Arm of the Sphinx

Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel series is difficult to categorize. It takes its titular inspiration from the ancient world of Ur and the Tower of Babel, but then applies a whimsical steampunk fantasy overlay across the top. This combination of biblical myth and steampunk is certainly unique to my mind! The second book here see the further evolution of our protagonist. The careful naivete of the school teacher Thomas Senlin has been replaced by a much more pragmatic, if a little less stable outlook on life. We learn a bit more about the background behind the tower and get to meet the Sphinx - a character much alluded to previously. The whimsy and creativity is very much still in evidence.

The story does suffer a little from middle book syndrome - the first book set up our character, introduced the gang that we spend most of the time with in this book. Arm of the Sphinx loses a little bit of the drive of the first book - the overriding objective of Senlin to find his wife seems a little bit lost and buried here. The whimsy and creativity mean that this is still an excellent book. Senlin's companions are an interesting bunch and we get to learn more about them and their motivations in tis book.

I remain intrigued to see where the next book takes us!