It felt like a series that was built on imagination and clever wit, having such a generic climax was a big misstep. The Fall of Babel is the final book in The Books of Babel quartet and a great conclusion to the series, though I still consider The Hod King my favourite of the four. It wraps up character arcs and resolves various threads while further expanding on the unique worldbuilding of the Tower.