Alexander, Niall (17 January 2018). "Up, Up and Away: Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft". Tor.com . Retrieved 23 November 2018. Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing! 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 entire cast of characters is also wonderful. Senlin, Edith, Adam, Byron, and all the others have distinctive, entertaining personalities and have grown tremendously from where they started. Senlin's arc over these books has been excellent: his growth from a diminutive school-teacher into a confident and impassioned leader while still retaining his core morality and principles. All while navigating the Tower of Babel, an entity notorious for grinding people down into shells of what they once were.

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.From its beginnings, literature has been preoccupied with the unusual, the remarkable, and the intriguing. It has depicted great feelings, great deeds and great characters, probably in the belief that the works of writers should go beyond the everyday, the ordinary, the obvious. Yet, there is no shortage of writers who have had the courage to go against this model. It was not so much a question of a rebellion as of recognising that the everyday, the ordinary and the obvious can be fascinating, that the apotheosis of the average can be delightful. 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. I will say Bancroft did well depicting Marya as a new mother who’s deeply wounded and going through a healing process. I loved the addition of her POV, it was a welcome change.

Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the illusions of the Tower. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.

Set in the Biblical land of Ur sits the works famous Tower of Babel, here rather reimagined. Surrounded by a fair or flea market miles deep, it is that treasured goal of every traveler and dreamer the world over, including, that is, Selin, headmaster of a school, and his wife, Marya. They soon become separated in the giant flea market and Selin enters the giant tower in search of her. But this Tower is so broad that it each level hosts a kingdom or ringdom as they are known. Most of these ringdoms and there’s some 64 of them for good measure are ruled by feudal aristocratics. Adam’s arc at the start of the book and the mystery of the top of the Tower was a joy to read. It’s a cool exploration of that culture. The first book in the word-of-mouth phenomenon debut fantasy series about one man’s dangerous journey through a labyrinthine world. The "Books of Babel" are something you hope to see perhaps once a decade — future classics, which may be remembered long after the series concludes." -- (Los Angeles Times) 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

Thomas Senlin, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, is drawn to the Tower by scientific curiosity and the grandiose promises of a guidebook. The luxurious Baths of the Tower seem an ideal destination for a honeymoon, but soon after arriving, Senlin loses Marya in the crowd. Senlin’s search for Marya carries him through madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassination, and the long guns of a flying fortress.

This is a tough review for me to write. I gave the first 3 books in this series 5* each as they were wonderful. Bancroft uses such fluid and descriptive writing and his story through the first 3 books is marvelously intriguing and well paced. However, the first ~35% of this book was very very tough for me to get through. I actually put this down for a month to read something else in-between which is something I never do and really highlights how unengaged I was.

He asked them if they were from the East, and they responded with the name of a fishing village that was not far from Isaugh. They exchanged the usual nostalgia common to costal folk: sunrises, starfish, and the pleasant muttering of the surf at night, and then he asked, “You’ve come on holiday?” Aboard the State of Art, Edith and her crew adjust to the reality that Voleta has awoken from death changed. She seems to share more in common with the Red Hand now than her former self. While Edith wars for the soul of the young woman, a greater crisis looms: They will have to face Marat on unequal footing and with Senlin caught in the crossfire. First and the Final Act was without a doubt the weakest segment of this book which is unfortunately the main aspect of every book. It's quite weak that it made me feel like "That's it ???!" The scene seemed almost comical from the ground, but Senlin’s stomach churned when he thought of how the youth must feel flying on the strength of his grip high over the sprawling mob. Indeed, the entire brief scene had been so bizarre that he decided to simply put it out of his mind. The Guide had called the Market a raucous place. It seemed, perhaps, an understatement.The problem was the decision to spend the entire first third of this book focused on one POV, that of Adam. Look, I don't dislike Adam's character, but he was maybe my least favorite of all the POVs. With the way the Hod King ended I really wanted to keep reading about the other characters, especially those who had such climatic endings in book 3. Felony Misdemeanor: Edith Winters gets charged with failing to stoke the fireplaces in addition to playing her role in the Parlor, as she's too busy running from an armed drunk, while Senlin doesn't, as he's a habitual fire stoker. It still doesn't prevent him from being detained. This is the fourth and final book of the series. Fortunately, the book begins with a brief recapitulation. Referring to the fourth book: “[I] … shall hitherto attempt to puff upon the dwindling coals of your enthusiasm for a tale that, like the besotted guest who has begun to drape upon the drapery, departs not a moment too soon!” Even with the recap, this book doesn’t work as a standalone, way too much has happened in the Tower of Babel and a new reader would be missing a lot. Basically, I wish this series never had to end and we had 100 more books in the Tower to come. But all good things must come to an end.