That sharing isn't altogether a bad thing (certainly it means that Tom himself reaches a better place) but the overall setup is worrying. But what we learn is from a very unreliable source who is, as becomes clear, pursuing their own agenda and keeping secrets from the crew - even while encouraging them to share their own secrets.

Through that testing, we learn - perhaps - more about the true nature and purpose of the Tower itself (this, if anything, is the counterpart to the horror in the first book at what it has become: something of a redemption, or at least, a possible redemption. Rather, it becomes a quite taut, psychological study of the different cremates as they kick their heels in a most strange part of the tower, and are tested in various ways (not least, in their faith in Senlin). That doesn't mean that nothing happens, but the book isn't (after the opening section) the swashbuckling story of derring-do that Senlin's life seemed to be turning into at the end of the last book. There isn't anything to quite match the creeping realisation of the truth about the Tower, rather, after we see a bit more of it - the Silk Reef is another fantastically drawn level - Senlin - or should I say Captain Tom Mudd? - and his crew are forced to seek refuge for their ship while carrying on repairs and are therefore 'ashore' for much of this novel. My judgement is that he succeeds in making Arm of the Sphinx as compelling a book as Senlin Ascends. Indeed, how do you followup the central premise of that book - that the Tower, beacon of civilisation, the Lighthouse of the world, is really just a squalid mess of competing statelets, bleeding tourists dry and making them into hods - hopeless slaves doomed to port cargo up secret stairways in the Tower? (Not only a wicked thing to do - but pointless: as we know or son learn, the world in which the Tower stands has railways, airships, lifts, electricity and indeed, still more advanced technologies).īancroft therefore gave himself a tough task. That tricky second book, eh? Following the acclaim for Senlin Ascends (my review here) Orbit have published the successor volume quickly, although we'll have to wait till December for The Hod King. I'm grateful to Orbit and to the awesome Nazia for an advance copy of Arm of the Sphinx. Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, 2)

Senlin ascends book 2