James Rollins is a Name Author, his Sigma Six military science fictional thrillers are immediate best sellers upon release. You might say he knows how to spin a tale that a lot of people want to read. But under the James Clemens pseudonym, he began his writing in the fantasy genre with Wit’ch Fire, the first of the five-book Banned and the Banished and his first published novel. James makes a bombastic return to Epic Fantasy with The Starless Crown, the first installment of the Moon Fall saga. The book has many of the expected ingredients of the genre – secondary world, prophecy, orphaned/lost savior, monsters, cruel leader, sibling rivalry, impending doom, magical objects, thieves, and knights.
An alliance embarks on a dangerous journey to uncover the secrets of the distant past and save their world in this captivating, deeply visionary adventure from #1 New York Times bestselling thriller-master James Rollins.
A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.
Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts:
A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home.
A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother’s shadow and claims a purpose of his own.
An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact – one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe.
On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.
But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.
WHO WILL CLAIM THE STARLESS CROWN?
The prophecy involves nothing less than the destruction of the world, thanks to the moon crashing into the earth…excuse me Urth. The world isn’t exactly in good shape to begin with, its rotation ceased in the distant past. One half of Urth half is frozen, while the other is unbearably hot. This gives the world an apocalyptic/crapsack feel. As a result, strange creatures and plant life have been part of the landscape, giant bats, giant insect-like monsters, and many more monsters to avoid. In keeping with Epic Fantasy tradition, The Starless Crown has a prologue, which shows the birth of a young girl in the somewhat recent past, maybe ten or twenty years.
The novel is told from the point of view of three primary characters for the first 2/3 to ¾ of the story, with a fourth coming in towards the end. The orphaned and blinded Nyx has visions of the world coming to an end, she doesn’t know her parents, was left to die and was raised at the Cloistery of Brayk (a religious/learning institution). One of those aforementioned “monsters” – the giant Myr bats attacks her. These bats are known for their deadly, venomous poison, but in Nyx’s case, her sight is restored. This healing brings more attention to Nyx, unwanted attention from the Highking, who wants her brought to his castle. He wants her blood, but fears her connection to a fallen knight.
While Nyx is dealing with prophecies, the thief Raif escapes his enslavement thanks to a magical object that soon causes him to be pursued with great vigor. The unwanted prince and son of the Highking, Kanthe ry Massif, is the younger of the twins so he is an afterthought. As such, he spends much of his time in bars carousing. He survives an attack he learns was a calculated, attempted at murder. Lastly, the exiled knight Graylin enters the story as our fourth protagonist.
A good percentage of the novel is dedicated to the characters, laying great foundation for who they are and allowing the reader to get to know them. Rollins also does a great job of laying out the world, Urth. It isn’t a fun place, to put it mildly. There are definite grimdark overtones to the events and themes, especially as the plot progresses and supporting characters are introduced, I’m looking at Kanthe’s brother Mikean, the prince who will inherit the throne, and the Highking’s advisor Iflelen Wryth. The fact that the world is rife with monsters and major uninhabitable regions points to some darker themes and tones, I’d say about 2/3 into the novel some nasty stuff happens and specifically when Wrtyh and Mikean take a more prominent foothold in the plot, the Grimdark feel is more prominent. That’s not a bad thing, just a thing I noticed and appreciated.
The plot, at times, felt like a RPG adventure, with the monstrous attacks, the importance of magical objects, but a really well-written, imaginative, and gripping adventure. Hint, I liked that element of the novel!
I found a lot to like in The Starless Crown. I immediately fell in love with the immersive, appropriately detailed world-building, found the characters to be empathetic and fascinating, and found the plotting to mostly be breakneck. There were some slower patches of the novel that brought down things a bit, but those were few and far between. What I appreciated the most, though, was how much Rollins’s love for Epic Fantasy came through in the entirety of the novel. I got a sense he was having fun, and sometimes the best thing a writer can do (and it isn’t an easy trick to pull off) is translate the fun they are having in writing the story and creating the world over to the reader. The afterword confirmed to me just how much love Rollins has for the genre, Epic Fantasy specifically.
Bottom line: The Starless Crown is a helluva way to kick off 2022 and a bold, audacious, and fantastic way for James Rollins to carve a path back into Epic Fantasy. The novel and world hit all of the buttons for me, from an Epic Fantasy perspective. Though I wouldn’t say it is a fully Grimdark novel/world, it would definitely appeal to readers who enjoy Grimdark Fantasy.
Highly recommended.
© 2022 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Tor Books | January 2022 | 560 Pages
Moon Fall Saga #1
https://jamesrollins.com/
Excerpts: https://www.tor.com/tag/the-starless-crown/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
