This was just a good ole fantasy book. There's no spice. There are multiple POVs. They are trying to protect a talisman and go on a quest. If you like Terry Brooks then you'll love this series!

Thank you so much for opportunity to read this series . This is epic fantasy book with great characters, some sci fi elects and great world building. I enjoyed this action packed fantastic.

A good book with a lot going on. I thought it was well written and the characters were well developed. Teh world building was complete.

A fantasy full of richly developed characters, settings, and plot. The characters were interesting and dynamic and the world building kept my interest piqued.

I hate that I hadn’t started this series earlier. The world-building is insanely expansive and I get the feeling that we have only scratched the surface in this first book of the series. The world feels like Earth if it stopped rotating on its axis and is called Urth, which feels a little too on the nose.

Nyx is a standout strong female character who overcomes many things throughout the story, including her blindness, which she doesn’t seem to let stop her from trying to be the best at anything. This is a multi-POV book and at first it is hard to see how some of the POVs connect and I found myself wanting more of Nyx’s POV rather than the random guys we were getting. However, I love how it all comes together later in the story and the epic and adventurous scope we end up getting.

Thank you to @torbooks for the e-book! All thoughts are my own.

This book started off incredibly strong and I was immediately invested with Nyx, especially. That said, as more and more characters were added and more and more plotlines were colliding all at once, I found myself losing track of who was who and what was actually going on. Around the 60% mark I found myself losing interest and used the audiobook to speed through to the end. I felt invested enough that I'll continue with book two, but I worry about feeling lost. We shall see.

The Starless Crown by James Rollins
Rollins has outdone himself in this epic fantasy. Book one introduced a myriad of entertaining and exotic characters. A world is threatened by a prophetic doom seen by only a few. The rest of the world is caught up in political intrigue and treachery. Rollins paints some seriously despicable villains.
There are many memorable characters in the positive column despite many of them being superficially bad guys. I liked the relationships between animal and man with loyalty and love going both directions.
The breadth of Rollins's world is just shy of breathtaking. There is epic perfidy, familia treachery, and grotesque violence by even more grotesque characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and avidly look forward to reading the second book in this world-spanning trilogy.

Ugh. I decided to dnf this book at 25% in. I'm so disappointed, by the description this book sounded great! At the beginning I definitely got hooked in there were some great scenes but those quickly stopped and I become beyond bored. I really dislike the writing style, when fantasy authors write in an "old" English style it just throws me off.

Thank you netgalley I will not continue with this series.

This was a really great story! The search for the crown becomes all encompassing and the development was fantastic!

This book took me ages to read/review & it was so silly to put it off, because it was a solid read. The world building & scifi/fantasy hybrid style worked for me! The character development was hit or miss- it fell into some tropes I don’t love… but overall definitely worth reading if you enjoy the genres and don’t mind getting through the exposition.

Thank you so much Netgalley & Tor!

I've read James Rollins' middle grade fantasy, Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow, and quite enjoyed it, so I envisioned enjoying this fantasy just as much. It is definitely entertaining and there is a lot of creative world-building going on here. That said, I really struggled to get past the first third of it. There was so much world and character building happening, that it really bogged me down in parts. I knew that Nyx, Prince Kanthe, Rhaif and Graylin sy Moor would all end up together, and some of their relationships (especially Nxy and Graylin sy Moor) weren't too hard to figure out, but I still struggled to get past all of the foundation chapters that I needed to in order to get to the gist of the story. Young Adult and Adult readers of epic fantasies will no doubt really enjoy this first book in a series, but I was surprised by the amount of violence and some disturbing content. Personally, I didn't end up enjoying it as much as I had hoped, though it did manage to hold my attention as it neared the end, and I did read the sequel I can definitely see that writing thrillers (something I didn't know about the author) lends itself to his style in this novel. While I don't know if I would have pushed past the initial chapters if I hadn't received an eGalley through NetGalley, it was engaging to me by the end.

This was a fun read for a typical fantasy book. The charcters were engrossing. I liked Nyx our blind tiny character with a mysterious past. I think this is a fast and fun fantasy with a lot of action. Definately will look for the next book.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Macmillan- Tor/ Forge for an advanced copy of this start of a big new fantasy series.

Science fiction and fantasy are never really given the credit for skill and work that it entails to make not only a readable book or series, but a series that people love to come back to and discuss with others. All you do is make stuff up and put in weird names, some people might say, but they would never say it to Cormac McCarthy. Writers have to come up with a world, if there is magic, how does it work, if there is science, how far along. What to people do, what do they speak, if there are elves, why, and what is there place in society. World building, something a lot of fiction writers don't have to think about, or deal with. James Rollins has had a successful career writing thrillers, some with a supernatural bent to them, which helps him very well in his first major work of fantasy, The Starless Crown, book 1 in the Moonfall series. Heroes, villains, losers and dreamer come to together to save their world, while the universe itself seems to be against them.

The book begins with a birth that does not end well, but sets the scene for this series. We soon meet Nyx, a sprightly fourteen-year old girl, bad of vision, and small of stature, of the Cloistery of Brayak. Nyx is attacked by Mýr bats, who inject her with foul poisons, but which have the opposite effect. Instead of dying Nyx instead has her eyes healed so she can see, but given visions of an apocalypse that might be coming to destroy the world. Word of her miraculous recovery reaches the ears of the Highking who wants Nyx for her blood and its healing powers, and for her gift of sight, thinking she might be a danger to the realm. Nyx flees with a group of adventurers, all with their own problems, secrets and enemies, hiding from both the Highking's people, and other threats.

Start of a series with a lot of potential, even if a lot of this sounds familiar. The world is very interesting a mix of real world, magic and science, with an apocalyptic calamity that is different and yet well explained. Being the first book, and even though it is quite large, there are still some fleshing out of the character, but again its the first book. POV changes with a few different narrators, but nothing to hard to keep track of, once readers get used to the story and where it seems to be headed. Rollins has been doing this for a number of years, and knows how to keep a story going, though this might be his first series.

Big fantasy fans will probably enjoy this. Role-players will enjoy the world and probably get some ideas for campaigns from it. As I wrote the world is interesting and has a lot of potential. I've enjoyed many of the James Rollins books I've read, starting all the way back with Subterranean. I really look forward to the rest of this series.

Nyx, discovered as a baby in the swamp by her adoptive father, is mostly blind. When an unexpected encounter with a Myr bat's venom clears her eyesight, she's thrust into seismic events. On the run from enemies and accompanied by a drunken prince, her possible father, a thief, and a woman made of bronze, Nyx must journey to stop the end of the world.

It's fitting that the dedication of this book is to Terry Brooks. The skeleton of the plot— orphan with mysterious powers thrust into a disparate band of characters who map fairly directly to standard D&D classes— reads like classic fantasy of the 80s and 90s (and is peppered with some cute references like the pirate ship named Sparrowhawk). There are some improvements, such as integrating fantasy with science, a central female character, and many animal friends, but I ultimately found the book disappointing and slow despite the myriad action scenes. There's plenty of room for classic, Western Europe-inspired fantasy in modern fiction, but there are some elements of this that belong in the past, including:

● the lack of meaningful engagement with disability in a fantasy setting
● the fridging of Nyx's birth mother

This book is like looking up into a starless night and feeling the dual sense of dread and hope.

Will the darkness stay forever? Will those bastions of light hold out and continue to break the void of nothingness?

I knowing that authors are capricious sort. Something about staying true to the characters and the story -- go figure. I knew while reading this story that things would not end well for everyone. I tried not to become attached to these characters, but found myself, looking through that unique perspective that the author creates for each character, seeing their POV and how fate was bringing their lives all together. It was like seeing a tapestry being woven, strings being pulled together, but not knowing the final pattern. I was dying to know the final pattern.

By really getting into the story though, I knew there was going to be a time when fickle fate (or the author) decides to bring the Hurt down and I knew I would hate it. Despite this, I felt compelled to know what happens. I had to finish the story though I knew there will be ruin and tears and most likely not a happy ending. So if you are looking for an epic fantasy that has action and no heartache ends with a HEA, I earn you now to pass on this story. From the first chapter to the end, this epic is full of tears, strife, heartache, and endurance. It's a book about weathering the battle despite the hardships to win the war.

** Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion **

This is one of those fantasy books that you jump into, learn a new world, and fall in love with the characters. You have to take your time with it in the beginning, but it is soooo worth it. Fast paced, action packed and great writing. What else could you ask for?

A gifted child on the run because of a vision, a prisoner escapes and is on the run with another prisoner trying to take a bronze woman where she needs to be to be safe from those that would exploit her, a prince running from assassination, and an ex knight banished from his kingdom because of love, somehow all end up running into than with each other. The prophecy they have heard and believe keeps the group together except when necessary.
This is a great book and I can’t wait to get book two of this series. I hope it will bring good news to the ragtag band of misfits. This book charges along at 100 mph all the way through and I believe the next will be the same. I loved the characters good and bad. This is just working to be an awesome story once all told.

This book is quite long but it’s also a very good read. I was a little bit confused by all the pov changes and it took a while for everything to make sense and for all the characters to come together to form a group but once they did the action really picked up. The characters were all likeable in their own way and I found the world building to be good. Very entertaining, going to start on the second book soon.

Things to be aware of:
This book quite a bit of swearing and violence.

This was quite the story. There are plenty of other reviews that summarize the story so I won’t add that here. I received an ARC of this story as well as the next one, Cradle of Ice. My library had this one on audiobook, so I listened to it instead. I will agree with other reviewers, there were several names that sounded similar, so the audio was a little confusing at first. I’ve never read any of James Rollins’ work before but know that he has a popular science thriller series. This book is a deviation from those where this has more of a fantasy element, though I did like the science thrown in. This book ends in a “to be continued,” so be forewarned.
I liked the “planet has stopped spinning and this is my take on what could happen,” story. I look forward to more explanation and expansion in the second book. The characters were interesting and varied and the world that James has created is intriguing if not Australia level of everything here can kill you.

Holy crap! This book. Rollins brings to life a world that is dynamic, enthralling, and utter perfection. The storytelling and the writing made the tale richer. The characters were brilliant and I cannot wait to read book 2.