Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1) by Pierce Brown: Reviewed by Chris Preiman
/
Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1) by Pierce Brown
"I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."
"I live for you," I say sadly.
Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."
That is a quote from Red Rising by Pierce Brown and when I saw that it was what they put on the back cover, what they decided was the only way to introduce a reader to what this book is, I decided I couldn’t help but use it to do the same.
Darrow is a red, which in the color coded cast system of the future, it means he is the lowest of the low, a laborer born under the surface of mars, told that he and his people are sacrificing to make Mars habitable for future generations, a sacrifice Darrow is more than willing to make, but that like so much else Darrow has been told is a lie. Mars is already livable, it has been for generations, and Darrow and his people are just slaves, working their short lives underground, so the higher colors, can live lives of ease and luxury.
Even still, Darrow might have lived the rest of his life like this, knowing the ruling golds were lying to him, if not for Eo. When Eo is killed for singing a song that was forbidden, Darrow sacrifices his own life to give her a burial, rather than letting her hang there until she rotted, for the Reds on Mars even burial is a capital crime. Expecting to hang for cutting down Eo, Darrow is instead smuggled out of his mining town and given into the hands of a revolutionary group known as the Sons of Ares, The Sons of Ares want to genetically modify Darrow, turn him into a gold, so he can join the institute, a proving ground where the golds who want to truly rule in society prove themselves. At the institute Darrow will become part of Gold society, depending on how he does, he might rise far in gold society, far enough that when the Sons of Ares call on him, he might be able to do great things for their revolution. All so that one day, reds might be free, all to fulfill Eo’s dream.
Red rising was pitched to me as Pygmalion meets the Hunger Games, and while I think that sells it sort a bit, it’s not wrong either. Set in a futuristic color coded cast system where people have been genetically designed for their color, and your color is literally everything, what jobs you can do, what rights you have, where you can live, where you can go, Darrow is slowly and painfully turned into a gold and then painstakingly taught how to blend in, only so he can go take part in a yearlong blood sport where Golds are set loose in a huge playing field of sorts, with rivers mountains and castles, where they fight and kill and enslave each other, to prove who is strong enough to be leaders in gold society. Honestly if you asked me to sum up Red Rising myself, Pygmalion meets the Hunger Games is probably what I’d say too. Though I think you can also see why that might sell it short too.
What really sells this book for me is Watching Darrow learn to become a gold, and in the institute, trying so hard to act like a gold, but failing, because when he tried to act like a gold a cast that thinks very little of personal loyalty or family, and compared to the reds knows very little of hard work or pain, he lost, he was defeated, his allies left him, but when he embraced the ideals of the reds, when he worked with people, when he trusted them, even made friends with some of them, even though they were golds, when he broke the expectations of the test, and later the rules of that test, because he wasn’t thinking like a gold, but a red, a daring, loyal, determined red, just one who was done getting screwed over, he became a force to be reckoned with. I don’t know, it’s an old trope, but one I really never get tired of, and when you put it in a well-paced, exciting, and emotionally poignant story like this, I have no chance.
Part of me wants to talk about the characters now, pick out a few of my favorites besides Darrow, but I can’t and if I try, I’m going to end up talking about each and every one of them, So instead I’ll say that the cast is fairly large and very well rounded, so much so that with one or two exceptions, even the ones you hate, you can empathize with a little bit, Because the book isn’t shy about showing how the Gold society mistreats itself as well and in some truly horrible ways, all in the name of remaining strong. The reds may be slaves, but the reds can love, they can share moments with family, their lives may be short and miserable but they do have that, not so for the golds. The Golds are taught that individual life has very little inherent meaning, that what you take has meaning, only rank, authority, wealth have meaning, the institute is designed to show who is the strongest, but it is also designed to numb one to killing, to loss, to crush out of you any ounce of empathy you might have and make you hard. Do the golds have the better deal, yes, decidedly yes, but it does show that even systems that grant privilege can do damage to the privileged, that they aren’t immune to the casual cruelties of systems they put in place. Honestly I could go on forever about the nature of privilege and what Red Rising has to say about it, but One, that risks bringing this review into territory that I simply don’t have the energy for these days, and two, would take more words than I want to right and you want to read, so I think we can leave it here, and you can go read the book.
Quick note, while it is never explicitly shown, or described, this book does contain some themes of sexual assault, and does not shy away from acknowledging that is what is happening, so if you can’t or don’t want to read books with that subject matter, you might want to give this one a miss.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys their science fiction with a little social commentary, anyone who wants a little bit more adult Hunger Games, and anyone who has ever felt held down or held back because of who they are and how they were borne.
Five out of Five stars!
If you’d like to get a copy, you can do that HERE, or audio HERE, and you can visit Pierce Brown’s website HERE. And if you want to buy our book, the Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising, you can do that on Amazon, from Barnes and Noble, from Inkshares, or audio from Audible.
If you want to give any feedback or suggest a book for me to review, you can reach us at https://theamaranthchronicles.com/contact
