Fire it up! Get that bonfire roaring! Today I discuss Senlin Ascends, the first in a four-book series by relative newcomer Josiah Bancroft, who looks like an incredible Mormon based on any of his pictures online. Just this plaid shirt and a Republican Dad haircut. He looks like me! Yeesh!

Senlin Ascends was such a joy to read. It took a couple dozen pages to get used to his old-timey writing style (think 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), but there is so much charm in the light prose that I couldn’t help but be rather chuffed and endeared by the 19th-century era steampunk themes. The story follows Thomas Senlin, a small town school headmaster. What should have been a honeymoon trip to the Tower of Babel with his newly betrothed Marya becomes a harrowing journey of lost wives, disillusionment, betrayal, and forced adventure! The Tower itself is of an unknown height — too tall to be seen through the clouds — with each level representing a city-sized “ringdom” with its own civilization, rules, culture, and political climate. With a guidebook to the Tower in hand, Senlin quickly learns that all the information within it is garbage. The Tower is basically an anarchist state, and once you enter it’s nearly impossible to leave.

What makes this a page-turner is the Tower itself. A sprawling megalopolis, it has way more character and personality than the meek, noodle-armed Thomas Senlin. Full of mystery and intrigue from the ground up, most of the fun comes from exploring the first four ringdoms of the Tower along with Senlin. Outside the Tower itself are the Markets and the Skirts, where one can lose a friend or family member immediately if they aren’t properly tethered *wink*. Level 1 is the Basement, which is just a filthy slum with merry-go-rounds that give away free watered-down beer. Level 2 is the Parlor, where visitors must play roles in a shitty, trite play for no audience while they need to keep the fires in the fireplaces stoked. Level 3 are the Baths, the first non-shitty ringdom, which is a resort town overseen by a very peculiar man who calls himself the Commissioner (and the Red Hand, his maniacal and inhuman bodyguard). Level 4 is New Babel, a thriving port ringdom supplied with electricity. And from there, your imagination will run wild! Eventually, Senlin finds a long metal rod with etchings to represent 30+ (at the very least) ringdoms of the Tower, some with names and some unknown. I want to know all the ringdoms! The Harem Ringdom! The ’90s Shopping Mall Ringdom! The Pinball Arcade Machine Ringdom! The Ringdom of Earthly Delights! The Ringdom of Black Holes Tearing the Fabric in the Space-Time Continuum! They all sound super fun.

The last section of the book peters out a little bit once Senlin gets a job on New Babel. He spins his wheels while concocting an impossible plan of escape by stealing an airship, culminating in a long action sequence that I completely glazed over while finishing. It’s too bad, too, because I found the whole book thrilling up until the very. Ah well, there are still three books to go and I hear the fourth one at least stays decent until the final quarter when Bancroft fumbles the ball on the 25-yard line while the defense takes turns shitting in his mouth. Haha, what?!

Let’s discuss further, shall we?

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Tower Theories?
Oh man!… I got nothing!

So, spoiler alert, we know that the first four floors make, respectively, water, fire, steam, and that new-fangled electricity. Based on the map at the beginning of the book, we know that Ringdom 5 is “Pelphia” and Ringdom 6 is “The Silk Gardens”, but neither of these two ringdoms are explored. They sound pretty ritzy, though. Since the trend seems to be that the people are better off the higher you go, it would stand to reason that you’ve got the CEO of Tower of Babel hanging out on his gold throne on Ringdom 760 while his harem of consenting men and women give him sloppy blowjobs and all the McDonald’s hamburgers that he can eat! Just imagine!

That’s probably the red herring, though. I’m sure there are dips in quality of life as you ascend the Tower. I’m sure someone is mining diamonds and ore on Ringdom 24 so that people can buy fancy jewelry on Ringdom 27. Children are working in Ringdom 82’s sweatshops to make wallets for Ringdom 89’s businessmen, who work shitty 9 to 5 jobs keeping their bosses on Ringdom 91 happy just so that they don’t go home and beat the wives they mail-ordered from Ringdom 8.

My best actual theory about the Tower is that technology continues to advance as you move up. What may be beer-me-go-rounds on Ringdom 1 and electricity on Ringdom 4 might become modern medicine on Ringdom 20, primitive computers on Ringdom 30, high-speed internet on Ringdom 40, streaming services and grocery delivery on Ringdom 45, and pitch-perfect AI on Ringdom 50. The story feels like it takes place some time in the early 1900s at the very latest, so it would be very interesting to see modern technology and beyond at higher levels of the Tower.

Other than that, TIME WILL TELL.

Hods?
I don’t know what the fuck the deal is with the hods. Sorry.

Those who are delinquent in any way, i.e. criming and/or in debt up to their eyeballs, get tracked down to become hods. Shaved heads and sent to toil in the walls of the Tower, it seems. Senlin Ascends only scratches the surface of the concept, and since the third book is called The Hod King I’m certain I’ll hear more about these wretched individuals! Perhaps The CEO on Ringdom 760 enslaves hods for his many blowjob-related endeavors? I hope to read 500 pages about this in the future.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Absolutely. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun reading a story. Mysterious and intriguing, Senlin Ascends is an effervescent tale of being trapped in a weird fucking Tower and the hilarious antics that might ensue! Read this instead of 50 Shades of Grey, which probably sucks ass and is likely not about ascending a tower at all.