Following on from Senlin Ascends, Thomas Senlin and his handful of colourful acquaintances find themselves living a life of piracy outside the tower onboard their commandeered airship The Stone Cloud. Bancroft’s second outing in The Books of Babel series was originally self-published in 2015 and has recently been re-released through Orbit.
I would like to thank Josiah Bancroft and Orbit Books. I received an advance reader copy of Arm of the Sphinx in exchange for an honest review. Quirky, unexpected, and very well written – it was a brilliant read – and I’ve already gone on ahead and started The Arm of the Sphinx which is the second book in the quartet.To be posted on Fantasy Book Review shortly ~~ This gave an added layer of mystery and excitement and I was always eager to see what Senlin would encounter as he made his way up through the levels. I won’t go into any spoilers, but my favourite aspect of the tower is that each level has a different theme. He is naive, yes, sometimes I wanted to shake him, but he is a good person, something that is essential when viewing a place that is rotten to the core. This slowly slips away and the dirt and treachery and violence starts to show. Completely won over by propaganda, he’s initially in awe of it. Thomas Senlin is a great protagonist to view the tower with. The Tower of Babel, initially believed to be a revered and fantastic place to visit, suddenly becomes sinister and not at all what the guidebook has set out. Not only was the mystery of Marya’s whereabouts in my mind, but also the mystery of the tower itself. Like Tom Senlin, our protagonist, I was thrown in at the deep end and kept swimming. The story reeled me in and didn’t let me go.
So I started and that rare thing happened… I couldn’t stop reading. However, a discord group I am a part of decided to read it for their book club and so I thought I’d give it a go. The blurb didn’t overly sell it, I have to be honest. On first glance it seemed too modern, too steampunk-esque, the main character is a prudish school teacher who looses his wife.
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