Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1)

by Josiah Bancroft

the Tower of Babel rose like a tusk from the jaw of the earth.

Love, as the poets so often painted it, was just bald lust wearing a pompous wig. He believed true love was more like an education: It was deep and subtle and never complete.

“The gaps are a part of the set, too,” she’d said. “You can’t replace them. I know how each piece was broken or lost. I broke a plate myself when I was nine. Now I’m an immortal part of the pattern. I’ll take my gaps, thank you.”

“It is better to be pleased by one’s own distastefulness than to please another man’s tastes,”