Senlin Ascends: The Books of Babel, Book 1

Good morning! This remarkable and astonishingly original novel, Senlin Ascends, written by Josiah Bancroft, is now available in a freashly published edition from the Little, Brown Book Group and as an audiobook, which was released yesterday in the UK and on 17th in the US.

Josiah originally self-published his story in 2013 and I'd be fascinated to know the journey the book has undertaken in order to have been picked up by a major international publishing house like Little, Brown. The release of the audio book seems to have generated quite a bit of interest and I'm delighted to have heard directly from Josiah, that he is pleased with how his novel has transferred to audio. His very generous comments with regard to my voice characterisations are gratifying indeed and I thank him for them.

The story is quite tricky to summarise, though this is a pretty good shot from Nazia at Little, Brown UK: “Try to imagine what would happen if Studio Ghibli and William Goldman collaborated with Mervyn Peake, and they reimagined Dante’s Divine Comedy.”  Indeed!

The audio book is available from audible and amazon and here are some details:

"Mild-mannered headmaster Thomas Senlin prefers his adventures to be safely contained within the pages of a book. So when he loses his new bride shortly after embarking on the honeymoon of their dreams, he is ill-prepared for the trouble that follows.

To find her, Senlin must enter the Tower of Babel - a world of geniuses and tyrants, of menace and wonder, of unusual animals and mysterious machines. He must endure betrayal, assassination attempts and the long guns of a flying fortress. And if he hopes to ever see his wife again, he will have to do more than just survive...this quiet man of letters must become a man of action."

Narrated by John Banks - unabridged audio book: 14 hours - 13 minutes 


"John Banks' wonderful narration of the Senlin Ascends audio book is available today in the UK. 
I'm so happy to finally be able to share John Banks' excellent performance with everyone!"

                                                                                                                Josiah Bancroft - author

 

Reviews for the book:

"One of my favourite books of all time." (Mark Lawrence)

 

"An extraordinary debut that is well worthy of the hype. A beautifully written, highly engaging page-turning masterpiece." (Fantasy Book Review)

 

"Thomas Senlin is the most unlikely yet likeable hero since a certain hobbit rushed out of Bag End leaving his second breakfast half-finished and entirely unwashed-up." (Fantasy Faction)

©2013 Josiah Bancroft (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group

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Senlin Ascends is the first novel of a trilogy, part two of which, Arm of The Sphinx, I start recording next week, once again with producer Neil Gardner; should be fun!

...all for now, more just as soon as it happens!