Readers’ average rating:

Reposting to include Marion's new review:

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

In Pierce Brown’s debut novel, Red Rising, humanity lives in a strictly hierarchical society, with the various castes marked by colors: Golds at the top, Reds at the bottom, Pinks for pleasure, Yellows for bureaucrats, etc. Darrow, a young Red, who mines beneath the surface of Mars for Helium-3, has always accepted the hierarchy as it has been drummed into him, until events cause him to see things differently. Eventually, he is set on a path whereby he will seek to undermine the Golds’ power and spark a revolution of Reds. If, that is, he can stay true to himself and his mission even as he infiltrates the Gold society. Because of the many twists in the novel, that pretty much all I’m going to say about plot.

Usually I like to start with the positiv... Read More

Readers’ average rating:

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

There’s not a lot to say about the plot of Pierce Brown’s Golden Son, the sequel to the fantastic Red Rising, because outside of the density and complexity of the story, which would necessitate a lot of summary space, Brown fills the novel with so many twists, turns, backstabs and back-back stabs that it would be difficult to offer up a synopsis that both gives a true sense of what happens and does not at the same time give spoiler after spoiler. So let’s just say the plot is, well, dense and complex, is filled with twists and turns, and is almost entirely (but not quite entirely) a strength in the book. And we’ll move on to why it is an excellent follow-up that suffers not in the least from the dreaded second-book-of-a-trilogy syndrome.

The plot picks up two years after the close of Read More

Readers’ average rating:

Reposting to include Bill's new review:

Morning Star by Pierce Brown

WARNING: Contains spoilers for book two, Golden Son

I was very excited to finally lay hands (or eyes) on Pierce Brown’s Morning Star, the grand finale of his Red Rising trilogy. Picking up where book two, Golden Son, left off, Morning Star opens roughly a year after the Jackal storms into the celebration at Darrow’s Triumph, massacres Darrow’s supporters, and captures Darrow himself. While Ares has been killed, the rebellion and similarly-inspired uprisings are still alive and kicking, wreaking havoc across the solar system. But Octavia au Lune is now strengthening her pow... Read More

Readers’ average rating:

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown

I was a big fan of Pierce Brown’s RED RISING trilogy, so I was thrilled to hear he was going to continue the story with a new trio of books. And I’m happy to report that the first book in that new series, Iron Gold (2018), delivers the goods.

[Fair Warning: there will be of necessity spoilers for the first three books, so if you haven’t read those (and you should) I strongly recommend going no further in this review.]

RED RISING at its stripped-down core was the typical Downtrodden Rebels Against a Tyrannical State (DRATS!) story, though executed with atypical flair and complexity. One of the complicating factors, and one of my favorit... Read More