Red Rising 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."
 

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.
 

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.
 

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
 

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

I was very close to dropping this in the first part but stuck with it as I heard the story picks up quickly. Furthermore many fans often consider Red Rising to be one of the weaker books in the series and thematically different due to its culling game-focus. I’m glad I stuck with it though as I thought Red Rising was ultimately great (with a few reservations), a 3 that progressed to a 4.5 rounded up.

A mesh of different genres and styles, Pierce Brown is a certified fantasy sci-fi action nerd irl and it shows in his work. The writing style is no-nonsense laced with some advance vocabulary while the plot is fast-paced and furious. The book often takes pleasure in going where the reader wants/or doesn’t want it to go. Case and point if someone commits a terrible act, the book will gleefully and gruesomely execute some sort of twisted judgement on them. But if there’s a character who you are getting attached to and seems to be thriving, you know they’re going to meet an unfortunate end. There are elements in the narrative that are familiar and comfortable to fans of the genre such as the focal hunger games-esque culling competition, the dystopian oppressive class system, far-flung technology and otherworldly human appearances, but the way these topics are incorporated makes Red Rising feel like a homage to fantasy fan-favorites rather than a derivative retread.

I am less familiar with a lot of fantasy action books that came out during the recent futuristic dystopian rush during my reading hiatus, but Red Rising helps distinguish itself from a crowded genre by placing the core setting on the planet Mars and expanding the scope of its class system and world to the literal entire solar system. Placed in the futuristic era full of life-manipulation technology, the world feels both cool and necessarily cold which is heightened by Pierce Brown’s elaborate exploration of the system. People are born into set colors that correspond to different roles and classes of civilians ranging from the elite politicians/commanders in Gold, brute force Obsidian regulators, science and technology Green technicians, pleasure and comfort giving Pinks, down to the lowly Reds (more on that shortly). There are certain world-building elements that are under-developed (at least in this novel so far) such as how these inhospitable planets/moons are terrestrialized, the technology powering the advance machinery and weapons, how the class system came to be (there’s a story to it but it’s vague and just barely functional), how Darrow is physically and mentally reworked prior to the training game (you really need to suspend your disbelief with this one, the science behind it is jank) but I’m the type of reader that finds too much unnecessary detail detracts from the reading experience so this didn’t necessarily bother me. 

Minor spoilers ahead, but the story focuses on our protagonist Darrow who is a driller of helium (fuel?) in the underground mines of Mars who was born as a Red, the lowest class of people that essentially live like slaves or indentured servants. They are aware of the class system that exists but are consciously deprived information about the world above their underground mines. A headstrong, rash and hot-blooded Red laborer, Darrow is suddenly pulled out of the underground world and the only life he knew. During a sequence of events, he’s recruited to be the catalyst for a (pardon the pun) underground uprising movement to overthrow the color class system. It is during the underground sequence where I had the most issues with.

The plot is excellent throughout. The characters (at least in this first book) are where I found Red Rising to be weaker at. Darrow is a like him or hate him character due to his often blinding rage and hot-blooded male instincts, and it is during the mining sequence where he’s the least palatable. I found this entire section to be tiring to read and was constantly thinking “this man is so emotional and, me feel mad and smash”. His character is developed and rounded out as the novel progresses, but I’m still not a Darrow fan (yet) despite the growth in maturity.

The cast of characters is also giant and due to many of them being featured in only a certain part of the novel or being killed per the usual dystopian narrative, nearly all of them lack the screen time to leave an impact. The primary character development is left to core students that form around Darrow at the institute, but the details are all spread too thin across too many people. This is also where signs pointing to Red Rising being a debut novel show up due to a repeated habit of character dumping a big group of people with only names attributed to them (I wanted to take notes on the side to keep track of who’s who early on). The same can be said with locations and the geography at the Institute. I was constantly flipping back to the map provided to figure out where people and places were due to the dense geography dump that probably could’ve been introduced with more finesse. I understand this is a difficult task to manage with a story that require numerous bodies and masses to work, but gradual introductions or short sequences distinguishing certain characters would’ve helped a lot.

However the plot is where Red Rising shines. At some point I stopped trying to predict where the story would go as I would surely be wrong; the plot is unpredictable yet exciting. There are plot twists everywhere but they never feel completely out of left field and heighten the fluid and unstable nature of warring factions. While many have drawn comparisons between Red Rising culling test to the Hunger Game’s Reaping, they are really completely different systems and serve entirely different purposes. While the Reaping was designed for entertainment and punishment of it’s oppressed districts, Red Rising‘s Institute is designed to test and observe the behaviors of future Gold leaders, politicians, fleet commanders, any role of power or prestige. Students have to test into the program and then get drafted into specific houses/teams instead of being forced to participate (sort of, political and upbringing of a few students aside). This automatically adds more weight and purpose outside of the game/test itself. Red Rising‘s Institute also functions more like a command and conquer/Game of Throne type playing field where all students are sorted into different houses who must conquer or enslave each other. While death may occur, students are not necessarily encouraged to kill each other to win and instead must demonstrate their prowess at navigating the game and outwitting each other. Due to death being optional, Red Rising also allows for quite heinous crimes to be committed including mutilation, rape, cult leadership; it all comes off as darker and more violent compared to similar setups.

It’s in the game’s setup and warring house/factions that upped my opinion of the book. The complex maneuvering of the different houses, the factions within factions, new alliances and betrayals, commanding fellow house members or enslaving others, there is a lot to keep track and yet the plot is always coherent with a clear vision forward. While there is action and fighting sequences, its the strategic movements and outplay that are most exciting. The book also flips the alliances on it’s head about 2/3 of the way through completely switching up the story’s pace and concludes with an ending that I can only be described as “game-breaking”. Needless to say, I thought the plot was excellent and exceptionally well planned out.

Despite not loving it’s main character and finding the character work in general to be lacking, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising is still a force to be reckoned with. Not all of the book was my cup of tea (the early weeks of the Institute’s game are necessary but a bit tiring to read), but once I got out of the early mining sequence reading Red Rising brought back that epic fantasy action adventure feel of other well-known works like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Eragon, Star Wars, wrapped in a dystopian sci-fi presentation. Where other killing-game narratives lose their momentum after the game sequence, it really feels like Red Rising is just beginning and setting the series up for much more (it’s obviously not going to pull a Catching Fire ridiculous got’cha by throwing students back into the game for a round 2). Its die-hard Howler fandom certainly exists for a reason and I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of the series go! (personal favorite so far is Servo)