The Starless Crown

One member of our 3 person RL book group is a big James Rollins fan AND reads a fair amount of fantasy, so when Rollins announced that he’d written a fantasy, I knew we would be reading it before long.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it! What I expected of Rollins (based on listening to parts of his thrillers during road trips; I’ve actually never read any of them start to finish) was excellent pacing. Beyond that I had no idea what we might be in for.

To be clear, I don’t think this could be considered a typical fantasy novel. I’d call it a fantasy/thriller hybrid. There is a well-defined alternate reality and a clever premise involving a planet that long ago stopped revolving but may soon face disaster if that situation show more can’t be reversed. As usual with Rollins there are multiple groups of initially unrelated characters whose destinies gradually intertwine as the story reaches its climax. Plus unique human-animal interactions and heroes and villains of both genders.

And plenty of action! Tests and challenges and evildoers to overcome and imminent doom to avoid. Comings of age and the wisdom of the ages. Derring do and interior contemplation. And a forward momentum that doesn’t hesitate for a moment.

With all that said Rollins still manages with his uncomplicated prose to create vivid images of this complicated other-world he’s created. If you are looking for pure entertainment with characters you want to root for, you should consider giving it a try. The distraction from pandemics and politics was a treat for me. show less

I've long been a fan of James Rollins, and I love long, multi-POV fantasies, so I looked forward to seeing what he'd do in the genre as soon as I heard this book was coming. In the end, though, I'm not entirely sure how I feel.

I absolutely loved the world-building and fantasy elements, and it was those things which really kept me turning pages, along with Rollins' always fascinating twists in storytelling. Where I was left thrown-off was with the characters. The character who gets the vast majority of page-space is the young woman among the group, still a teenager/girl, and something about her voice never caught me--in fact, in the first half of the book, I found her incredibly off-putting, and I think it was my lack of interest in her show more and her personal stakes/position that caused me to take so long to finish the book. Every time I'd see her name at the start of the next chapter, I'd say to myself, "Oh, it's Nyx again. Maybe I'll stop here for the night." Later on in the book, I got to the point where I didn't find her so off-putting, though I still didn't care so much as her for others, but initially, having her be such a prominent POV in the book was a big obstacle for me to really engage and keep going. Obviously, a character's interest in different characters/storylines changes as a book progresses, and that happened for me here, but always seemed to hold true was that I was most interested in the POVs who were getting less page-time and attention. Early on, I wanted more time with the theif, and got very little. Later on, I wanted more time with the prince, and again got very little. I've never had my engagement with character trajectories and storylines be so diametrically opposed to the directions a book was taking, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, but for the fact that I know it affected my engagement from chapter to chapter.

I'll certainly read the second book in the series, but it will be more for story and world-building and concept than character, which is a tricky thing with such long books. I'll just have to hope the same thing doesn't happen in the next book, particularly given the length, or I may end up sticking to Rollins' suspense in the future rather than following him into fantasy. show less

The Starless Crown has some amazing world building in it. James Rollins really does go out of his way to make the world feel alive.

Nyx who was abandoned as a baby in the swamps quickly finds out the world she knew is drastically different. With the help of a forshaken prince, Kanthe and her childhood friend Jace she must dodge the King's forces as they seek to understand the visions she been having and what Moon Fall really is.

The story starts out slow estblashing the world and by the middle the pace really begins to pick up, as all of the POV characters converge upon eachother.

While I enjoyed many of the characters, Nyx mostly many others felt a little weak in terms of writing. However as mentioned earlier the world building is show more excellent and makes up for this flaw.

The other thing I had some issues with was the random times the author seemed a little fixated on the nakedness of a woman's body. It didn't ruin the book or anything just felt really unnecessary for the over all book. show less

If you enjoy epic fantasy, insane world building, unique magic systems then this book needs to be put on your to read list! The story's main character is a blind girl named Nyx. She was found by a family in the swamps when she was only six months old. She is now 15-16 years old and a student. What she does not realize is that she may also be the one foretold in an old story, that will bring about the end of the world. When fate brings her together with a cast of characters, from a fellow student, an outcast prince, a living bronze statue, Nyx begins a journey that she could have never imagined.
It definitely has a Lord of the Rings vibe with the group traveling together to solve a quest. Cities that reminded me of Lthlorien where the show more elves lived among trees with suspended bridges. Magical and terrifying creatures, which Nyx discovers she can communicate with.
I absolutely loved this book. I dreaded reaching the end knowing that this was the beginning of a series and I will have a tortuous wait until the next book comes out. Highly, highly recommend for readers of epic fantasies! show less

DNF at 16%. The synopsis of this book was so intriguing that I actually own all 3 books. But damn if we aren’t taking the scenic route to get anywhere.

I hate books that are overly descriptive and flowery for no reason. And Rollins uses 100 words to do the work of 10. And in the short time I did spend with his words, he used even more to undo those that came before!

The first 16% of The Starless Crown is as follows…

Part 1: A blind girl is viciously bullied at school.
Part 2: A boy leaves a cave, reenters the cave, leaves the cave again.
Part 3: The blind girl is no longer blind.

Cool. I guess.

The Starless Crown is the first book in a planned four-book series, and I really wasn't sure what to expect from an author whose work usually tended to focus on the thriller genre. I like it when authors branch our and explore other genres as I don't think most of them are one-genre writers to begin with.I do think fantasy, and horror, can be quite difficult to write in order to avoid those repetitive tropes which tend to annoy readers a lot. I did enjoy this novel quite a bit, but did think it fell into some of those tropey traps that can be quite annoying, and for whatever reason, I had difficulty actually reading the book. Once I switched over to audiobook format, I zipped through twenty-two hours with little problem and thought the show more narration was better than reading the book.

There are multiple main characters and multiple POV, and although I don't usually have trouble tracking characters, the author kept adding characters and plot points without fully developing previous ones. And while I can be patient and wait to figure out where everything is headed, some of it was confusing as the writing style seemed to switch from being character-driven to plot-driven and I don't think that works very well as you have some sections where you are being told what is happening rather than trying to work it, then in other sections, you have no idea what is going on because the author doesn't give enough information. I did feel like a lot more insight into the characters' thoughts and feelings was needed as some of them I had no clue and didn't really care what happened to them. Rhaif's chapters didn't interest me at all because he wasn't written in a way that made me empathetic towards him and frankly, I tuned out a lot during his parts and had to rewind and listen to it again. I did like Nyx and thought her connection to the bats was quite interesting. It would have been really cool for her to keep her disability however, and maybe use the bats to be her eyes. Not really a fan about that whole situation as I think the author was onto something quite fascinating and let it slip through his fingers.

I did like the concept of the story, the mix of fantasy and science,and the whole atmosphere had this very unsettled feel about it which worked for me considering the 'doom and gloom' prophecies about the moon throughout the story. And while the author could go on and on describing things, I don't think he focused necessarily on the things he should have as there were aspects to the world-building I thought were quite interesting that I would have liked to learn more about. And as we learned more about the prophecies, I kept trying to piece things together into what I thought would happen. And what it does contain is every single trope you can think of with regards to fantasy literature: the chosen one, the second son of the king who is out to prove himself, the knight who was banished and exiled for trying to do the right thing, the weak academic who always tries to do the right thing, and the list just goes on and on. Maybe the author will take that bag of marbles he's got for tropes and actually shake it up in book two and a beautiful agate will tumble out and something we didn't expect to happen with leave us gobsmacked. We can only hope, right?

Verdict
The Starless Crown definitely had an interesting concept and I enjoyed the world-building and wanted to learn more about it. The story did meander quite a bit and I felt like the author lost track of his characters at times as their personalities and distinct voices were lacking. I also thought the pacing was off as there wasn't a lot of build up to the finale; however, I did like a lot of the creatures introduced in this story and am particularly interested in the Myr bats as I thought they were fascinating. This one of those books you have to read for yourself to see if you will like it, but there was enough to convince me to continue on to book 2, The Cradle of Ice, when it is released next February. show less

I don't usually read books in the fantasy genre. However, James Rollins is one of my favorite authors; I love all his action/thriller series, especially the Sigma series. So when I heard he was creating a new fantasy series, I was willing to give this a try. Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the book, but I think that was just due to my unfamiliarity with the fantasy genre and the weird names of people and places. The more I read, the more I was immersed in the storyline, and I truly enjoyed this book.

There were some crazy extended action scenes that were reminiscent of Rollins's other book series; I found these scenes highly entertaining. I also very much liked the main characters of the book - Nyx, Jace, Graylin, Kanthe, show more Rhaif, Frell - they had distinct personalities and their own inner demons to address. I liked that they were all complex and not one-dimensional. I also liked the secondary characters - Pratik, Darant, Glace, Brayl, Xan - and of course the animals/otherworldly creatures - Gramblebuck, Bashaliia, Aamon, Kalder, Shiya.

The biggest drawback of the book was its length. At 550 pages, it made for a heck of a long first book in a series. This sort of length I would expect from a standalone book, but it's awfully long to end in a bit of a cliffhanger. I think Rollins could have made this book shorter without losing any of its appeal. Regardless, I will definitely be reading book #2 in this series, now that I'm invested in the characters from this book #1 and am genuinely curious as to how each character is going to go about saving their world in a coordinated effort. show less