This is a wildly imaginative fantasy world, and I was sucked in by the juxtaposition of the uniqueness of the world building with the dowdy main character Senlin. 

Bancroft hits you smack in the face with the sights and sounds and smells of the world of Babel, so much so that it seemingly overwhelms the characterization of Senlin and his journey...for a while. There would be times that I was totally intrigued by everything going on, but then characters flitted in and out of the story with no reason whatsoever...until the reasons made sense. And turned the last third of this book into something I was completely not expecting. I don't know that I'd call myself attached to any characters here, but I certainly wanted a lot more from everyone that wasn't Senlin. 

One thing that kept scraping me raw, however, is the absolutely fucking one dimensional treatment of the women in this book. Every single woman has to be helped or saved from the clutches of disgusting rapist men in some manner (his wife, Voleta), or they're not exactly fitting into the feminine norms of the world (Iren, Edith) and they still need help from Senlin. The masses of unnamed women sent off to whore houses or being kidnapped and married off to rich men in the tower...it just got annoying and then it got <i>boring</i>. 

I'm still interested in the second book, and will try it out eventually. I want to know what happens moving forward, and with the way the character dynamics have shifted, there may be some better treatment of women moving forward. This would have been an almost perfect fantasy novel for me if not for that.