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 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 love it. I hate it. Just the other day, I was telling my daughter that I don’t like trilogies, but they seem to find me. Red Rising found me.Â
Awesome first book! Near as I can tell, this is Pierce Brown’s first novel. Sometimes first novels are rife with issues. Pacing issues. character development problems. Not so here. I’m quite impressed. I really enjoyed this book.Â
Dark, violent, and really interesting futuristic fantasy. I could barely put it down. If you took a little Lord of the Flies, a little Hunger Games, and a little Hogwarts Academy, then mixed it up with some Roman history and set it hundreds of years in the future you might come up with this book. With all the “borrowed” elements one might think it would feel a little “been there, read that” but that would be wrong. It took a little while at the beginning for me to get into the story, but once it kicked into gear, I could barely put it down.Â