A kind of steampunk fantasy, our hapless hero takes his betrothed to visit, vast edifice with some resemblance to the tower of Babel. Things start badly when almost instantly he is separated from both his belongings and his fiancee and must enter the tower to try and find her. Each of the lower floors is carefully described and although apparently nonsensical do eventually come together as essential parts of the tower’s functioning. Our hero doggedly pursue his goal gradually becoming less of a bumbling ingenue and more of a seasoned denison of the tower.
I enjoyed this, sent in himself starts out as a rather unsympathetic character being, to be honest a bit of a dick, but he grows into his role and into our hearts and we begin to root for him. The tower itself is well described and quite fascinating, and a genuine (if not totally plausible) attempt is made to explain the purpose and function of everything. So an enjoyable read and I did rapidly move on to the second in the series.