A soldier, a thief, a lost prince, and a young girl bonded by fate and looming disaster.
Each step along this path has changed the party, forging deep alliances and greater
enmities. All the while, hostile forces have hunted them, fearing what they might
unleash. Armies wage war around them.
For each step has come with a cost―in blood, in loss, in heartbreak.
Now, they must split, traveling into a vast region of ice and to a sprawling capital of the world they’ve only known in stories. Time is running out and only the truth will save us all.
I felt like I had hit a little mini-stride with getting books reviewed in a semi-timely fashion, and oop…it didn’t last.
I’ve been reading a bunch, but really struggling to get reviews put together, which stresses me out, which makes it less likely I’ll actually write anything, which stresses me out even further. Rinse, repeat, etc.
Meh.
But anyway! THE STARLESS CROWN was on my list of favorites from 2021, and I wanted to make sure to carve out some time to get some semblance of a review written for the follow-up novel, THE CRADLE OF ICE. This is the second book in James Rollins’s epic fantasy series MOON FALL…actually it’s MOON FALL or THE MOON FALL SAGA, both are used on the book itself. I’m also not 100% sure if this is a trilogy or a longer series, but either way, it’s a hell of a book two!
While it feels a little…reductive to bring up LOTR in any reviews, I couldn’t help but get a slight THE TWO TOWERS vibe, with our cast of characters separated; all working toward the same goal, but from different vantage points.
Things pick up not long after the events of THE STARLESS CROWN, and we catch up with Nyx aboard the skyship Sparrowhawk. It’s the pirate Darant’s ship, but by this point in the journey, Darant and his crew have been fully absorbed in the whole mission to save the world, and are seemingly on the level, which is great.
The relationship between Nyx and Graylin has begun to…soften, if only just a bit. It feels totally organic, where like…Nyx is willing to accept that Graylin is her father, but she is extremely slow to accept whatever kindness & affection he is offering her. This theme carries on throughout the whole book & I appreciated the deliberateness of this aspect of the story. Nyx is also slowly becoming more & more aware of the raw power that she contains, sometimes to a frightening degree.
As always, her relationship with Bashaliia, her brother (who happens to be a large bat that can be reborn into the bodies of even larger bats) is one of the most compelling & emotional aspects of the story. The intensity of the bond between Nyx & Bashaliia is just…oof. It’s something the characters around them can just barely understand, but there’s just so much love between these two and goddamn…there are some really intense moments in this book where it seems like all hope is lost, and I was SQUIRMING.
Mikaen has fully become one of the all-time most awful fantasy villains, just…this guy is malicious & creepy on a whole other level. But too, he’s become a father now, which confusingly gives some of his actions this sense of…not quite relatability, but something approaching it. He is in relentless pursuit of Nyx, and of his brother, Kanthe. And just, yeah…dude is super broken & unsettling.
There’s a lot going on in this book & I’m not going to be able to unpack it all. There’s some phenomenal new characters, particularly a woman named Aalia. Her storyline is woven together with Kanthe’s in some really surprising ways, but by the end of the book Aalia had quietly become a new favorite of mine.
AND OF COURSE! There’s Kalder, who is a Very Good Boy, I mean. He’s not exactly a dog & is actually pretty frightening at times, but he’s kind of a dog and thus a Very Good Boy.
Like with THE STARLESS CROWN, Rollins pays extra attention to the natural world in THE CRADLE OF ICE. Whether it’s a harsh, endless frozen landscape, hauntingly beautiful caves or forests, this world is incredibly vivid.
It’s also dangerous as fuck! While Kalder & some other interesting animals are noble, helpful, and almost cuddly, there are plenty of other creatures in this world who are decidedly…not cuddly.
These books are massive & there’s a lot happening. That combined with my “reviewer’s block” is making me question hitting “post” for this review, but oh well! I’m loving this series a whole lot! I think its greatest strength is less the magic/action/worldbuilding (which is all outstanding), and more the thoughtful way that James Rollins has written these characters, and allowed them to grow. Cannot wait for the third MOON FALL book!
Huge thanks to Tor Books for sending an ARC my way!!
Grimdark Dad 