The Demon Crown

I’m a long time reader of James Rollins and as good as his other Sigma Force books are, I would have to say that this is clearly his best to date.
The premise of the story is imaginative and, as usual, has a basis in fact and science, the writing is smooth and flows well and the story itself is brilliantly told.
Demon Crown kept me up late many nights as I really couldn’t put it down. Rollins is the master of page turners and I envy readers new to James Rollins or the Sigma Force series as they will have countless hours of joy reading Rollins work.
Me, on the other hand, will have to wait patiently until the next book is released.

I only discovered James Rollins recently and I became fascinated with his Signature series. Demon Crown is the 3rd Sigma book I’ve read. As with the others I’ve read the story is action packed and stuffed with history (which I love). I would’ve given this book 5 stars had it had a better ending. Without giving away Spoilers, I was very disappointed by the ending or lack thereof. It’s kind of like, Ok, I’m done writing now. And they all lived happily after. Crap! Don’t give me 600 pages of build up and then say, It’s over now!

Despite this book’s lack of an ending, I’m not giving up on Mr. Rollins… yet. I believe I’ve just read his latest 3 Sigma books so I’ll either have to read an older one or wait for something new.

The other 2 I’ve read are The Bone Labrynth and The Seventh Plague, both excellent 5 star reads that actually have endings. I really can’t say which one is better. You’ll have to read them for yourself!

This may be one of the best Sigma novels to date. Exciting from the first page, it was definitely bad for my blood pressure. Without giving too much away, the adversary was unexpected; the plot twists were surprising and gut-wrenching; and the horrors were truly the stuff of nightmares. But the end was satisfying, and I look forward to seeing how things develop with the new characters whove been introduced.

Rollins, you need to quit trying to kill my favorite characters!

I love the Sigma Force series and usually preorder them so Im not sure how I missed this one but now that Ive read it I didnt miss much. This book moved quickly but it lacked any emotional pull for me. Our main bad guys have unleashed wasps that could destroy the Hawaiian islands and its inhabitants. Thats bad of course but the story is told in a way that really avoids any compelling story about it. The story alternates between Gray and his team who are tasked with hunting down the bad guys, and Kat and Monk whose team go off in search of the origins of the wasp. I love Monk and wished hed had a bigger role, although he does have some crucial moments they are pretty much what weve seen before. Kowalski is another favorite of mine but his role was really limited and there was no interaction with his girlfriend Maria which is always great.

There are a few new characters, like Ken who adds a great POV to the story and others who did not. Im not one to quibble about unrealistic plot points in a novel like this. Rollins is usually very well researched, if not overly so, that if anything the tech and science can be over my head. But in this case there were characters who made no sense. A sixty-five year old librarian should not, and would never, be in the field when there is this much danger and physicality required. Sigma is brawn and brain with amazing tech so that would not be necessary. A firefighter might be helpful with the local terrain in Hawaii but its eye rolling to believe hes going on missions. Sigma has far better trained people for that and could call in much better assistance.

Unfortunately one POV was the wasp and its lifecycle. Personally insects, even if super special, are just bugs to me. I had no interest in this POV or the very serious science behind it. The concept was interesting as far as the weapon went and as always I learned a lot but I could have done with less entomology.

For me the big bad guy was also lackluster. I did like the idea of his grudge and his motivation to attack Hawaii made great sense as a revenge plot but more in their than execution.

I wish there had been more time on Hawaii. Ive spent a lot of time there and was hoping for it to have more of a role than it does. Most of the story is really going to take place off island. Even when critical points are mentioned about circumstances on the island there is no first person account. I think the story would have benefited from a more gripping narrative than just the clinical and detached ones. I have never been all that interested in Gray and Seichan but this book just illustrates why. Even when there should be compelling points between them I just did not care. Their relationship has never been written in a way that makes me invested.

When I started this book I was sure I had read the beginning before. I was really confused by it as I buy all my books for my Kindle and Amazon had no record of my purchase. If you also read Steve Berry you might feel the same way. I think the facts about James Smithson and Alexander Graham Bell must have been in the book Berry did. It stops feeling like Deja Vu after it moved from the history at the beginning to the present in Brazil and then Hawaii. In the acknowledgements Rollins gives a begrudging credit to Berry which was fun.

If you are a fan of this series you can easily skip this book without missing anything that will impact the series. There is one part that will carry over into the next book but its mentioned immediately in The Crucible when the team appears with their story so you wont be missing anything if this description does not appeal to you. Personally Im hoping that Rollins uses his vast scientific knowledge on mammals again because Ive had enough of bugs. I also hope for mire of the great historical facts he usually presents. This book was way more science than history.

I started reading James Rollins novels about 10 years ago. Some I liked/loved more than others but the in all of them the story was very well put together, great characters and in most cases, some historical facts where the author used as the back drop of his story and put his own amazing what if/spin on it. This story is pretty amazing how it takes us back to the 1940’s, the mid 1800’s and to pre-historic times. I don’t like to go into any details about the book so as to avoid spoilers. All I will say is that if you like the previous books in the Sigma series, you will like/love this book. It kept me up WAY too late on quite a few nights over the last week or so. If you get it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Happy Reading!

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