Spoilers ahead! This is a dive into the second novel of the Red Rising series, Golden Son. If you have not read my review of Red Rising, you can find it here.

In his first novel, Pierce Brown hit the ground running. Red Rising was a fantastic success, somehow breaching the line that borders both adult and young adult science fiction. Young Darrow, once a slave, has achieved more than he or any of his mentors thought possible. Like Darrow, Pierce Brown aimed high and as successful as his first novel was – it was Golden Son that truly hit the mark. Golden Son is one of the most exciting sequels I have ever read. From a single world self-contained and planet bound. We now look to the stars and see an entire galaxy broadened before us. Pierce Brown’s storytelling is masterful. His prose is as taut, and cuts like a razor.

In Mud You Lie

Everything in Golden Son becomes bigger, bolder, and more dangerous than we ever thought they could be. If Red Rising is Icarus, Golden Son is the International Space Station. More than two years have passed since leaving behind the Institute of Mars, and Darrow has been a Lancer for House Augustus since. In that two years, not one word from the Sons of Ares has been heard, not one word from Mustang or any of his friends. Darrow is training at the Academy, learning how to lead massive space cruisers and warships. 

Brown doesn’t waste much of anyone’s time, and this book fires off with a loud bang and the engines are redlining for a couple hundred pages. Darrow is quickly taken down from his high esteemed position to new lows. Given three days notice that his contract with House Augustus is being sold for his catastrophic failure at the Academy, he meets with Victra and the Jackal, the latter who offers to buy Darrow’s contract while they discuss options of bringing down the Sovereign and destroying the Sons of Ares. During the conversation, an old friend from Darrow’s post carving shows up, the pink, Evey, posing as a lure for the Jackal. Darrow takes a moment and joins Evey, he learns that she’s planted bombs around the entire building solely to kill the Jackal. Rushing back to save him, Darrow narrowly escapes with his and the Jackals life intact, though some 200 low Colors are killed in the explosion. 

Disgusted with this wanton cruelty and loss of life, Darrow is ushered by Evey to see his former trainer, Harmony. Harmony informs Darrow that Dancer is dead, and she seems to be running the Sons of Ares now. Harmony is upfront in her admission that she has been the cause of the numerous terrorist bombings which have been on the news lately, and offers Darrow a chance to help. There’s an upcoming gala where all the leaders of Gold Society will be in attendance, Harmony wants Darrow to blow the whole thing with a radium bomb, killing everyone, including himself. A way to cut off all the heads of the Hydra that is Gold. Darrow refuses to be apart of her sacrificial, suiciding schemes until Haromy shows him a clip of his wife’s hanging that has an audio feed with it. Here Darrow learns what his wife Eo said to her sister before she died, asking her to hide a crib from Darrow so that he never learns that she was pregnant when he pulls her little ankles to break her neck in the low gravity death sentence. In his rage and horror, a broken Darrow agrees to Harmony’s plan.

The turmoil of being a terrorist suicide bomber isn’t sitting well with Darrow, he has grown fond of many of his so-called enemies. When meeting with Roque in his personal rooms, Darrow looks for guidance. He asks Roque if he ever feels lost, and muses on the fact that Roque is one of the few people he’s ever known to thoughtfully answer the question. Afterward, Roque admits to Darrow that he is his closest friend and that he will bid on Darrow’s contract to protect him from those with malicious intent. Roque loves Darrow like a brother, and right before they were to leave for the gala, Darrow renders him unconscious with a syringe embedded in his ring to prevent him from attending the event, saving his life. 

“Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.”

Something is off when Darrow and his company arrive on Luna, Darrow decides against the suicide bombing, preventing the death of hundreds, if not thousands of Golds and low Colors alike. At this point in the novel, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Darrow chooses not to follow through, though our protagonist is growing darker as a character to have even considered killing everyone and himself at the event. In the depths of his despair and pain, and sensing a plot unseen by others, Darrow hatches a new plan. In a grandiose show of stupidity and barbarism, Darrow marches along the tabletops and challenges the newest Olympic Knight – the Morning Knight – his old friend Cassius au Bellona in a duel to the death. After the performance Darrow puts on, it’s not hard for Cassius to accept. After several feints, back and forth attacks, Darrow reveals he is the last apprentice of the former Rage Knight, Lorn au Arcos, with whom he would train with the Razor every day before his training at the Academy. Every day Cassius spent sleeping in, Darrow was training. Everyday Cassius spent with Pinks fulfilling fantasies, Darrow was training. His Razor work is that of an artist, and his paint is blood red.

Darrow severely wounds Cassius, cutting his arm off entirely, thick golden bone snapping like cracking oak. Moments before killing the man, Darrow is stopped by the Sovereign, who breaks Society Law by intervening, and then before the killing blow can be dropped Mustang steps in front of him; but the damage is done. Chaos breaks out in the gala, the Bellona’s charge at Darrow and Augustus’ men. Dozens are killed and more are wounded before the familiar face of Fitchner finds Darrow and company and leads him to the Sovereign. The Sovereign offers Darrow a chance to join her, which he refuses, and during the deadly interview, Darrow traps her into a lie she cannot cover up. The Sovereign had planned for House Bellona to kill everyone at Arch Governor Augustus’ table, infuriating Mustang who is also in the room. Mustang understands the reasoning behind it, as Gold would. 

“A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.” 

Herein lies the roots of Darrow’s plan to fracture Society. Civil War. It’s now out in the open that the leaders of Gold wanted to kill and cull house Augustus, the leader of Mars and his entire family, giving the planet to the more docile and Sovereign friendly house, Bellona. Cassius’ family. This is the Sovereign strong-arming her way into an easier and stable, prolonged reign of tyranny. 

Darrow uses this to his advantage in ways that the Sons of Ares never imagined. Harmony wants carnage, death, and destruction. Darrow wants something better. How do you build a better civilization through mass casualties? How can you achieve something better if you use the same means that the oppressors have used against you for generations? The answer must be love, family, friends, and trust.

“We are not our station in life. We are us – the sum of what we’ve done, what we want to do, and the people who we keep close.”

If you must do terrible things, let them be done for the best reasons. Darrow was never meant to be a martyr, Darrow is the rage of all the low colors. He is the fire that cleanses through destruction. To show people that they are worth more than their station in life. To give them something worth fighting for. Something for their children. Eo’s vision. 

“To free them, to protect them, we must be savages. So give me evil. Give me darkness. Make me the bloodydamn devil if we can bring even the faintest ray of light.”

Hic Sunt Leones

This is not a war Darrow can win on his own. He needs people with him, a lot of people. Society, as it stands now, was built over generations of genocide and slavery. The memory of planets not falling into line is still fresh, and the razing of an entire well-populated moon is close in the memories of everyone in the galaxy. The people closest to him, at some point, need to know what they are actually fighting for. Darrow has few friends he can actually trust in this war.

Sevro and the Howlers come to rescue Darrow at the last moment at the gala on Luna. Escaping with their comrades and one hostage, young Lysander, heir to the Sovereign. The war cruiser Vanguard shows up to intercept their escape. Darrow and Sevro volunteer to be shot out the launch tubes directly at the bridge of the ship and take over control. The first issue of command Darrow gives is for all the lower colors to overthrow their Golden leaders. Most do so gladly. Darrow gives command of the ship, renamed the Pax, to a mouthy Blue, Orion.

Sevro is Darrow’s closest and most loyal friend, and who acts as the soul of Darrow’s entire movement. He is a Gold, though shorter than most. Uglier than most, but as necessarily ruthless as them all. Sevro has a moral compass that points to his own true north, quick with wit and with the personal hygiene of a toddler, Sevro keeps a smile on the faces of all his friends and the reader alike for every scene he’s in. After taking over the Vanguard, Darrow changes the massive ships name to Pax. Darrow and Sevro are introduced to an Obsidian, a Stained, named Ragnar Volarus, after he kills four Golds and six Obsidians by himself.

Ragnar is a monster of a man, Stained – the strongest and deadliest of Obsidians, he is the son of Alia Snowsparrow, Queen of the Valkyrie, and brother to Sefi the Quiet. His sister swore a vow of silence the day Ragnar became a slave. Ragnar has been a slave of Gold for twenty-five years fighting and killing for their sport and entertainment. When Darrow takes over the Vanguard, Ragnar was on his way as a gift to another Gold. Ragnar views Darrow as a godchild of the Sun and offers himself and his Stains to Darrow, which he accepts.
Ragnar is the hope of Darrow’s movement. Hope that someone from a lower station can be looked at as a leader, hope that those who have been so wronged for so long can overcome the hate and hurt to do good for the galaxy. 

Roque blames Darrow for the loss of Quinn, who was killed during the escape from Luna. He is very much untrusting of Darrow still because of what happened prior to the gala but is with him on this journey.
Roque is the trust that is required by all Golds. His station and family will be threatened by all Darrow wishes to achieve, if he can show Gold that it’s okay to trust, Society has a chance.

Victra has been advising Darrow since the Academy and remains extremely loyal. Oldest daughter from the Julii family, known for their famously powerful women. Victra attempts to be close to Darrow sexually, though Darrow rebuffs her and lets her know he doesn’t view her that way. They are become and stay close friends, hoping to get her mother to join their cause.
Victra is loyalty. You don’t have to know where you’re going, but if you’re loyal to those who matter to you, you’ll be where you belong.

Ares is still alive. Sevro lets Darrow know that Ares contacted him three months prior to his arrival on Luna. Sevro hands Darrow a whisper gem containing a message from Ares saying that Harmony has betrayed him and that Darrow did the right thing by not using the radium bomb at the gala. He informs Darrow that Dancer is alive and well, who comes into view and assures Darrow that his family is safe. It was in the same message that Sevro received three months ago that he found out Darrow is a Red. Dancer met up with Sevro and showed him the video of Darrow being carved, and Sevro tells Darrow that his loyalty remains forever, but that not everyone will be. Darrow breaks down crying and hugs Sevro, finally with someone who knows the burden he carries, someone he can lean on.

Ares is the spark that the entire lower Colors of humanity need to ignite a rebellion.

Mustang has been away from Darrow for a long couple of years. She tells Darrow about what she learned on Luna, and how she lured Cassius to fall in love with her in order to protect her family. Darrow isn’t interested in this conversation and the tone becomes bitter if not hostile. Mustang tells Darrow that he still can not trust her brother, Adrius, the Jackal and that they can win this war without him.
Mustang is the heart of Darrow’s rebellion. She is what Gold society can become. Warm, protective, and caring. Without her, the cause may be lost entirely.

The Arch Governor and Darrow need more people to join their cause. The Sovereign going to bring down the full weight of the Society on Mars, and numbers aren’t on Mars’ side. Darrow suggests taking all the students in the Institute as ransom, and capturing all the ships on the shipbuilding moon Ganymede. These actions, if their prior ones didn’t, will absolutely spark a war. The Arch Governor agrees to the plan, and Darrow also heads to his Razor master Lorn au Arcos to gain the allegiance of him and his armies.

Lorn au Arcos is a retired man who is living in peace after a lifetime of war. He rejects Darrow’s offer to join him, telling him that Aja and a death squad of Pretorians have been waiting for him to show up for a few days. Lorn offers Darrow a way off-planet, but Darrow refuses. He knew of the trap before showing up and makes it look like Lorn also knew of it, forcing his hand to join him. Tactus is with Aja, Sevro and the Howlers show up, and there is a small fight. Aja escapes, but Tactus finds where Lorn was hiding his family. Darrow and Lorn are at a standstill with Tactus, who talks about regretting his decision to betray Darrow. Darrow offers him another chance, and Tactus starts crying in Darrow’s arms, letting the grandchildren of Lorn go. The moment the children are out of harm’s way, Lorn kills Tactus, leaving him dying in Darrow’s arms.
Lorn is the Iron. He knows the consequences of what Gold has done and has been on the front lines of causing them. He knows what must happen to make the galaxy better. He has walked the path he wishes no one else to see. He guides through experience.

Iron Rain

During the time Darrow and the Howlers were with Lorn, Pliny stages a coup. The Arch Governor and The Jackal are taken by Fitchner and Cassius, and the Sovereign knows of their plans to take the ships. While coming up with a plan, Darrow talks to Ragnar. Ragnar is a massive part of Darrow’s plan. He is the son of an Obsidian Queen. Though the early years of his harsh life and added years of slavery and cruelty have weathered Ragnar to believe he is nothing but Stained. Darrow tells him that he is a free man, and Ragnar is insulted that Darrow wouldn’t want him as a stained. Darrow must be able to trust him and decides to tell him that he was a Red. Darrow tells Ragnar that he doesn’t want a slave, he wants a brother.
Darrow takes the station Pliny was holding rather easily, freeing the prisoners. Pliny dies in the process, and Darrow calls for an Iron Rain. The Jackal broadcasts to the system that The Reaper is calling for an Iron Rain, the first in twenty years.

 “I admire one to my left, the bronze sun is behind him as he falls, silhouetting him, immortalizing him in that singular moment—one I know I shall never forget—so that he looks like a Miltonian angel falling with wrath and glory. His exoskeleton sheds its friction armor, as Lucifer might have shed the fetters of heaven, feathers of flame peeling off, fluttering behind. Then a missile slashes the sky and high-grade explosives christen him mortal once again.”

Men fall from space. The Iron Rain falls upon Mars and the city of Agea. Many die before ever reaching the city walls. Ragnar gets a hold of two Razors and cuts the Wind Knight in half, and nearly kills Cassius. Darrow sees the Sovereign making an escape and cannot wait for his group to catch up. He gives chase and arrives in her ship as it’s taking off with no backup. He’s surrounded by Aja, Fitchner, Karnus, the Sovereign and her Praetorians. Karnus lunges forward, and Darrow kills him but is badly injured in the process. Fitchner steps forward, whispering to Darrow and revealing himself to be Ares. He shoots the Sovereigns guards, grabs Darrow, and escapes the ship.

A week goes by until Darrow regains consciousness. Mustang is there when he comes to and tells Darrow that Roque managed to capture the vast majority of the Bellona fleet. All of Cassius’ family is dead, but that he and his mother are missing. The Sovereign escaped and is still alive.

Darrow tries to mend things with Roque but is called away by Sevro telling him that The Jackal has captured Harmony, Evey, and Mickey. Darrow distracts The Jackal long enough for Sevro and a few others to act as Sons of Ares, rescuing the captured. Sevro and Darrow meet up with the Sons at a warehouse, where Fitchner is waiting with the Telemanuses and he tells how he became Ares after Sevro’s mother died, who was a Red.

Ares and Dancer tell Darrow that The Arch Governor Augustus will offer to adopt Darrow and make him his heir after all that Darrow has done. Augustus will not stop until the Sovereign is overthrown and becomes Sovereign himself, which places Darrow in a perfect position. Darrow is on board with the plan but doesn’t want to be kept in the dark from Ares anymore and Fitchner agrees. Before all this happens, Darrow wants to see his family in Lykos. He takes Mustang with him.

Darrow orders the Greys in the mines to bring food from his ship down to the people and allow them a feast. He watches the reds sing and dance and eat. Mustang finds him here in a contemplative state, wondering about the future of the Galaxy. Darrow walks into his old home and sits at the table, his mother recognizes him immediately even as a Gold. Mustang confronts Darrow outside his childhood home and feels like she has to kill Darrow to protect herself and her family. Ragnar is looming in the shadows and prevents her from doing so. Darrow tells Ragnar to lower his weapon, and Mustang walks away from the both of them.

Rise So High 

Arch Governor Augustus hails Darrow a hero at a grand coronation in his honor. He offers Darrow to become his heir and Darrow accepts. Roque offers Darrow an Ivory box and in the process injects him with a paralyzing agent. Hell breaks loose. The Jackal and Roque have found out what Darrow is and have taken means into their own hands. Lorn au Arcos is killed. The Jackal shoots his father Augustus in the head. Victra is shot by her half-sister in the spine. Sevro, Mustang, Ragnar, and the Howlers hadn’t shown up yet. Cassius tells the paralyzed Darrow that he will hunt down his friends and kill the rest of them. Cassius opens the Ivory box and inside is the head of Fitchner au Barca, Ares, and the book ends.

Pierce Brown has done a marvelous job at upping the ante in book two of the Red Rising Series, a Space Opera of magnificent size and scope. Analyzing what it costs to bring freedom to a Society built upon cruelty and violence, slavery and genocide. Our heroes find themselves desperately treading thick water, finding a heavy Golden boot placed upon their heads. Will Darrow and his allies succeed in their quest to give freedom to the people of the Society? We’ll find out soon with the review of Morning Star. 

Red Rising is the debut novel from author Pierce Brown which released in January 2014. From a first-person perspective, it depicts the struggle and cost of revolution set in a dystopian science fiction; wrought with the cruelties we, unfortunately, find in the world. For the sake of this in depth review of each book, there will be spoilers. The Red Rising series is one of the best things to happen to sci-fi in years and is now often drawn in the same breath as Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games, and Game of Thrones. While this book is recommended for ages 12+, there is a lot of violence. As history has shown us all, the color of revolution tends to be blood red. I’ve given it a ⅘ stars.

The Mines

It’s not easy being a Helldiver. You’re wrapped up in a suit made out of some kind of nano plastic which insulates from head to toe. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Especially not the heat. Riding on the elbow of this massive mechanical arm, where the long fingers controlled and manipulated by a glove worn on the hand of our Helldiver melt the crust of the planet itself. Half a kilometer deep in the Planetary crust of Mars. The sweat stinks and stings your eyes. But the stink of your own piss is worse. If the heat doesn’t kill you, the pitvipers that live deep in the planet might, and if they don’t, well, there’s always hitting a pocket of gas to blow you and your own straight to hell. This is where we meet our hero, Darrow of Lykos. The greatest Helldiver of the Lambda Clan of Lykos.

Seven hundred years have passed since humanity has colonized the solar system. Humanity has evolved, with the help of genetic modification, and eugenics. A pyramid based caste system, The Society, rules the Colors of humanity. Gold is the peak. Red is the base.

Darrow is young, cocky, and knows that he has just mined enough helium-3 to win the Laurel, the sought-after prize for productivity in the mine. Everyone knows that Darrow boosted the numbers to win, he did so dangerously, almost costing him his life. But dangerous risks can yield vast rewards. The Lambda mine are passed over and cheated out of the Laurel and watch the extra food rations given to the neighboring mine, who always wins, Gamma. If not for his wife leading him away from the event he may have done something reckless. His wife, Eo, has fiery red hair, and red eyes, like him, like every Red. She’s small, far too thin, but has a ferocity to her. She has a gift for Darrow and pulls him along into the Webbery, where the women work. Eo found a broken section of motor which leads to a series of tubes and shafts. Darrow begrudgingly follows her, worrying about the risk of being caught, though Eo is insistent. Losing the Laurel was another in a series of cracks of Darrow’s short life. Now Eo has taken Darrow to a place unfamiliar. Noises that aren’t recognized. Eo tells him that what he’s hearing are animals, what he’s feeling is grass. Trees. A forest. The scent of flowers. All these things that were only in the songs of his family and friends. Looking up, he sees the sky and stars for the first time in his sixteen years.

Darrow doesn’t understand, he is too taken aback by the glory of it all. Eo reminds him, harshly. They created this. They mined Mars for this. They were in the dark that this even existed. Eo tells Darrow he’s a slave, and at first, he denies her. He never begs like a slave, he earns his own. He’s a Helldiver who is obedient. There is nobility in obedience. Eo snaps at him, and I believe this is the turning point that drives the entirety of the series. Eo calls Darrow a talking puppet. How many years have Reds given blood and their lives for Colors who would never even sweat for them. She calls his dead father weak, and that he died for the right dream in protesting the Reds treatment but had no fight in him. The argument leads to a moment where Eo asks Darrow, ‘Do you know why I love you, Helldiver? Because you thought you could win the Laurel.’ Eo wants action out of Darrow. She is furious at her situation in life. She wants Darrow to be willing to risk his life, her life, to better their lot. To no longer be slaves. Darrow does not want to hang from the neck until he is dead. He does not want to be his father’s son, in that respect. Eo tells Darrow that she lives for the dream that her children will one be born free. That they can do what they like. Darrow says that he lives for her.

Then you must live for more.

Living for more than one thing. It’s too easy to live for you and yours. When the entire world is burning down around you, you’d be a fool to think the flames wont catch your house too. Revolutionary thoughts expand from chaos and dreams of hope that are so fragile, uttering them aloud may be the most terrifying thing you can imagine. What if everyone you have ever known, and their fathers before them, believed a lie?

In silence, Darrow and Eo watch the only sunrise they’ll ever see together in their short lives. Eo says she has another gift for Darrow after they witness the beauty, and while following her out of the tunnels back to the mine, they are found by four Greys. They are to be whipped in public. After three days in a cell, the first thing Eo tells Darrow, “Break the Chains, my love.”

Darrow and his wire-thin wife are both whipped in front of the population of the mine and even the leader of Mars, ArchGovenor Nero au Augustus is in attendance. Darrow takes his whipping in silence. Eo has other plans during her own whipping. She sings an illegal song in protest and is then passed a sentence of death by hanging. Darrow is irate, begging to take her place. The entire mine is in an uproar.

Eo is proud in death, mouthing to Darrow Live for more. Screaming to the gathered crowd Break the Chains. A camera records the entire thing.

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.

Darrow loses himself in grief, during the night he removes her dead body from the gallows she was left on and buries her in the forest she shows him. The Greys come for him the next day, put a rope around his neck, and Darrow’s uncle, Narol, is there to pull his feet. He gives Darrow a wink and pulls.

Darrow does not find Eo in the vale of death. He claws his way out of a shallow grave and finds himself in an abandoned mine. His uncle Narol did this. Darrow is met by two masked people, who he guesses are apart of the Sons of Ares. A shadowy organization who fight against The Society. Darrow is introduced to Dancer, a former Helldiver who works for the Sons. Darrow wants revenge against the man who murdered his wife, the ArchGovenor. Dancer tells Darrow that he sets his sights too low. Walking into the next room Darrow is caught blind. His eyes adjust, and an entire sprawling city horizon to horizon sits in front of him. His entire people have been deceived for far, far longer than realized. The cracks that appeared in Darrow now shatter.

The setup of the story is straight to the heart. Troupes on troupes. Darrow is a good man, he does not want to go to war, he wants to live with his wife and family and have children. Now, he has lost his wife, his entire life and purpose in it have been a lie. His people live for nothing, they die for nothing. Dancer and the Sons of Ares have a plan to infiltrate gold at its highest levels. The Sons of Ares want to put Darrow in the Institute of Mars, a training school for military officers. For their plans to work, Darrow would have to be carved. Physically, he will be different. Mentally, he has already changed.

I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.

Carving

Darrow has a subdermal data chip installed in his frontal lobe. The trauma of the procedure alone stopped his heart and put him in a coma for weeks. Golds have a bone density five times stronger than what naturally occurs on Earth. They need to make Darrow’s bones six times stronger if he wants to succeed at the Institute. After the surgeries and hormone therapy, Darrow goes from 5’8 and is now 7 feet tall. The Carving alters the tensile strength of his tendons and muscle tissue. They remove his red wrist sigils and replace them with gold ones. Darrow is forced to live in manipulated heavy gravity, and incredible pain, to make him stronger. He is fed a healthy diet of red meats he has never known before. Lastly, and most painfully heartbreaking they remove his Red eyes and replace them with those of Gold. The Sons of Ares put Darrow into a concentration machine. A knight-like suit of armor that resists every movement he makes to increase his muscle density. Weeks of training has Darrow built like a God. His trainers become playthings for him. He can punch through a punching bag with ease. His body is becoming that of the race which conquered the Solar System. His brain evolves with him. He

Darrow is cultured by a Pink named Matteo. Matteo teaches Darrow to read and write, to speak like a Gold. He advised Darrow and kept his anger controlled. Darrow drinks tonics filled with processing enhancers and listens to speed-listens to books throughout the nights. He wakes up knowing three thousand years of literature and legal code and history. 

It is here where Darrow says goodbye to his old self. The man he sees in the mirror is a stranger. Gold eyes staring into his Red soul. The destruction and horror of changing yourself down to the molecular level ignite the rage which will fuel Darrow for the years to come. If he wishes to succeed in his mission, he must be willing to go to any and every length necessary.

Look into yourself, Darrow, and you’ll realize that you are a good man who will have to do bad things…..

See. That’s what I don’t get. If I am a good man, then why do I want to do bad

things?

The Institute of Mars

Darrow was accepted into the Institute of Mars after missing only one question out of hundreds on the entrance examination. He was drafted into House Mars by Fitchner, who is Mars’ Proctor. Early upon his arrival, Darrow befriended other Golds joining House Mars, among them two sons of the Bellona family, Cassius, and Julius. The next test was unknown, the Passage. Every student in every house faces off in a 1 vs 1 fist fight to the death. The winner moves forward with their studies. Darrow is forced to fight, and kill his new friend Julius. The remaining students are placed in their respective houses in a massive valley. The only objective of the Institute is to win and to win you must enslave every other House. House Mars was on rocky ground from the start, as different factions within developed. Darrow and Cassius lead the bulk of the house, though after a time a violent faction led by Titus grew bolder, forcing Darrow to align with House Minerva which was led by Mustang. Together they defeated Titus, who was executed by Cassius wrongly believing that Titus was Julian’s murderer. During the conflict, Darrow captured House Minerva’s standard, allowing the enslavement of House Minerva by House Mars. Mustang was allowed to flee, and Darrow earned the status as Primus, earning the friendship of Sevro and his Howlers – a band of outcasts and misfits who were unusually skilled in combat while wearing the pelts of wolves. Cassius discovered the painful truth that Darrow murdered Julius and stabs him in the stomach in a duel. Darrow is left for dead in the mud until Mustang finds him and nurses him back to health during the winter.

Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.

It’s during this time that Fitchner visits Darrow and informs him of the interference of the Proctors on the Jackal’s behalf. Fitchner does all he can to dissuade Darrow to take further part in the competition, describing the Jackal’s brutal and cunning tactics – he seems unbeatable, and his reputation is terrifying. Fitchner also reveals that the Jackal is the son of none other than the ArchGovneror himself, Nero au Augustus, and has become Primus of House Pluto.  The Proctors helping the son of the ArchGovenor infuriates Darrow. He starts to call himself The Reaper, and with Mustangs help the two of them amass an army of slaves who capture and free a great number of other students. Finally, we get to see what Darrow, The Reaper, does when he is in command of Gold. These people are taken aback, no one has ever tried to be on equal footing with one another in The Society before. Darrow fights for equality among ranks, and punishes wanton cruelty in his men. There’s moments when the fragility of it all feels like it’s about to break, but people are starting to trust him. His friends trust him, and most importantly, Darrow is starting to trust himself. Targeting House Mars, and using psychological warfare by carving his slingBlade on the doors inside the fortress that House Mars has, successfully lures out his old friend Sevro and his Howlers who join up with The Reaper. Darrow ends up capturing the Jackal, and in a stomach-twisting escape which leaves close friends that Darrow has made dead, the Jackal slips from his fingers.

The corruption of the Proctors and Golds give Darrow the rage he needs to assault the floating fortress of the Proctors, Mount Olympus. Darrow kills and captures men far above his station, but is unable to capture the Jackal. Mustang offers to take a portion of the army and pursue him. After leaving, Darrow finds out that she is actually the Jackals twin sister. Sevro informs Darrow that Fitchner is his father, and spares him the humiliation that the other Proctors receive. Mustang returned to Darrow with her twin brother captured, remaining loyal to the man she nursed back to health in a cave during the cold valleys winter. Darrow returns to House Mars and finds Cassius. His hair is matted with grit and grease and fleas. Cassius is the only Primus who never lost a battle, and as Darrow steps closer he flips the Primus badge to him, ultimately giving Darrow the win. By winning, Darrow is given the chance to choose a sponsor who will aid his rise through Gold Society. Darrow chooses the ArchGovenor himself. With him, I will rise… I will dive to hell in hopes of one day rising to freedom. I will sacrifice. And I will grow my legend and spread it amongst the peoples of all the worlds until I am fit to lead the armies that will break the chains of bondage because I am not simply an agent of the Sons of Ares. I am not simply a tactic or a device in Are’s schemes. I am the hope of my people. Of all people in bondage.

Darrow, Lancer of House Augustus. Rise.

For the year Darrow spent at the Institute he faced horrors he didn’t know existed in the world. It’s difficult to think that he’ll be able to keep his sanity in this madness that he’s jumped into at a full-speed sprint. During these formative years of youth, he has become a killer, an every second of the day liar, and is constantly scheming to end the very fabric of the society he now lives with. It’s nothing but an a wild turn of events as the next book unfolds of this epic space opera, Darrow must figure out how to make change happen, who in his small group of friends can he trust to help him bring down Gold Rule? Only the most careful steps can be taken in a universe where the wrong whisper from the wrong person means you and all those you care for are already dead.

Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.

Red Rising (10 out of 10) Written by Pierce Brown

Here’s the thing. I’m tired of dystopias. So many authors are out there creating privileged overlords and trampled masses, waiting for a plucky hero or heroine to rise from the rabble and Change the System. There’s nothing wrong with that. I loved “Hunger Games,” which was probably the best in the dystopian genre in recent years. But right now there are so very many of them that even the well-written ones come across as ripoffs. It takes a lot to rise above that. 

“Red Rising” has done it. Pierce Brown’s 2014 novel is so good that it transcends genres (or maybe straddles is a better term), while honoring what’s come before. I’ve seen it compared to “Hunger Games” to “Game of Thrones,” but there’s also a solid dose of Harry Potter Percy Jackson, and Ender Wiggins in it. Despite all of those comparisons, and despite the teenaged protagonist, this feels like a much more mature book than any of those Young Adult novels. It’s not classified as YA in the library I picked it up from, and the review I first read in Entertainment Weekly that got me excited to read the book also treated it as an adult science fiction novel. 

The story isn’t necessarily new — a teenager from the underclasses on Mars, living in caverns hollowed out of the rock. These “Reds” have been told they slave in mines to supply the materials needed to terraform the surface. Our hero Darrow ends up leaving the mines and on Mars’ surface, which is not only already terraformed, but has cities sparkling like jewels, ruled by “Golds.” There are many colors, each with specialized roles in human society, but Reds and Golds are the ones we hear about most. Darrow is lifted up by strange benefactors who transform him from a Red into a Gold. He’s placed as a mole in a series of war games that will culminate in the winners being taken as apprentices by the most powerful houses on Mars. Darrow’s entire purpose becomes overthrowing the system that’s destroying his friends and family–but first he needs to win the war game that he and dozens of other teenagers are thrown into. 

Darrow’s entire purpose becomes overthrowing the system

Most of the elements of “Red Rising” are familiar. Students are grouped into houses (Mars, Apollo, Venus, Minerva, Ceres etc.), who can provide them with advanced tools and weapons to help them advance in the game. Many of the battles, even though it’s described as a war game, are to the death. The game goes on for several months, giving Darrow and the other students time to figure out tactics, overall strategies, and form relationships and loyalties in the ranks. Darrow is a more complex character than some of the other heroes and heroines of dystopian dramas. Pierce Brown gives him a fiery need for justice that outpaces his initial need for revenge. He’s smart, but not the smartest in the group; he’s strong, but not the strongest. He’s propelled by his own will, in a society where most of the people are puppets. 

Propelled by his own will, in a society where most of the people are puppets

Pierce Brown is a master at “world building” — giving us details of what life is like on Mars. There’s a map of the terraformed Mars in the endpapers, and I’m a sucker for a map of a fictional world. Westeros, Narnia, Middle Earth–they all hooked me with their maps. Brown’s Mars is intriguing and exciting. The sights, the scents, the genetically modified people and animals. I’ve been fascinated by Mars since I was a pup, and this new vision of the red planet hooked me immediately. There are some books that immerse you so completely in their world that after you finish a chapter, you look up around you and are startled that you’re still in the real world. “Red Rising” is one of those books. 

I hate making this comparison again, but if you’re a fan of “Hunger Games,” and you’re ready to up your own game, check out “Red Rising.” It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time, and one that I bought so I can re-read it. That doesn’t happen often. It is the first in a planned trilogy with “Golden Son” coming in January 2015. I’ll be snagging that as soon as possible. 

Overall: I’d score it 10 out of 10. Which I almost never do. It’s a rare sci-fi book that reaches beyond tropes and for something bigger. I loved it.