The number of ringdoms in the Tower is not clear - nor is who built it.

Bancroft manages to walk that perfect balance of worldbuilding where he reveals enough to keep the audience constantly guessing and intrigued.

From the Parlor, where everyone from tourist to clerk is but an actor (and some do not even know they are acting.), to the Baths, where seductive steam baths and atmosphere hide the chance of becoming a hod at any moment, or New Babel, a seedy place full of vice and hedonism, crime and little chance of escape. I don't know why, but for some reason, I was expecting a light-hearted romp about a man finding his lost wife - not a desperate quest for survival as a man must progress from timid schoolteacher to daring hero to save his wife from a man belonging to one of the most powerful noble families in the Tower. I honestly wasn't expecting Senlin Ascends to get this dark. The Tower is dirty, grimy, disgusting, horrid, scheming, treacherous, and literally enslaving. Regardless, my point is that while our main protagonist himself isn't a grimdark character and the main conflict isn't grimdark (it's about a man finding his wife, unlike First Law, for example, where there are no real good or bad sides), the Tower of Babel itself does not reward goodness or hope. Now, hear me out here, I don't think the novel as a whole is grimdark - Senlin becomes more jaded, cunning, and confident as time progresses, but he never lets go of his moral compass.

I'd classify the world of Senlin Ascends as grimdark. I read through the remaining 60% in essentially a day. But after hearing Mark Lawrence, an author I respect immensely (I love Broken Empire and Book of the Ancestor to death), repeatedly praise this series, I decided to give it one more go. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't like what I was reading, but it didn't really grab me, and so I moved on.

Upon hearing it praised in numerous posts, I decided to give it a go in May, but ended up DNF-ing at about the 40% mark - I think it was the only book I DNF-ed all year since I generally try to always follow a story to its end. Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft, and I have had a bit of a conflicted history this year.

Senlin ascends series