The Tower Unbroken

I do like me a good cultivation story, and so when I asked for some recommendations and someone pointed out that there is a little-known work featuring African-inspired cultivation, I put it to the top of my list.

And here we are!

The Tower Unbroken follows Somadina’s journey from his village out into the wider world. He starts off as the lowliest rank of cultivator, or dibias as they are called in this setting. Cultivators = dibias, Chi = anwansi. As Somadina isn’t a native to the village, he was never let use their Firstborn scroll and start his cultivation. Thankfully, that all changes when he leaves. He teams up with a couple of foreign dibias along the way, gets a fun owlcat companion, and makes his way to the tower which is mentioned in the title.

The first book is relatively short (<300 pages), so this all happens with a minimum of fluff and no baggage. That’s something that I (and probably a lot of Cradle readers) appreciate. On that note:

What I liked:

• Aforementioned lack of fluff.
• The worldbuilding is great, both in the thought and detail of the human side of things, and the history of the mythology and mythological beasts. The author does a great job setting up future politics, factions, and the wider plot and conflict on the horizon.
• All three main characters (Somadina, Kainene, Olisa) are likeable and feel like their own characters.
• Everyone loves a cute fluffy/feathery companion.

Wish were a bit different:

• I needed more. Or specifically, Somadina starts off as the weakest possible level, but by the end of the short book, has already achieved the level of Ordained, which puts him in his original village’s highest echelon. Breakthroughs are commonly done off-screen and without difficulty. Somadina is an absolute prodigy, but somehow I feel like it would have been more awesome if there were significant challenges he had to overcome once he started his journey.
• Actually a bit of fluff might have been nice. The pace here is very fast, but I don’t mind spending more time with characters and getting to know them better. In particular, Somadina has some hangups about his past that only come out when it seems convenient, and phrases like “Everyone close to me gets hurt,” don’t inspire sympathy if that’s the first time I’m hearing about it, instead of seeing it in the events I’ve read.

And the last point, which is probably entirely on me, is that I get confused by names. Especially similar names with etymologies that are new to me. I know many people felt similar when reading A Thousand Li and having characters with very similar names. Apart from the central character Olisa, and the sage Oma, we also have various names and tribes that all quickly became a jumble in my head. For just the ones starting with the letter ‘O’, we have Onyebuchi, Onyedika, Odera, Obierika, Ofodiles, Oseloka, Omaliko, Obinze, and Okeyes. On one hand, I love how much thought must have gone into the worldbuilding to get to this point. On the other hand, I can’t appreciate all the worldbuilding because I can’t remember what tribe is what.

It’s definitely not the level of the Silmarillion though, don’t worry.

So to round up thoughts: it was a short but fun read, I hope there’s more in the future, and—I can’t believe I’m saying this—I wouldn’t mind reading more chill downtime and character bonding instead of such a breakneck pace.