In a future where humanity has spread throughout the Solar System, a new social order based on genetically-modified races holds sway. The Golds reign supreme, with
their godlike bodies and altered brains, while Pinks provide pleasure, Greens deal with technology, Coppers man the sprawling bureaucracy, and more... all Colors ranking
above the lowly Reds, toiling at the bottom of the empire. Sixteen-year-old Darrow, like most of his fellow Reds in the mines of Mars, believes that his sweat and blood
and abbreviated lifespan will buy a better future as the helium-3 he risks life and limb to extract terraforms the hostile surface. His wife Eo feels differently, but
Darrow refuses to listen. His father, after all, hung for such beliefs. But then the Golds cheat his clan from their earnings and take Eo's life, leaving Darrow with
nothing but pain and rage.
It is then that he's contacted by the notorious Sons of Ares, a group painted as cold-blooded terrorists by Gold-sponsored propaganda. Mars, it turns out, was
terraformed generations ago; the Reds toil in ignorance for the profit of others, and everyone Darrow ever loved will die for the same lie if nothing is done. The Sons
offer Darrow a chance at revenge, not just against the people who hung his wife but against Golds across the system. To do it, he has to shed his Red skin at the hands
of a rogue surgeon, joining the enemy ranks to learn their ways and destroy their empire from the inside. But life as a Gold is about more than arrogance and privilege,
as Darrow finds himself enrolled at the prestigious Martian Institute and learns just how complicated war, loyalty, and even love truly are beyond the mines of Mars.
Review
In the vein of The Hunger Games, with a touch of Metropolis and Lord of the Flies, this tale deftly transports the familiar formula of an underdog
taking on the corrupt Establishment into a future based on the Roman Empire. Darrow doesn't start out to be a hero, fully convinced that the system isn't rigged and that
the reason he and his Lambda clan haven't prospered is that they simply haven't worked as hard as the Gammas, who somehow perpetually win the Laurel bonuses of motivation
in their monthly contests. His wife Eo (though only sixteen, short lives lead to lower marrying ages among Reds) seems more a symbol than a person, a born martyr designed
to give Darrow the final push towards revolution. He quickly learns that, despite innate cleverness and an all-consuming determination to destroy the murderers of his wife,
he's far from ready to take on the complicated above-ground world, let alone his enemies. Even with intensive training, he makes several costly mistakes as he struggles to
keep his wife's dream of freedom for Reds alive while maintaining his cover (and saving his own skin) in the crucible of the Institute. Other characters add depth and
complication to what could've been a fairly flat, Color-stratified world. He finds loyalty and treachery, beauty and ugliness, and more in many unexpected places. The
crucible of the Institute pits him against other Gold-born youths seeking advancement in the highly competitive ranks of the elite, in vicious games watched over by
graduates like idle gods, gods who are not averse to tipping the scales now and again in a supposedly impartial test of student capabilities. Here, he must learn to see
Golds as more than a monolithic entity to be hated, even as he learns how they turn their own kind into tools of ambition. By the end, Darrow has become someone he almost
doesn't recognize, finding new and unexpected reasons to fight a system so thoroughly corrupt that even Golds live in fear of their own kind. The story starts quickly and
maintains a good pace throughout, permeated with action and wonder and cold-blooded calculation. A tendency to use brutality to women for shock value cost it a full fifth
star, but overall I found it an exhilarating and interesting read, if an often dark one. I'll be looking for Book 2 soon.
Once a lowly Red of the Martian mines, Darrow allowed himself to be utterly transformed by the Carvers of the terrorist group Sons of Ares, reforging him as a Gold: the
corrupted ruling class of humanity's interplanetary empire, who slaughter the lesser Colors and the weaker of their own kind as some might casually swat a fly. Against the
odds, he rose to the top of the class at the Mars Institute, securing an apprenticeship with the planetary governor (and murder of his Red wife, revolutionary Eo), Augustus.
But none can rise in Gold society without making a few enemies... and even the brightest star can wane.
Two years after victory, Darrow faces defeat and disgrace, engineered by jealous advisors and the family of an old enemy, Cassius of the house Bellona. Worse, he's been out
of contact with the Sons of Ares, making him fear that he's been cut off, cast adrift in a world not his own. He's come too far to give up, though, and Eo's dream of a
liberated Color-free society carries him onward... even if he must make deals with many devils, and confront his own failings as leader and man.
Review
The first book, Red Rising, was on the upper edge of Young Adult, as a teenage Darrow struggled to carve a place in Gold society while clinging to his Red heart
and dreams. As intense and often violent as the first volume was, with numerous backstabbings and deaths, this one takes things to a whole new level. It isn't just fellow
students who live and die around him, often by his word - it's entire ships of lowColors, whole families of Golds. Darrow thought he'd cut his teeth in the Institute, but
that was just the first skirmish of the greater war, one which finds him still ill-prepared in many ways to survive, let alone win. The pace is relentless, full of names
that had faded in memory since I read the first book; I recommend a reread of Book 1 if there's been a gap. Lacking the time for that (and the inclination, frankly; my
reality is full enough of corrupt leadership flaunting their power and indulging in petty games regardless of civilian casualties), I was treading water for a good chunk of
the book, and though I more or less oriented myself, I know there were many subtleties I likely missed for not having refreshed my memory. Darrow continues his impossible
balancing act, trying to be Gold enough to gain enough power for his goals without losing himself in their games, which he knows he cannot win. His disadvantage - a Red
upbringing, emphasizing family and friendship - becomes both a strength and a liability, making him enough of a wild card that he can be hard to predict... and offering
enough of a weakness for enemies to exploit. With so little downtime between ambushes, attacks, and backstabs (which are as common as greetings among the Golds, and as
casually engaged in), Golden Son makes for an often-harrowing read as it races toward a climactic ending... which, as a spoiler-free warning, is bleak enough that one might
want to have Book 3 on hand before reaching it. Overstimulation and name confusion almost cost it a half-star, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. As disturbing as it is
at times, it's nevertheless well written, and it serves its purpose in making me eager to find the third and final installment - if only on increasingly-dim hope of a
brighter ending than the one found here.
For centuries, humanity has been stratified into a hierarchy of Color, ruled over by the ruthless Golds, while lowColors like the Reds toil in slavery. It was
supposed to be a triumph over eons of warfare, but only brought more depraved cruelty to the solar system. Six years ago, driven to rebellion by the betrayal of
his people and murder of his visionary wife, Darrow began his quest to infiltrate and destroy the Golds, his Red body painfully Carved and transformed to become
one of them as he entered their elite Institute... only what he found was far more complicated and dangerous than he could ever have imagined. Since then, he has
gathered friends and enemies, risen through the Gold ranks and become entangled in their games, and started a rebellion that has spread across his homeworld -
which is why he has been tortured and imprisoned for a year by his enemy, the ArchGovernor, Adrius au Augustus, better known as the Jackal of Mars. Rescued by
his friend Sevro, who took up the mantle of the rebel warlord Ares, Darrow finds his faith in himself and his own rebellion shaken, but the people of the system
still need a leader to break the bonds of the Gold rulers. For better or worse, war rages and blood is spilled. Can a broken Darrow snatch victory from the jaws
of near-certain defeat?
Review
The original Red Rising trilogy comes to a conclusion here; though the saga continues, Darrow's war reaches its climax in this book, with the fate of
the entire solar system hanging in the balance. As harrowing as the first two books could be, this one tops them both.
Like the previous two volumes, Morning Star starts fast and only rarely slackens the pace, pages full of battles and blood-feuds and betrayals and troop
movements across the vast reaches of space, all watered by oceans of blood and veritable mountains of casual cruelty - mostly by the Golds, but some by other
Colors as well, products of a society that has gone out of its way to remove the humanity from the human race. It also - despite very brief recaps at the start of
the book - doesn't pause to ensure the reader remembers all the names, family associations, and other entanglements that color Darrow's interactions and frequently
endanger his plans and his life. I recalled the gist of things as I read, memory prompted by context, though I know I missed a fair bit of nuance by having not
reread the previous books before starting this one. (In other words, do not think that you can come in on this series partway through.)
This is not a clean war on any side, with clear moral boundaries; though the Golds are inherently cruel, many of them are simply defending the only order they have
ever known, entirely believing the lie that the Society they have built is inherently better and more peaceful than the old warlike ways of pre-Color Homo
sapiens... and, for all the lofty aims of the rebellion, the Sons of Ares cannot win with clean hands, nor can they ensure that the world they aim to build
will be free of the evils that plague the one they seek to destroy. Time and again, Darrow finds himself having to resort to underhanded tactics that cost loyal or
innocent lives, all without knowing whether that cost will buy ultimate victory. These conflicts started nagging Darrow from the first book, when he got his first
true taste of Gold society in the Institute of Mars, and have only grown more troubling as the rebellion grows from a simple idea to tangible action and widespread
warfare, much of which is beyond his control. He must learn to embrace his own flaws and rise above them when possible... and learn to embrace and trust his
friends, flaws and all. They are the one true advantage he has over the Golds, who only rarely view others as anything but potential tools or rivals for personal
advancement or glory, and they are the one true promise he can cling to when he strives to create something better, the notion that other people can and should
matter as more than personal stepping-stones or obstacles.
It's an unrelentingly intense, blood-soaked story told on a grand - borderline grandiose - scale, with shades of ancient war epics in a far-future setting, wrapping
up most of the threads from the previous books in a justly cataclysmic and well-earned conclusion.
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