The Starless Crown

I give the ‘The Starless Crown’ 3.5 stars even, but am rounding up to 4 for the sake of the review because I am a big fan of James Rollin and I did find this book to be pretty good. The only reason I gave it a lower score was because this band of misfit characters who all join forces throughout the book reminded me very much of the same band of misfits from the series of “The Six of Crows” / “Red & Rising.” In fact, I’d say anyone who had read those books and enjoyed them, that the Starless Crown is an adults version of a similar tale. There was another small subplot where I felt the characters were doing a small nod to the Star Wars franchise, because of a certain complexity of lust and confusion between a trio of characters — but the whole “is this my half sister whose actually attractive” plot is blown up too much in this country and I feel we need to move away from those problematic plot lines. Only because normalizing that kind of relationship in books/movies, and then to have the entire pornography industry also have these disgusting plot lines- it may have a negative outcome on the youth. I just want to protect all children from any predator, even if it ends up being their slightly older step sibling or whatever. So yeah, because of it reminding me so much of Six of Crows series and because I’m not a fan of that “possibly lusting over my half sister” plot line, it was knocked down. That being said - I thought it was an overall good book and I have already ordered the second in the series, as well as recommended this book to both my brother and my mother. (My brother is the one who got me to fall in love with James Rollin books and my mother has fallen in love with him after she saw how many of his books we were reading.)

Incredible world-building. Gives off a steam-punk vibe. Good read!

No doubt about the fact Mr.Rollins has quite an imagination I’m just not a fan of mythical thrillers.

So many inventive pieces, Bridle-Song, symbiotic group minds, steamship sci-fi motifs but cobbled together like Frankenstein’s monster. I prefer a crafted story that feels woven like a tapestry rather then a patchwork quilt. The absurdity of one event after another just ruined the flow and my buy in. However, I wanted to know what happened and I cared about the main character, so there’s that!

Well worth every minute reading. A full flavor movie-in-the-head read. Hope there will be a sequel!