Wolfe without the Style

Oct 2021
Senlin Ascends - Josiah Bankcroft – Orbit, 2013
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This was a lunchtime read that was a disappointment. I got it because of rave reviews on Goodreads and a well-written and promising first chapter: uptight schoolmaster Thomas Senlin and his new wife Marya go on honeymoon to the world-famous Tower of Babel, a massive steampunk city whose many floors are owned and run by various groups, and problems ensue, starting with Marya's disappearance from a crowded market within minutes of their arrival. The tower itself is an imaginative piece of worldbuilding that reminded me a lot of the city of Viron in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, but described without Wolfe's allusive style. Unfortunately Bankcroft also shares with Wolfe a complete inability to write convincing female characters and a tendency to use gruesome violence to try to keep the reader's interest. Viewpoint character Senlin starts off as an annoying cliché of a pompous but naïve pedagogue which, along with the largely charmless secondary characters, made the first half a slog to read. Things improve in the latter stages as Senlin somewhat implausibly transforms into a halfway competent planner and leader, but I was not impressed enough to want to continue following his ascent in subsequent books.