Red Rising

As a fan of dystopia series generally I am surprised that it took me so long to get round to this, but with the third book in the trilogy due out early next year, I thought I'd finally give it a go. I am very glad I did, and will no doubt be polishing off the second book pretty quickly in anticipation of the concluding instalment. It is true to say that the plot to Red Rising isn't going to win any prizes for originality. The first fifth of the book sets the tone, with the protagonist, Darrow, finding out that his arduous life as a 'Red' mining precious minerals to ensure the survival of the human race is not all it seems. Not by a long shot, actually, as it turns out that the 'Reds' are effectively slaves in a society run by 'Golds', who rule from a position of luxury and power at the expense of all others. Darrow finds himself in a position to infiltrate and challenge the 'Golds', and so the main part of the book charts his progress through a very Hunger Games esq artificial scenario whereby he is one of a group of teenagers that must work out not only how to lead their own group, but how to ultimately conquer and win over the other groups that have been placed in the same environment. If the actual blurb of Red Rising threatens to be lost in what is a very competitive genre, the writing ensures that it has the quality to very much stand out. Simply put, this book is written very well indeed, and is driven by the myriad of flawed characters that Brown manages to make both relevant and distinct. The narrative moves quickly but is engaging, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader hooked. The fact that the 'arena' section involves groups of teenagers rather than just an 'every man for himself situation' results in the plot as a whole having a lot more depth then Hunger Games. It's also significantly more brutal, and whilst it's not quite up to Game of Thrones level in terms of violence, it's certainly a good notch above what you would expect in a YA novel. It's also worth noting that whilst there are sic-fi elements to this, they are very accessible and do not suffer from the over complicated technical language that I find is present in a lot of sci-fi novels. Ultimately as first books in a trilogy go it's difficult to find much better examples in this genre. It really is excellent and I found myself flying through it with little concept of the passage of time, which is always a good sign. Despite having bought numerous books in the Kindle sale whilst I was reading this, I have just bought and moved straight on to the second book in the series. I hope that the trilogy lives up to the standards of this first book, but until I find that out for myself I can only recommend Red Rising as an excellent sci-fi dystopia novel.

Red Rising: “I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.” So I can safely say that all the praise this book gets is well deserved! I always a little bit nervous when reading works of an author I have not read before, and even more so when said books are so widely loved. Not in the sense id be worried about rating it low, because that doesn’t overly bother me, it is that your expectations are set so high that they can often be the ruin of the book. It works both ways, I have watched films and read books that’s have been slated and loved them because I had such low expectations. Thankfully, those who have praised this book are people who I respect the opinions of and having cracking taste! It usually takes me a good chunk of time to fall into the rhythm of a new authors writing, especially when in first person. I have nothing against first person, it’s just that for some unknown reason it takes me longer to get into the grove of the writing. However, this was not an issue at all with this book, I fell into it almost too easily. I have described writing before using words such as clean, simple and sharp. Though, never have I read writing quite so sharp. Pierce does not over embellish his writing, it is straight and to the point, while not seeming inferior or of a lesser standard. There is a quick feeling to his prose, they are swift and effective. That's not to say there isn't description there most definitely is, it just felt less prevalent. There is something surreal about Pierce's writing. At first I thought it more magical, when Darrow was describing the beauties of nature he sees or cities but I realised it was actually a part of Darrow. It emphasises the point that he believed his world was baron and red and that it would never be more, that he would never be more. It was incredibly immersive and truly brought out Darrow’s character more and more. I found Darrow easy to love, I liked him from the start and that didn’t change. It was very interesting to see the two sides of Darrow, not in a two faced way but we as the reader see a truer version of him whereas the other characters of the book see the image he puts forth. There is a duel at one point, one of the opponents says ‘to yield’ while Darrow shouts ‘to the death’ and it just clicked how differently the rest of the characters see him to how we see him. I was really cleverly done, I don't doubt other books do it to some degree but I really saw it in this. “Yielding,” Pax says impatiently. “To the death,” I correct. Really it doesn’t matter. I’m just screwing with them at this point. All I have to do is give the signal. “To yielding,” Mustang confirms.” I felt like I was able to resonate with some of the initial emotions that Darrow experiences. I live in a tiny town, so when I moved to the city for university it was a big shift in gear. I remember I was walking from my university accommodation once and I saw a tractor rolling through Leeds and I nearly peed I was that excited, it is so strange to go from a place you know near everyone and where everyone but the grumps smile at you to a city of drones. A place where you are the strange one for smiling at the person walking past you! “In Lykos, I would have been jostled by men I’d grown up with, run across girls I’d chased and wrestled with as a child. Here, other Colors slam into me and offer not even a faint apology. This is a city, and I do not like it. I feel alone.” Pierce also gave us so many other great characters, Sevro was brilliant! Some had past dealings that would make you think them oily and sneaky, others you would pity and some you hated. Pierce makes you feel every brutal emotions for these characters and more. “Sevro snorts. “What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time, you silky turd? Wanking off in the bushes?” The descriptions in this book are beautifully done, the forest, the baron slums Darrow lived in, the busy cities full of Colours, are all so vivid and creative. I said earlier that Pierces writing, through the eyes of Darrow, seemed surreal and often magical and it does but Pierce also managed to show us an utterly savage world one win which life is not fair, it is not equal and you do not win. The story gradually gets darker and darker, while still holding tight the dream that this all begun for. “On Mars there is not much gravity. So you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.” This book is so fast paced, and it is utterly relentless. I didn’t feel like there was a single point I could put this book down the wheels of the game just kept on churning! Which is probably why I was up until the butt crack of dawn reading this book. So, if you starter reading this book do so early and make sure you have the day free because you will not want to stop. It is a brilliant start to the series and I cannot wait to read the next book, which is already downloaded on my kindle and ready to be read once I have posted this review! “Alter the paradigm.”

I absolutely loved this book! Red Rising is a YA dystopian novel, which was recommended to me and described as 'The Hunger Games in space' - I was obviously completely sold! Set in the future, society is separated into a colour-caste hierarchical system that dictates your whole life from how you live to how you die. “My people sing, we dance, we love. That is our strength. But we also dig. And then we die. Seldom do we get to choose why.” The protagonist male, Darrow, is a lowly Red, which means that he works as a Helldiver on Mars to ensure that it will be a livable planet for future generations. He is playing a huge part in changing the future of humanity... or so he believes. Red Rising has a whole host of fantastic, complex and vivid characters. There are few series that I can think of where I have enjoyed SO many different characters as I have in this book and trilogy. Darrow is a great protagonist. Even when things are at their worst, he does not wallow in self-pity (a character trait I cannot abide in a protagonist), he is intelligent, very human and bloodydamn well written! The plot of Red Rising is more complex than a lot of other YA dystopia. The opening is enjoyable and has a good pace despite it introducing you to so many different ideas at once. It lets you get to grips with the world, how things work and then throws you straight into the main story line. There is friendship, death, love, anger, betrayal... and most importantly, surprises! It certainly has a lot of familiar elements but the world is so much richer, the plot thicker and I personally found it to be less predictable than books in the same genre. The tone and pace of the book are also spot on! Red Rising is a great book, which I constantly recommend to people! It is frequently mentioned alongside The Hunger Games, although it is different and has the strength to stand alone but you have to forgive the comparison because if you like The Hunger Games, Divergent or are just a YA/dystopia fan you will love this.

So, I'll be upfront here, I loved this book! In fact I loved it so much that I couldn't concentrate on anything else once I'd finished it so immediately bought and read book 2 because it was the only thing I wanted to read. I've also bought book 3 but am holding off on that because I don't want to get into the position of reading book 4 and then having to wait months to find out what happens next. This book grabbed me from the first page and wouldn't let me go. The characters are all richly detailed without extraneous detail used on those who are only in the story for a page or two. I felt like I was with Darrow every step of his journey, felt every emotion he felt and wanted the same goals as he did because I could understand why they were so important to him. The locations, while not obviously places we are familiar with, felt alive to me, the descriptions were so clear and well-written. I read this story on my kindle and have since bought the paperback and therefore seen the map that is in it, something I didn't have in my ebook. The descriptions were so clear throughout the story that my imagined layout that I had in my mind was almost identical to the map in the book, that's how good the writing is. This isn't a non-violent book but I felt the violence there was fitted with the story. It's also not a book with a complete ending as it is the first in the series, however, the ending does tie things up to an extent so there is a feeling of an ending of sorts which I liked and don't always get with books that are part of a series. If you're one of the few people on the planet who have not yet read this book then I would urge you to give it a go. It might not be your usual genre but why not step outside of it and try something different. Life can be boring if we never try new things, at least occasionally. For anyone who wants a fast paced, well-written read that will keep them glued to the book for hours then I highly recommend this one. The only regret I have in reading this book is that I didn't do it sooner.

I want to say it's been a long time since I came across a book that deserves the hype it's been given, but I can't - but that's only because I've been reading a lot of awesome books lately. This is definitely another book that deserves it's hype. I've had this on my Kindle since the beginning of the month and I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. The more I read the blurb, the more I started to think that this was going to be a complete Snoozefest. I'll be the first to admit, the world building does take some commitment - especially the lingo - which, for the first few chapters I did cringe at a bit - but Pierce Brown does it all in such a way that it isn't boring and it isn't just pages and pages of info-dumping. You go straight into the story and it all becomes a part of it; it's very naturally done. I struggled a bit with the narrative and Brown's writing style for a while in the beginning. Short sentences, minimal descriptions and at times, things could be very abrupt. However, once I had gotten used to this, I realised just how much I liked it and how much it adds to the book. Besides, there's so much happening that the book would have been 5-times longer if it hadn't been like that. Ok, I need to put this one down now. The Ancient Rome influence and parallels definitely bumps it up immeasurably for me. I love that s***. I never went to University, but if i had, it would have been to study Ancient History. Love me some Greeks and Romans. Darrow was incredible. As a character he's what you look for as a reader: Everything you wish you could be, and yet undeniably flawed. He's still human (I think). He lets himself get carried away, he makes mistakes, he can't help himself at times. But he's strong, and intelligent and cunning. He knows how the game is played and doesn't shy away from it in the way that a lot of Dystopian Heroes and Heroins tend to do. He does some horrific things, faces hard decisions and makes bad choices. It's gritty, and morally ambiguous and I love it! Pierce tackles some gritty topics, too. Most notably inequality and racism, the breakdown of civilization, society and morality during times of war and the corruptability of power and what lengths people are willing to go in order to gain or maintain it. And he does this through a host of characters who have more dimensions than, I think, a single read can really convey. I can already tell, this is one of those books which is going to give you something new to think about every time you re-read it. And re-read it I will. READ THE BOOK!

The beginning of the reaper, a great first book in a trilogy that sets up the small part of a bigger story to come.

Reading Red Rising is like being mugged by a Shakespearean gladiator who also has a degree in political science and a deep hatred for the caste system. You sit down thinking, “Cool, sci-fi rebellion story,” and five pages later you’re holding your emotional intestines wondering who gave Pierce Brown the right. Darrow begins as a Red which is basically “space peasant with a miner’s budget and a death wish.” Life is simple: dig, sing songs, try not to die. And then the universe strolls in like, “Surprise! Everything you believe is a lie and also we’re going to upgrade you like a smartphone and toss you into a murder academy. Good luck, champ.” This book is Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones meets that one time your boss said “it’ll be a quick meeting” and then ruined your entire month. The Institute is the true star of the show. Think of it as: Hogwarts, if the Sorting Hat actively encouraged homicide Stanford, but with more war crimes A summer camp run by Roman gods who are three drinks past responsible Everyone gets divided into Houses based on dead Roman cosplay, and apparently the only way to win is to betray everyone you’ve ever spoken to. Friendship? Optional. Violence? Mandatory. Therapy? Unavailable. Darrow, now Gold-coded and traumatised to perfection, proceeds to tear through the place like a vengeful golden tornado with a moral crisis. He’s brilliant. He’s tragic. He’s angry enough to power a small moon. The cast? Absolutely deranged in the best way: Mustang: The only person with a functioning brain cell. Sevro: A feral goblin raccoon-child with knives and attitude. Cassius: The friend you think you can trust until he stabs you (emotionally or literally, depends on the chapter).

This book had been heavily recommended by a number of friends whose opinion on books I trust, and I'd been meaning to read it for ages. The opening third really didn't disappoint. Though this is ultimately basically YA dystopia, it felt a lot darker and more adult than most, as well as having a very well-developed world. Though the main character, Darrow, is a teenager when the book opens, he's already married, working as a miner, and basically considered to be an adult - as would have been the case in most societies of this type in the past. The basic set-up reminded me more of Brave New World (albeit with added space colonisation!) than of any more modern dystopian fiction. Society is divided into a number of set classes, from gold at the top to red at the bottom, each of whom are genetically different and play a specific role in society. Something between brainwashing, social conditioning and outright lies helps to keep each person broadly content with their lot in life, or at least, only grumbling about their rivals of the same strata or their immediate overseer, not the system as a whole or its ultimate rulers. The opening chapters focus on Darrow's life at the bottom of this pile. The grimness is hard to read, but compelling, and lightened by moments of joy and the evident love for his wife and his wider family. We only see a small snapshot of how society works at this stage, but it's very well-done. Without treading too far into the realms of spoilers, tragedy strikes and the hero ends up volunteering/being coerced into a deadly plan by the resistance he didn't even know existed - he'll be genetically modified and plastic surgeried and educated until he is indistinguishable from a member of the ruling golds and infiltrate their ranks. The sections showing his transformation and revealing some of the truths about the world were even more compelling and horrifying than the opening. About half of the way through, the hero is sent (in disguise as a gold) to the academy where the top golds go - think Sandhurst and Oxford rolled into one. I love stories of people operating incognito, and the first few scenes at the academy were intriguing. From them, for me at least, the book went rapidly down hill. "Education" at the academy basically consists of the students forming teams and competing in a months long war game to see who can dominate the rest. This wasn't a bad concept, and it led to some interesting set pieces. However, I had three problems with it. Firstly, it went on and on, and started to drag. Secondly, I struggled to suspend my disbelief to believe that parents of the elite would support a system that involved many of their children being raped, maimed and killed, even in a society based on survival of the fittest principles. I think I'd have believed it more if it had either been virtual in some way or there had been some constraints. Thirdly and most importantly, it ultimately seemed to have little to do with the main plot. The fact that Darrow is secretly a red and ultimately wanting to change society becomes almost irrelevant. He's not fighting the system, he's fighting the students on the same team as him for leadership and the students who are arbitrarily on opposite sides for victory. As a result, it was hard to feel very invested in the outcome. There was nothing to really distinguish students on one side from students on the other. There were also a lot of characters in this section. A few were memorable, but many of them blurred into one. Having loved the first half, I really had to drag myself to the end. That said, despite my disappointment with the second half, the overall world building, the main character, and the ending were enough to make me want to launch straight into the second book. I was hoping that freed from the constraints of the school-focussed structure, it would be more interesting, and I was right.

Good book

Blog: irenadams.com Caution, mild spoilers ahead. "Funny thing, watching gods realize they’ve been mortal all along." I was going to leave for a trip for 3 weeks and couldn’t bring physical copies of the books with me. At least not as many as I would want to. So, for the first time in years I bought kindle versions of a few books. I decided to clean my want-to-read and owned-to-read shelves and this is one that’s been on one of those lists for a long time. I don’t think the synopsis really convinced me and I wasn’t sure the book would be worth buying. I regret that I formed an opinion before giving it a real chance. I think I might want to have it on a shelf of my bookcase so I can re-read it or just flip through the pages to savor the good passages. This is one of those books that really surprised me. There was action, a bad-ass character, suspense… Everything you want in a good novel that takes you in its grip and doesn’t let go before you flip the last page. The future that this book is painting is simple but evil. It has been compared to The Hunger Games, and I thought the same by the middle of the book but P. Brown created something new. It may be another dystopian future, another example of our flaws and habits, but it is also an example of what we might become if a handful few can grab the seats of power and impose their will, hiding the rest of us in the dark for the next centuries. If I only knew that there would be Greek and Roman mythology involved I would have picked the book sooner. P. Brown used the names of the gods and their characteristics and attributes to show the different battling houses of the Golds, but at the same time mentioning the differences between Greek and Roman mythology. The main character is not perfect, but deep and easy to connect to. He might be above average in his skills or strength, but then again, it was all built for him. And throughout the pages P. Brown shows us the change in the protagonist, his doubts, his fears, but also his never ending will to push forward.We get to presence his evolution and the adjustment to his new role in the society. The story is gripping and full of twists. Even though some of the turns of the events are easy to foresee, the story is ever changing. The fluid relationship between the characters and the protagonist is sometimes surprising like with Tactus, Servo and Pax, other times not so much as with Mustang. But the author is not afraid to kill one or several of the characters you liked or started to like, leaving you on the edge of the seat to see what will happen next. It was a good ride and I hope you will take it too.

I'm so glad that I got this book as the introduction to my first reading spree in years. The first maybe 100 pages can feel a little bit slow, as usual with in-depth stories that need foundation, but then it's just amazing. I was mindblown by the environments that is showcased and, being on the 4th book now, I still think about this first one a lot.

Wonderful book... was hooked every second I read it

A visceral, high-octane introduction to a dystopian universe that feels both hauntingly familiar and grandly operatic. Set on a terraformed Mars, the story follows Darrow, a Red laborer mining helium-3 for a future he believes he is building. The narrative begins with a crushing revelation: the surface has been habitable for centuries, and Darrow’s people are enslaved to support the decadent Gold caste. This betrayal sparks a revenge-driven mission as Darrow undergoes a grueling transformation to infiltrate the Golds and dismantle their Society from within. The novel’s strength lies in its relentless pacing and brutal world-building. Once Darrow enters the Institute—a proving ground where young Golds wage war to earn their status—the story shifts from a "chosen one" trope into a savage study of leadership and survival. Brown doesn't shy away from the horrific costs of war; the stakes feel lethal, and Darrow’s internal conflict is palpable. He must adopt the cold, calculating traits of his oppressors to defeat them, risking his own humanity for the sake of justice. While drawing inspiration from The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies, it distinguishes itself through a rich Roman-inspired aesthetic and philosophical weight. The supporting cast is equally compelling, featuring the enigmatic Mustang and the volatile Sevro—the kind of loyalist who proves you haven't lived until you get yourself a friend that will hide in a dead horse for you. These allies challenge Darrow to look beyond vengeance toward a new social order. 🍵Final Verdict A gripping exploration of power, sacrifice, and the morality of revolution. Red Rising is a rare debut that manages to be both a page-turning epic and a thoughtful commentary on class struggle. It sets a formidable foundation for the series, leaving readers eager to see if a man born in darkness can truly bring the dawn.