RaveSFFWorldThe 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 ... 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.
Chuck Wendig
RaveSFFWorld... an instant classic ... Wanderers is also one of the timeliest books I have ever read, it speaks so powerfully, elegantly, and crassly (in an elegant way) to the current zeitgeist. The fractured political ideologies of the U.S., of our world, really are on full display here and come across as all the more potent because Wendig has a fantastic way of imbuing his characters with believability ... The book is just smart through and through ... an immediate Modern Masterpiece of the genre, and [it] will probably be my favorite 2019 novel, and a book I will hold very high in my pantheon for years to come.
