Josiah Bancroft

Josiah Bancroft is a writer of fantasy, known for his initially self-published debut novel Senlin Ascends (2013).

Senlin Ascends and its sequels deal with the adventures of the schoolteacher Thomas Senlin, who is separated from his wife Marya at the foot of the immense Tower of Babel, and spends the rest of the narrative searching for her. The novel was uncommonly successful for a self-published work, due in large part to notice gained during the 2016 SPFBO competition. As a result, it was republished, together with the sequel Arm of the Sphinx, by Orbit Books in 2018. The third book in the series, The Hod King, came out in 2019.

Senlin Ascends was well appreciated by critics. Publishers Weekly's starred review described the "brilliant debut fantasy" as "steampunk and epic, surreal and yet grounded in believable logistics". Tor.com likewise praised the imaginative setting, and called the novel "incredibly creative in its conception and no less confident in its crafting". The Washington Post included it in its five best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2018, describing it as "a classic hero’s quest, elevated by creative world building and memorable characters".However, Strange Horizons wrote that "the fact that a woman’s sexuality is the root cause of the conflict (...) and that the woman is immediately removed from the narrative" are indicative of the novel's problems with the portrayal of women.