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![EW calls Red Rising “[A] spectacular adventure . . . one heart-pounding ride . . .”](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/aplus-media-library-service-media/3efdd306-326d-40b5-91f3-0337e18d43ec.__CR0,0,300,300_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg)
Editorial Reviews
Review
Red Rising
“[A] spectacular adventure . . . one heart-pounding ride . . . Pierce Brown’s dizzyingly good debut novel evokes The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender’s Game. . . . [Red Rising] has everything it needs to become meteoric.”—Entertainment Weekly
“[A] top-notch debut novel . . . Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field.”—USA Today
Golden Son
“Brown writes layered, flawed characters . . . but plot is his most breathtaking strength. . . . Every action seems to flow into the next.”—NPR
“In a word, Golden Son is stunning. Among science fiction fans, it should be a shoo-in for book of the year.”—Tordotcom
Morning Star
“A page-turning epic filled with twists and turns . . . The conclusion to [Pierce] Brown’s saga is simply stellar.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Brown’s vivid, first-person prose puts the reader right at the forefront of impassioned speeches, broken families, and engaging battle scenes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Darrow
Hero of the Republic
Weary, I walk upon flowers at the head of an army. Petals carpet the last of the stone road before me. Thrown by children from windows, they twirl lazily down from the steel towers that grow to either side of the Luna boulevard. In the sky, the sun dies its slow, weeklong death, staining the tattered clouds and gathered crowd in bloody hues. Waves of humanity lap against security barricades, pressing inward on our parade as Hyperion City Watchmen in gray uniforms and cyan berets guard the route, shoving drunken revelers back into the crowd. Behind them, antiterrorism units prowl up and down the pavement, their fly-eyed goggles scanning irises, hands resting on energy weapons.
My own eyes rove the crowd.
After ten years of war, I no longer believe in moments of peace.
It’s a sea of Colors that line the twelve-kilometer Via Triumphia. Built by my people, the Red slaves of the Golds, hundreds of years ago, the Triumphia is the avenue by which the Conquerors who tamed Earth held their own processions as they claimed continent after continent. Iron-spined murderers with eyes of gold and haughty menace once consecrated these same stones. Now, nearly a millennium later, we sully the Triumphia’s sacred white marble by honoring Liberators with eyes of jet and ash and rust and soil.
Once, this would have filled me with pride. Jubilant crowds celebrating the Free Legions returned from vanquishing yet another threat to our fledgling Republic. But today I see holosigns of my head with a bloody crown atop it, hear the jeers from the Vox Populi as they wave banners emblazoned with their upside-down pyramid, and feel nothing but the weight of an endless war and a desperate longing to be once again in the embrace of my family. It has been a year since I’ve seen my wife and son. After the long voyage back from Mercury, all I want is to be with them, to fall into a bed, and to sleep for a dreamless month.
The last of my journey home lies before me. As the Triumphia widens and abuts the stairs that lead up to the New Forum, I face one final summit.
Faces drunk on jubilation and new commercial spirits gape up at me as I reach the stairs. Hands sticky with sweets wave in the air. And tongues, loose from those same commercial spirits and delights, cry out, shouting my name, or cursing it. Not the name my mother gave me, but the name my deeds have built. The name the fallen Peerless Scarred now whisper as a curse.
“Reaper, Reaper, Reaper,” they cry, not in unison, but in frenzy. The clamor suffocates, squeezing with a billion-fingered hand: all the hopes, all the dreams, all the pain constricting around me. But so close to the end, I can put one foot after the other. I begin to climb the stairs.
Clunk.
My metal boots grind on stone with the weight of loss: Eo, Ragnar, Fitchner, and all the others who’ve fought and fallen at my side while somehow I have remained alive.
I am tall and broad. Thicker at my age of thirty-three than I was in my youth. Stronger and more brutal in my build and movement. Born Red, made Gold, I have kept what Mickey the Carver gave me. These Gold eyes and hair feel more my own than those of that boy who lived in the mines of Lykos. That boy grew, loved, and dug the earth, but he lost so much it often feels like it happened to another soul.
Clunk. Another step.
Sometimes I fear that this war is killing that boy inside. I ache to remember him, his raw, pure heart. To forget this city moon, this Solar War, and return to the bosom of the planet that gave birth to me before the boy inside is dead forever. Before my son loses the chance to ever know him. But the worlds, it seems, have plans of their own.
Clunk.
I feel the weight of the chaos I’ve unleashed: famines and genocide on Mars, Obsidian piracy in the Belt, terrorism, radiation sickness and disease spreading through the lower reaches of Luna, and the two hundred million lives lost in my war.
I force a smile. Today is our fourth Liberation Day. After two years of siege, Mercury has joined the free worlds of Luna, Earth, and Mars. Bars stand open. War-weary citizens rove the streets, looking for reason to celebrate. Fireworks crackle and blaze across the sky, shot from the roofs of skyscraper and tenement complex alike.
With our victory on the first planet from the sun, the Ash Lord has been pushed back to his last bastion, the fortress planet Venus, where his battered fleet guards precious docks and the remaining loyalists. I have come home to convince the Senate to requisition ships and men of the war-impoverished Republic for one final campaign. One last push on Venus to put this bloodydamn war to rest. So I can set down the sword and go home to my family for good.
Clunk.
I take a moment to glance behind me. Waiting at the foot of the stairs is my Seventh Legion, or the remnants of it. Twenty-eight thousand men and women where once there were fifty. They stand in casual order around a fourteen-pointed ivory star with a pegasus galloping at its center—held aloft by the famous Thraxa au Telemanus. The Hammer. After losing her left arm to Atalantia au Grimmus’s razor, she had it replaced by a metal prototype appendage from Sun Industries. Wild gold hair flutters behind her head, garlanded with white feathers given to her by Obsidian admirers.
In her mid-thirties, a stout woman with thighs thick as water drums and a freckled, bluff face. She grins past the shoulders of the Obsidians and Golds around her. Blue and Red and Orange pilots wave to the crowd. Red, Gray, and Brown infantry smile and laugh as pretty young Pinks and Reds duck under barriers and rush to drape necklaces of flowers around their necks, push bottles of liquor into their hands and kisses onto their mouths. They are the only full legion in today’s parade. The rest remain on Mercury with Orion and Harnassus, battling with the Ash Lord’s legions stranded there when his fleet retreated.
Clunk.
“Remember, you are but mortal,” Sevro’s bored voice drawls in my ear as white-haired Wulfgar and the Republic Wardens descend to greet us midway up the Forum stairs. Sevro sniffs my neck and makes a noise of distaste. “By Jove. You wretch. Did you dip yourself in piss before the occasion?”
“It’s cologne,” I say. “Mustang bought it for me last Solstice.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Is it made out of piss?”
I scowl back at him, wrinkling my nose at the heaviness of liquor on his breath, and eye the ragged wolfcloak he wears over his ceremonial armor. He claims he hasn’t washed it since the Institute. “You’re really lecturing me about stenches? Just shut up and behave like an Imperator,” I say with a grin.
Snorting, Sevro drops back to where the legendary Obsidian, Sefi Volarus, stands in her customary silence. He feigns an air of domesticity, but next to the giant woman, he looks a little like some sort of gutter dog an alcoholic father might ill-advisedly bring home to play with the children—washed and rid of fleas, but still possessing that weird mania behind the eyes. Pinched, thin lipped, with a nose crooked as an old knifefighter’s fingers. He eyes the crowd with resigned distaste.
Behind him lope the pack of mangy Howlers he brought with us to Mercury. My bodyguards, now drunk as gallants at a Lykos Laureltide. Stalwart Holiday walks at their center, the snub-nosed woman doing her best to keep them in line.
There used to be more of them. So many more.
I smile as Wulfgar descends the stairs to meet me. A favorite son of the Rising, the Obsidian is a tree root of a man, gnarled and narrow, armored all in pale blue. He’s in his early forties. His face angular as a raptor’s, his beard braided like that of his hero, Ragnar.
One of the Obsidians to fight alongside Ragnar at the walls of Agea, Wulfgar was with the Sons of Ares that freed me from the Jackal in Attica. Now ArchWarden of the Republic, he smiles down at me from the step above, his black eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Hail libertas,” I say with a smile.
“Hail libertas,” he echoes.
“Wulfgar. Fancy meeting you here. You missed the Rain,” I say.
“You did not wait for me to return, did you?” Wulfgar clucks his tongue. “My children will ask where I was when the Rain fell upon Mercury, and you know what I will have to tell them?” He leans forward with a conspiratorial smile. “I was making night soil, wiping my ass when I heard Barca had taken Mount Caloris.” He rumbles out a laugh.
“I told you not to leave,” Sevro says. “You’d miss out on all the fun, I said. You should have seen the Ashies route. Trails of piss all the way to Venus. You’d have loved it.” Sevro grins at the Obsidian. It was Sevro who put a razor in his hand in the river mud of Agea. Wulfgar has his own razor now. Its hilt made from the fang of an ice dragon from Earth’s South Pole.
“My blade would have sung that day were I not summoned by the Senate,” he says.
Sevro sneers. “That’s right. You ran home like a good little dog.”
“A dog? I am a servant of the People, my friend. As are we all.” His eyes find me with mild accusation and I understand the true meaning to his words. Wulfgar is a believer, like all Wardens. Not in me, but in the Republic, in the principles for which it stands, and the orders that the Senate gives. Two days before the Iron Rain over Mercury, the Senate, led by my old friend Dancer, voted against my proposal. They told me to maintain the siege. To not waste men, resources, on an assault.
I disobeyed and let the Rain fall.
Now a million of my men lie in the sands of Mercury and we have our Liberation Day.
Were Wulfgar with me on Mercury, he would not have joined our Rain against the Senate’s permission. In fact, he might have tried to stop me. He’s one of the few men alive who might manage. For a spell at least.
He spares a nod for Sefi. “Njar ga hae, svester.” A rough translation is “Respect to you, sister” in nagal.
“Njar ga hir, bruder,” she replies. No love lost between them. They have different priorities.
“Your weapons.” Wulfgar gestures to my razor.
Sefi and I hand his Wardens our weapons. Muttering under his breath, Sevro hands over his as well. “Did you forget your toothpick?” Wulfgar asks, looking at Sevro’s left boot.
“Treasonous yeti,” Sevro mutters, and pulls a wicked blade long as a baby’s body from his boot. The Warden who takes it looks terrified.
“Odin’s fortune with the togas, Darrow,” Wulfgar says to me as he motions for us to continue upward. “You will need it.”
Arrayed at the top of the steps of the New Forum are the 140 Senators of the Republic. Ten per Color, all draped in white togas that flutter in the breeze. They peer down at me like a row of haughty pigeons on a wire. Red and Gold, mortal enemies in the Senate, bookend the row to either side. Dancer is missing. But I have eyes only for the lonely bird of prey that stands at the center of all the silly, vain, power-hungry little pigeons.
Her golden hair is bound tight behind her head. Her tunic is pure white, without the ribbons of their Color the others wear. And in her hand, she carries the Dawn Scepter—now a multi-hued gold baton half a meter long, with the pyramid of the Society recast into the fourteen-pointed star of the Republic at its tip. Her face is elegant and distant. A small nose, piercing eyes behind thick eyelashes, and a mischievous cat’s smile growing on her face. The Sovereign of our Republic. Here at the summit of the stairs, her eyes shed the weight from my shoulders, the fear from my heart that I would never see her again. Through war and space and this damnable parade, I have traveled to find her again, my life, my love, my home.
I bend to my knee and look up into the eyes of the mother of my child.
“ ’Lo, wife,” I say with a smile.
“ ’Lo, husband. Welcome home.”
Bryan Desmond –
2023-07-18I remember feeling trepidation when Iron Gold was first announced. Trepidation that, I now believe, Pierce Brown himself felt as well. A continuation of Red Rising… The trilogy felt like such a complete package that I was worried Pierce didn’t have more story to tell, or that he was forcing a continuation due to the success of the first three books. Oh, how wrong I was.Iron Gold, especially on a reread, in many ways feels like a necessity. An inevitability, even. Something that the original trilogy was leading toward all along. The book begins with a ten year time jump, and it reinvigorates the series on almost every level. It changes the stakes, the circumstances, and the passage of time is believable, something Pierce has always excelled at. This change to our setting, along with our new POV characters, injects something into the series that I didn’t even know it needed until it was there. It’s hard to quantify, but it’s in the pages.The tragedy of the first trilogy is that after everything that Darrow and his allies did, after all they sacrificed to break the chains of the Society, all it gained them was war. That is what Iron Gold shows us. A Republic that has been at war for ten long years, harried by remnants of the Society at every turn, knowing no peace, even for their victory. And it is how Darrow fits within the Republic he helped build (or rather, how he doesn’t fit) that makes the continuation of the series so interesting. As I said, Darrow’s path here feels like some tragic inevitability. Just, as I hope, his redemption will be…The character work remains excellent here, and Pierce has expanded the story from one first-person point-of-view to four. Not everyone was on board for this, but I find it brilliant. It felt natural to me, expanding the breadth of Pierce’s storytelling and allowing him to showcase how his writing skill has evolved since he began. I think that a full trilogy of just Darrow was actually too much Darrow, in a way. Not because you got sick of him, but because he is so cool, such a great character, that depriving you of him, even if just for a handful of chapters, makes him that much more effective once he returns.Iron Gold is in many ways a herald of the Dark Age to come. Just as, one hopes, Light Bringer will be a tonal reprieve. It’s just over the horizon now, and I can’t wait to begin.“This is not the end. I loved you before I ever met you. I will love you until the sun dies. And when it does, I will love you in the darkness.”2018-01-27A few years ago I bought a book called Red Rising by Pierce Brown for 99 cents. I’d heard good things, and what’s a dollar for a book? It turned out to be one of the best dollars I ever spent as my fervor for the story led me to buying Golden Son. That book earned the series and its characters a spot among my favorites, and resulted in both my brother and father diving into the series. It led to a brutal wait for Morning Star for all of us, then to excitement over the possibility that Pierce would continue the story later in the timeline, which led to a brutal wait for the fourth book in the saga and thus, Iron Gold.I will not be posting any blatant spoilers for the book below, however if you’ve not ready any of the other books and would like to remain in the dark about who lives through the initial trilogy, I would skip this review.The Red Rising saga is like coming home for me. Its world and its characters hold a special place and sinking back into the story was easy and comfortable. Pierce Brown changes things up this time in that we no longer have a single narrator in Darrow. Instead he is joined by three other POV characters, making this one of the only first-person books I’ve ever read that has multiple points of view. I had some initial trepidation about this approach, but it was unwarranted. Pierce handled it extremely well, and each character had their own distinct voice.Seeing Darrow again was like hanging out with an old friend, and my heart breaks for him. To witness his efforts and sacrifices in the initial trilogy earn him nothing but war and strife was very hard, but I am impressed that even after four books Darrow is still growing, with room to grow further still. Lyria, our only truly brand new character, was a joy. And in a way she reminded me of Eo, the catalyst of the entire series. Amazing that a rebellion begun in her name could spawn so many more people just like her. Ephraim was a worthy POV character, offering the Gray perspective and tying in nicely with Lyria’s story. He is another victim of the Rising, and lost much to Darrow’s rise. You can’t help but feel his nihilism and depression is justified. Finally, our last POV character (and the only one I knew we’d be reading before the book’s release) was Lysander. Heir of Empire, grandson of Octavia au Lune and Lorn au Arcos, and godson of Magnus au Grimmus, the Ash Lord. I was most looking forward to reading Lysander’s chapters, and they did not disappoint, easily taking the spot of my favorite. The story in the Rim is incredibly compelling, and House Raa with their code of Honor over vanity and excess (so atypical of Gold society) is admirable. Diomedes au Raa has the potential to become my favorite character of this series. Beyond our POV characters it was satisfying to reunite with other old friends like Sevro, Mustang, the Telemanuses, and many more.Characters aside (if you can’t tell I think Pierce excels there) the pacing and story were true to form. Iron Gold is no different than the other Red Rising books in that it is damn hard to put down. Twists and turns abound, and by the end it’s clear that this is just a new beginning. The Dark Age comes. Now we must see how our characters will meet it. I couldn’t more pleased with this new installment, and with Pierce’s progression as a writer. Luckily, I believe that the fifth book is due out this year as well, a welcome surprise. I cannot wait.LUX EX TENEBRISHail Libertas. Hail Reaper.
Robin Snyder –
***“We didn’t prepare for this.” “How do you prepare for a kick in the balls?” I say. “You don’t. You suck it up.”***This is pretty much how I felt for the majority of this book. I wasn’t prepared to see our hero 10 years later still fighting a war that seems like it will have no end. I wasn’t ready for the sins of the past to come back and throw our hero into yet another war. I couldn’t have dreamed of the fate of the Reds of Mars brought up from the mines and saved from slavery only to be thrown into poverty. And I definitely would never have guessed that Grey who used to be part of the resistance would fall so low and end up on the wrong side of everything.Iron Gold is set Ten years after Morning star. All the players from the original trilogy are here and it is very interesting to see the roles they have decided to play in the new republic. Still in its infancy the republic is flagging, there has been war for the last ten years against the Ash Lord in an attempt to consolidate/liberate all of the Core before the Outer Rims rebuild and come for a war of their own. We come back to this world right before the shoot hits the fan.While the first three books are all from Darrow’s PoV Iron Gold flips the script and has four PoVs to really open up the scope of the story and the worldbuilding.It is interesting to see Darrow wrestle with the choices he has mad and the man he has become in this never ending war. Pierce Brown is great at the philosophical ponderings and making his characters really take a deep look at themselves. I think this is why I get so attached to them and can empathize with the pain they are feeling.***I feel the weight of the chaos I’ve unleashed: famines and genocide on Mars, Obsidian piracy in the Belt, terrorism, radiation sickness and disease spreading through the lower reaches of Luna, and the two hundred million lives lost in my war. ***The additional PoVs were from Lyria a Gamma Red from Mars who is suffering and angry after being displaced from the mines. Lysander, the former heir to the throne, gives us a view of what it is like in outer space as he roams with Cassius. And last by not least is Effriam a Grey former resistance fighter who lost his husband in Morning Star and lost his way not long after that.The thing this book did best was show us that perspective is everything. Darrow has been a hero to us for three books, but now we get to see what others think of the Reaper and his Lion mate. Pierce Brown still knows how to twist up my emotions and stomp on my heart in new and unexpected ways. I’m sure he feeds on the tears of his readers.The trilogy had a little more humor to it. I found that Servo and Victra were really our only comic relief for the most part and the tone of Iron Gold book is possibly more severe and downtrodden than the original trilogy. Its been a long bloody war and you feel that from all of the characters.Once I got used to the shifting PoVs and build a little rapport with the other characters the story really started to roll for me. I never grew to like Lysander as a character but his chapters were full of action and intrigue. I couldn’t put this down after I got to the 60% mark and needed to read until I found out everything that happened and which of the characters made it out alive.Iron Gold sets up nicely for the war(s) to come and I’m so excited to see where the next book in the series dares to go.Notable Quotables:The man says all I know is war. And he is right. In my heart, I know my enemy. I know his mettle. I know his cruelty. And I know this war will not end with politicians smiling at each other from across a table. It will only end as it began: with blood.- Darrow“Skipping supper. No wonder you’re a little twig,” Cassius says, pinching my arm. “I daresay you don’t even weigh a hundred ten kilos, my goodman.”“It’s usable weight,” I protest. “In any matter, I was reading.” He looks at me blankly. “You have your priorities. I have mine, muscly creature. So piss off.”“When I was your age…”“You despoiled half the women on Mars,” I say. “And probably thought it was their honor. Yes, I’m aware.- Lysander and Cassius“What’s the quickest way to a Peerless Scarred’s heart?” Pebble asks. “Ragnar’s fist.”- PebbleNarration Note: There are 4 narrators for this depending on the PoV. I love Tim Gerard Reynolds (TGR) he is great in everything. It took a little while to get used to the other narrators and only had issues when they overlapped characters that TGR had done in other books. The narrator for Lysander had a cadence to the narrative that I never got used to but over the audio is very well produces.
Camden Joel Bathras –
If you liked the first trilogy and are cool with extending the universe with new characters and more world building with a slower more grounded plot- you’ll love this.I was a huge fan of the first trilogy and was admittedly excited to read Iron Gold so maybe I’m biased. But this book does so much to set up the rest of the saga and if you can walk into IG knowing Peirce Brown is going to slow down the pace to flesh out some world building and set up some plot lines, then you will enjoy this book.Without spoiling anything- you get some new character POVs, each with their own unique struggles and plots, with some of them eventually aligning. You get the beginning of a villain arch- WHICH IS NOT APPRECIATED ENOUGH. We get a character with Batman-esque villain attention who has complex motives, deep character lore, a unique persona, and a very entertaining story line in this book. Easily the best part and worth reading just for that.Get the book, read it, enjoy it, then move on to Dark Age and be blown away but also depressed (it’s so bleak…)
J.P –
Pierce Brown keeps on giving stories that don’t miss. A very good continuation of the Red Rising trilogy. Just be ready for some pretty depressing story telling.
Johnnie –
A great read, Pierce Brown has become one of my many favorite authors.
Cody –
Incredible book
An amazing addition to the series with narratives from several characters. The audio book version has one voice that I don’t care for but the book itself is written so well.
Gilberto –
Espetacular
Melhor série de ficção científica que eu já li. Vale cada página
yahyaprime –
good quality
good quality paper, decent book
Tom A. –
Yesssss please, mooore
I’m only halfway through but this is probably my favorite book in the series yet, together with the first book (which starts really slow but I love the whole story at the insitute).
QW –
Nice restart!
Darker. Nonetheless fantastic. Very good continuation to the series in this new arc!