The Tower of Babel is, all agree, the greatest marvel in the world, but little else about it is agreed upon, not
even who built it, or why, or how tall it stands above the perpetual clouds obscuring its impossible apex. Nobody
even knows for sure how many "ringdoms" - inhabited levels, each acting as its own domain - exist. By foot, by
caravan road, by airship or train, countless tourists travel to the Tower for the vacations of a lifetime... but,
like any tourist destination, the guide books and traveler tales hardly scratch the surface of the truth.
Thomas Senlin, the mild-mannered school headmaster of a small coastal village, saved a lifetime for the trip to
Babel, and could hardly have dreamed he'd travel there with a young wife, Marya, on his arm. Two weeks in the
legendary spas of the third ringdom - what better way to start a life of marital bliss! He brings with him a
well-thumbed copy of The Everyman's Guide to the Tower of Babel, which surely has all the advice he'll
need for a successful and memorable honeymoon... but, shortly after stepping off the train, he loses Marya in the
bustling, ever-shifting marketplace around the foot of the great tower. After two days of fruitless searching of
the bazaar, he finally decides that he'll try his luck in the tower itself; after all, they were going to go to
the third ringdom anyway, so maybe she went ahead when she couldn't find him, and even now is waiting for her new
husband at one of the dozens of hotels. Almost from the start, however, Thomas learns just how inadequate his
little guide book is at preparing him for what awaits inside the massive walls, realms of wonder, deceit, and
deadly danger.
Review
I've heard a lot of good things about this series, and finally decided to give it a try. As promised,
Senlin Ascends offers a unique, even surreal alternate history where the Tower of Babel never fell,
instead rising ever higher and becoming a world unto itself, operating under its own rules for its own unknown
purpose. From the moment he leaves the train with Marya, it's clear just how unprepared the small town headmaster
is for the real experience of the Tower of Babel and the greater experience of life and the world, for which the
tower is a clear metaphor. This is a place that preys upon hope, monetizes vice, shatters faith, and punishes
those who dare to resist the seemingly arbitrary rules and invariably corrupt rulers, where it's impossible to
tell truth from lies and a friend from a foe. The only way out is up, with cruel punishments for those who try
to sneak their way up through the ringdoms in the hopes that, somewhere a few rings higher, maybe they might
find the utopian wonders that everyone insists are to be found within the Tower.
In his journey, Thomas stumbles and often falls, slowly and painfully transforming from a naive tourist convinced
of the inherent justice of the Rules and that truth and kindness always win out to a driven, desperate man whose
once-rigid morality has acquired distinct smears of gray. His little guide book, once a source of pride and
knowing superiority, becomes a mockery as his experiences contradict its glib advice. Marya sometimes feels like
a plot device, a promise of future happiness and a lure to lead him through ever higher tiers and ever further
astray from the straight and narrow life he'd expected to live, but later the reader learns some of what she's
going through, which rounds her out a bit as a character. As Thomas makes his way through the Tower, he starts
seeing glimmers of a deeper mystery and corruption, tantalizing fragments that hint at the greater machinations
behind the scenes. Now and again he seems a little too easily tricked, even later on when he's become more jaded
and gotten his own hands dirty, and there are clearly deeper metaphors and symbolism at work under the surface
that I'm sure I only barely clued into, but overall this story kept me interested, and the Tower of Babel is a
fascinating place to visit (as a reader, if not as an actual tourist). By the end, Thomas has become someone else
almost entirely (and almost literally), having made very few allies but many enemies as his pursuit of his
missing wife continues... a pursuit I expect I might follow through at least another book in this unique
series.
One year ago, mild-mannered small town schoolteacher Thomas Senlin arrived at the legendary Tower of Babel,
bound for a honeymoon with his young wife Marya... only to lose her in the crowds before even setting foot in
the tower itself. Bearing his trusty guide, The Everyman's Guide to the Tower of Babel, and his
book-smarts, Thomas thought he'd be ready for anything the Tower threw at him - only to find out the hard way,
like so many other visitors, just how easy it is to be broken by the place, and how hard it is to rise again.
And yet, despite all the setbacks, despite the cruelties and corruption he both bore witness to and found
himself forced to participate in, Thomas never gave up his goal of finding his abducted wife while holding
onto some shred of his former ethics and dignity.
Now, the one-time schoolteacher is the ersatz captain of a stolen airship, the Stone Cloud, and a
mismatched skeleton crew who have turned to piracy more for survival than out of any particular aptitude for
the trade. Despite the odds against them - they are still being hunted by the lord of the third ringdom, and
have been turned away from almost every port in the Tower - they've managed to endure, if not thrive, but
unless something changes soon those odds are going to catch up with them. Worse, of late Thomas finds himself
haunted by a ghostly vision of Marya, a figure far more malicious and cruel than his missing wife ever was in
reality. An act of desperation leads him to the doorstep of Luc Marat, a dangerous revolutionary recruiting
hods - Tower slaves - for his own inscrutable purposes, and eventually to the legendary figure known as the
Sphinx. His first mate, Edith, knows firsthand just how cruel and manipulative the Sphinx can be: he is the
one who replaced her missing arm with a mechanical marvel, but at a cost she wouldn't wish on anyone. He is
also the man responsible for the Red Hand, the notorious assassin who nearly ended Thomas before their escape
aboard the Stone Cloud. Any bargain made with the Sphinx is less an agreement and more glorified
slavery. But neither Thomas nor the rest of their crew have much choice anymore if they mean to escape their
growing list of enemies and survive the brewing troubles that threaten to shake the whole of the Tower to
its foundations.
Review
Arm of the Sphinx takes up the story of Thomas Senlin (or "Thomas Mud", a pseudonym that does
little to hide his identity from his enemies) some months after the first book, expanding the scope to
include more of his companions of circumstance. The story itself also widens from Thomas's search for his
wife to encompass the greater mysteries of the Tower's origins and purpose, as well as the growing
inter-ringdom tensions and power struggles that seem poised to spark into all-out war (and not for the
first time).
The former schoolteacher is ill-suited to the life of piracy that has been thrust upon him, but he is not
at all the same man he was at the start of his adventures, and what he lacks in ruthlessness he makes up
for in cleverness. Though he still pursues his missing wife, last known to have been abducted by a
wifemonger and presented to a nobleman in the affluent ringdom of Pelphia, the chase has, even to him,
taken on a certain ephemeral quality, not helped by his persistent hallucinated version of Marya (which
hints at another, telegraphed complication for the captain). It seems less and less likely he'll ever
return to the life he had before coming to the Tower, or that Marya will be by his side if he ever does
manage to escape the place; his new friends and responsibilities are more real, pressing concerns, and it
becomes harder and harder for Thomas to remember the man he was when he committed to this quixotic quest.
His crew, likewise, are all loyal to him for their own reasons, all of them changed in some way by being in
his company, but even they realize that they can't go on like this, rarely more than half a step away from
disaster. And yet, as before, every glimmer of hope they find turns out not to be a guiding star but a
will o' the wisp at best, leading them astray, or an outright pit of hellfire at worst, ready to devour
them. A revolutionary freeing the hods from their bondage sounds like a possible ally... until Thomas
meets the man and catches a glimpse of what's going on at his hidden camp. After that failure, the Sphinx
seems like their next, possibly last, hope, but this encounter, too, ends up costing all of them far more
than they anticipate.
There are times here, as in the previous volume, where characters can feel a bit too naïve given what
they've already been through - even those who have been in the Tower much longer than Thomas - or behave
in plot-convenient ways. Thomas also remains stubbornly blockheaded on occasion to further the story.
Overall, though, the story moves fairly well and presents more wondrous, surreal mind's eye candy, delving
deeper into the secrets of the Tower and some of the clues Thomas picked up in the first volume (such as
the meaning of the painting that he went to such lengths to "acquire" in the third ringdom, and why
everyone is so determined to get it back, even over his dead body). The other characters also generally
grow and change in interesting ways, and Thomas himself starts to realize that, even if he reunites with
Marya, their futures may not lie together anymore. After all, if the year has changed Thomas Senlin from
straight-laced schoolteacher to veteran airship pirate, Marya can hardly be unchanged herself. I'm looking
forward to slotting the third installment of the series into my reading queue (or listening queue, as
this was another library-borrowed audiobook via Libby).
It's hard to believe that, a year ago, Thomas Senlin was an unremarkable, mild-mannered schoolteacher
from a small coastal town, on his way to a honeymoon holiday with his new young wife Marya at the
legendary Tower of Babel. Back then, he thought he understood the world and the people in it. Back then,
he thought he was just setting out on a simple vacation before settling down to the modest life of a
married man. Back then, he knew nothing at all...
Now an agent of the enigmatic figure known as the Sphinx, who crafts bizarre mechanical marvels and weaves
inscrutable plots from high in the tower, Senlin at last reaches the affluent ringdom of Pelphia. His
long-lost wife, Marya, has been married to a local duke, and she herself is the toast of the town, known
as the Mermaid in the local gossip papers for her enchanting singing voice. It's hard to conceive that
she'd want to go back to life as a simple schoolmaster's wife after a year in the lap of luxury, or that
she'd embrace a man who has turned to thievery, deception, violence, and piracy, his once-rigid moral code
now distinctly distorted by what he's had to do to survive. He even has developed confusing, unwelcome
feelings for a companion, Edith. Still, he has pursued Marya for too long to quit now, and he feels he
must at least make the attempt to reconnect and get an answer once and for all.
As Thomas conducts his undercover mission, his companions have their own mission for the Sphinx: aboard the
State of the Art, the most advanced airship ever to fly, newly-promoted Captain Edith, wild girl
Voleta, steadfast bodyguard Iren, and two new companions - the uptight stag-headed valet Byron and the
resurrected monstrous assassin the Red Hand - are to serve as the Sphinx's emissaries, scouring the ringdoms
for the missing paintings that contain the last secret of the legendary Tower architect, the Brick Layer:
the code that will unlock the final purpose of the grand tower. But it may already be too late; word is
spreading on the streets and in the hidden slave passages of the coming of the "Hod King" - a promise of
rebellion at the least, and possibly the destruction of the Tower of Babel itself.
Review
The third installment retains much of the same tone and pacing as the rest of the series, just as the
Tower of Babel and its inhabitants retain a sheen of surrealism. Thomas Senlin has been much tried and
tested and changed by his experiences and his failures; he does not even pretend to himself anymore that
he's the same man he was before coming to the tower, the same man who married Marya, nor can he pretend
that she'll be the same woman he knew. Still, he needs closure, if nothing else, and thus determines to
track her down and ask her if she would prefer life as his wife or the one she has found on the arm of
of the Pelphian duke. The ringdom of Pelphia itself, grown rich on its cloth and fashion industry, is
stuffed to the gills with pretension and self-importance, in a way even the baths on the third ringdom
could only dream of; the university has long been abandoned and converted into a coliseum where hods
fight for the amusement (and gambling opportunities) of the wealthy, while the newspapers are full of
gossip and empty of anything resembling actual news. Marya has become a society darling, her (rather
fictionlized) story the subject of a popular musical play - one that Senlin, against his better
judgement, can't help but see, and which makes him further question his own role in her life and future.
Even as he plots to find a way to get close to her without alerting his many powerful enemies, he also
keeps an eye peeled on the Sphinx's behalf for trouble, particularly that fomented by Luc Marat's zealot
followers, who seem to be stepping up their campaign to destabilize the Tower and incite a slave
uprising... or possibly something even worse. If Thomas thought the Tower had run out of trials and
lessons for him, he is quickly disabused of the notion.
Meanwhile, Edith - still processing her own mixed feelings about Thomas Senlin - has her own mission to
pursue, along with Voleta and Iren. The girl, under Byron's strict (and often flustered) tutelage, must
infiltrate high Pelthian society, even as Edith acts as the Sphinx's ambassador to negotiate the return
of the Brick Layer's painting, the one that forms part of the puzzle the Sphinx is so desperate to
solve. Even given her inherent immaturity, Voleta could be remarkably obtuse and incapable at times,
though she finally starts to grow up a bit as she sees more consequences of her actions. Aging bodyguard
Iren continues her slow, halting personal evolution from stoic enforcer to someone more human, someone
less detatched from her own emotions and other people, driven in no small part by her devotion to Voleta.
And Edith, still unsure of her own feelings toward Senlin, does her best to play the ambassador, though
even she finds herself bedazzled by Pelphia's glamour and the few friendly-seeming faces in the crowd.
Byron the stag-man gets some development, too, in his first journey beyond the sanctuary of the Sphinx's
ringdom, while the resurrected Red Hand offers some unexpected wrinkles. As in previous volumes,
chapters start with snippets and excerpts from in-world sources that add color and, often,
foreshadowing.
The tale starts off fairly fast, picking up about where the previous one left off, and keeps moving and
ratcheting up the stakes and complications until the end, setting up what promises to be a cataclysmic
final volume. I'm looking forward to finishing off this series.
The great Tower of Babel has stood for centuries, and though the people come and go and ringdoms rise and fall
within its walls, it has been as enduring as a mountain... but even mountains may fall. Now, as the monstrous
machine known as the Hod King - constructed by renegade Luc Marat and crewed by zealot followers culled
from the enslaved hods - begins its destructive ascent, and as the enigmatic Sphinx goes silent in their high
lair, the unthinkable might be possible. As the ringdoms fall into squabbling and war, the Sphinx's agent,
Captain Edith of the advanced airship State of the Art, has her hands more than full, even if there weren't
a war engine gnawing its way to the heart of the Tower like a great metal termite. She managed to rescue Thomas
Senlin's wife Marya and their infant daughter from the evil Duke of Pelphia, but Senlin himself is now lost, last
seen on the deadly Black Roads as a hod. Young daredevil Voleta has finally woken from near-death, but has
returned changed in ways none of the crew understand or trust. And Voleta's brother Adam is still somewhere at the
top of the tower, last seen in the company of the lightning-bearing guards of the highest and most aloof of the
ringdoms. Edith races to collect the paintings that will reveal the key to the locked "bridge", and with it the
purpose of Babel's construction (and, hopefully, the means for its salvation), but Marat's agents always seem to be
one step ahead of her. And if he succeeds in taking over the tower, all hope will be lost.
Senlin thought he could infiltrate Marat's hod rebellion and sabotage the madman from within, but now he's trapped
by his own deceit inside the Hod King, helpless to stop the horrors to come. His ruse worked too well, as
he finds himself drawn into Marat's secret inner council of former Wakemen: those who were saved by the Sphinx's
unusual devices in exchange for becoming agents, but who turned on their distant master in favor of Marat. As the
shape of Marat's ambitions become more and more clear, Senlin's resolve to stop him - even at the cost of his own
life - only grows more certain.
Meanwhile, at the top of the tower, young Adam is mystified to be heralded as a celebrity among people whom he's
never met. The city of Nebos is every inch the paradise he'd imagined: beautiful gardens, golden houses, all
dominated by a great pyramid of awesome size, peopled by artists and scholars and more, living a life of
unimaginable luxury. It is also, as he soon learns, hiding dark secrets beneath its immaculate streets, and a
betrayal that dates back to the final days of the enigmatic Brick Layer who designed the great tower itself. As
much as Nebos considers itself above the troubles plaguing the rest of the tower (literally and figuratively), it,
too, is threatened by the crumbling beneath... and it may hold the key to saving the Tower of Babel, or destroying
it utterly.
Review
As the rating reflects, I had mixed feelings on this final volume in the epic Books of Babel series. It almost
feels like it wanted to be two books, and again like it should've been only half as long. That sounds contradictory,
but it's what I'm left with as I consider how some plot points and character arcs come to conclusions (if sometimes
prolonged conclusions) and others feel like they've just been introduced or are only half-finished by the time the
tale finally, eventually, almost exhaustedly comes to a halt.
Things start more or less where the previous volume ended, at least storywise. The Sphinx has gone silent and their
lair sealed off, the crew of the State of the Art deal with onboard tensions (such as Captain Edith's mixed
feelings over having Marya aboard, after her brief affair with Senlin) and external threats, and Luc Marat's great
siege engine the Hod King begins its slow-motion assault on the tower, on its way to lay siege to the
Sphinx and thence to claim power of the whole of Babel, while Adam at the top of the tower finally learns just why
everyone in Nebos knows so many details of his life. As the story moves between the now-scattered characters, it
sometimes feels unevenly paced, shifting from meandering and sight-seeing to high tension and action almost at
random. The Tower of Babel itself remains massive and enigmatic and full of wonders and horrors beyond imagination,
while also serving as a condensation of humans being human in all the best and worst (especially the worst) ways
possible. More is revealed about the Brick Layer and the Sphinx, as the true purpose of the tower - so long a
matter of debate - eventually is revealed... and here is one of the stumbles that wound up costing it in the
ratings, as I felt myself fighting to not roll my eyes at some revelations and other incidents that sometimes felt
less like clever solutions and more like out-of-the-blue twists made up on the fly to shock and awe the reader.
On the character side, nobody is who they were when the reader first met them, and their development continues
through the tale as they're all put to the test in various ways. Senlin and Marya have been through so much in
their separate, harrowing journeys that reconciliation may not even be possible at this point, not even with an
infant daughter binding them; long gone are the happy, naive small town man and wife who stepped off the train in
the first book, replaced by weathered, more worldly people who both have seen their own weaknesses and dark sides.
Edith, having had leadership thrust upon her unexpectedly by the Sphinx, must learn to fill the shoes last filled
by the absent Senlin. Former bodyguard Iren still struggles to deal with her own changing life and her first real
brush with romance, while Voleta's changes make her do some growing up (but not a ton of it, as she's still a bit
prone to recklessness, if in different ways than before). The former Red Hand, the only one who can relate to her
new experiences, becomes a sort of ally and mentor as she deals with the mind- and time-bending effects of a
bloodstream full of red "medium", the miraculous glowing fluid that powers the Sphinx's contraptions. This also
allows Voleta to become a bit of a plot device, as part of the medium's properties involve a sort of astral time
travel... but I can't elaborate without spoilers.
The whole has a lot of moving parts and a lot of balls in the air to juggle, and it doesn't always feel like those
balls get caught; one or two seem to have disappeared by the end of the story, while others went through a lot of
frantic actions yet didn't necessarily go anywhere far at all. The ending almost feels like it wants to segue into
another book or series, though I'm not sure if there's enough steam in the world or plot. (There are also at least
a few worldbuilding points that felt handwaved or inadequately addressed.) Even with that, though, there are
plenty of solid moments and memorable writing throughout. I liked it more than I didn't, but I still can't quite
shake the sense of something out of kilter, something either not quite finished or carried a step or two too far
past the natural end point.
