Senlin Ascends

Senlin Ascends is definitely worth reading. The prose is beautiful, the steampunk-ish setting of the Tower of Babel is unique, and the protagonist's development as he is confronted with the reality of the tower as he climbs it floor by floor is well executed. It's not quite a walter white to heisenberg, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the series is headed.

Sadly, the weirdness of everything going on in the Tower stops being interesting after one or two floors, and just seems nonsensical. There are a few explanations why things work the way they do, and they don't make any sense if you think about them for a minute. This might be intentional setup for a twist in the sequels, though. I hope it is, but I won't continue the series to find out.

The character writing is mostly good, except for the female characters. Male characters get complex motivations and origins, women range from stereotypical cutouts to objects without agency. With cleavage, of course. Everything about the relationship between the protagonist and his lost wife was a bit uncomfortable to read.

The drastic increase in fight scenes in the last third also felt out of place.