Review: The Starless Crown by James Rollins

The Starless Crown by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an Audio ARC via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. Thank you to Macmillan Audio for inviting me to review this book.  This is my first James Rollins book, but it certainly will not be my last.  This was published on January 4, 2022.  This is on the longer side, but it is worth it!

Nicola Barber did a great job with the narration.  This audiobook is roughly 22 hours long, and it takes a good narrator to keep you engaged for that long.  There are quite a few characters to keep track of as well, which is not unusual for a scifi fantasy book such as this, but I was able to follow along pretty easily as the chapters were broken down to focus on one character arc at a time.

The Starless Crown is a place not a thing.  There are all manner of strange beasts and plants that can kill you.  Students study alchemy if they show aptitude.  There are different pantheons of gods and goddesses that are worshipped.  There is alot going on in this book, but I didn't find it hard to follow.  While the book is long, the author does a good job describing the characters and what is happening so you don't get lost.  There is a ton of action going on so you never get bored.  No one is safe and there is never a moments rest for our characters once things get moving.  This is pretty fast paced, so while it is on the longer side for an audiobook, it doesn't feel long.  Honestly, it isn't unusual for an epic SFF of this nature to push the 20+ hour mark.  The good ones make you want to keep listening, and I really loved this!

This follows several main characters, Nyx who is a 14 year old girl who is studying to be an alchemist.  When she's attacked at school, she finds that she has a long lost connection to a power that she doesn't quite understand.  This makes her dangerous and a potential threat to the King.  She finds herself on the run with a ragtag group of exiles on a journey she could have never imagined.  They are all on the run from something, but they all find themselves connected in some way.  She has to come to terms with the chaos around her and what that might mean for her future.  She's also developing some powers of her own as the journey progresses.  Each of the characters has a role to play and we get to see them develop throughout the story as they face their fears and weaknesses and put their strengths to good use.

I found the world building to be excellent in this!  We get great descriptions of the landscape and the creatures.  We are never left with huge gaps about what is going on in the plot.  We do bounce from plotline to plotline but you know you are going to come back to what is going on and they are all somehow going to tie together.  Initially, I was a bit confused, but after the first few chapters I got the feel for the writing and knew everything was going to come together at some point.  

I'm very much invested in this story and the characters.  I'm not sure when the next book is due out, but I am anxiously awaiting it!

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