Title: Red Rising
Series: Red Rising Trilogy #1
Author: Pierce Brown
Year: 2014
Rating: 4.5/5
As Earth is dying, humanity is forced to seek refuge on other planets. Darrow is a Red on Mars and his mission is to make the planet habitable. The hard labour of his people has a noble purpose, or so they were led to believe.
After a tragic loss, Darrow finds out that it has all been a lie. Mars has been habitable and inhabited for centuries now but the society that has colonized it has no place for the Reds. They are regarded as slaves to be worked to death by the Golds, the ruling class. This revelation leads Darrow down a dangerous path – that of a rebel. With the help of a mysterious insurgent group, he disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school. His mission is to take the system down from inside but the command school turns out to be not just a game – it is a battlefield. One that Darrow may not survive.
The Plot
It is no secret that “Red Rising” borrows a lot from some already established series in the genre (it resembles “Ender’s Game” especially strongly). However, Pierce Brown manages to mold all these ideas into an entertaining and captivating novel. Even though there seems to be little originality to it, the plot has your blood pumping and you involved in the battles that Darrow leads in the command school. I was surprised to find myself cheering for him and trying to guess his next move; I was shaken by the betrayals he had to face and gasping at every plot twist.
It is truly remarkable what Pierce Brown has managed to create and how engaging his novel is. In that way it sort of works like fanfiction – you have seen the same plot plenty of times but the talent of the author and your own fondness of it, makes you love it inspite of that.
My only issue with the plot is the way some of the female characters were treated. Eo is hanged in order to further Darrow’s plot, Harmony’s righteous rage is regarded as unreasonable and too emotional (even though, to be fair, so is Titus’s). Characters with a lot of potential – Mustang, Lilath, and even Antonia – are pushed to the side, becoming secondary or side characters. While it can be argued that it is simply due to their personalities and respective roles they play in the plot, we have to ask ourselves why none of the primary roles were given to women.
The Setting
The novel could have benefitted from a more detailed world-building. I never quite grasped what Mars looks like or how it was made habitable – in my mind it looked like a replica of Earth, with probably a lot of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid architecture, but then I would do a double take and think about it and realise that it is not possible that Mars and Martian civilization look like that. The world-building of the novels leave a lot of questions unanswered – from the physical attributes of this world to the governmental system to the economy of the colonies.
However, if the reader decides not to question any of those aspects, they will still find it easy to enjoy the novel as its central point is not creating a fully fleshed out world (for now) but rather to provide entertainment. And that it does. Browning’s writing it fast-paced and easy to read and manages to keep the reader invested from start to finish.
The Characters
I liked Darrow – more than I wanted or expected to. I love determined characters who are ready to use every quality they have in order to win (I like them even better if they are girls but nevermind that now). Darrow is smart and calculating but he is also driven by fiery rage. His drive to win, his attributes such as his military mind and physical force, make him a suitable lead for a novel like this; he is an underdog who has everything that he needs in order to win and he works hard for it. All these things make him likable and easy to cheer for.
He is a man-made Messiah created by a false prophet, he is bred and shaped to lead a rebellion – and the command school becomes his training ground for a future where he will play the same game, but with even higher stakes. The prospects that these tropes and connotations create are thrilling and contribute for the appeal of the character.
Darrow is plenty interesting but he is not the only character in the novel that deserves the reader’s attention. His loyal lieutenants such as Mustang, Servo, Roque, Pax all each contribute with something to create the strong force that is Darrow’s tribe. However, they could have benefitted from some more in-depth characterization and character development. Especially, as I previously mentioned, the female characters. Pierce Brown creates a lot of interesting characters with a lot of potential, yet he never fully explores the possibilities that lie ahead of them.
The Verdict
While I do have quite a few issues with “Red Rising”, I still feel like it deserves a high rating and praise. Does it deserve points for originality? No. But it deserve recognition for its entertainment value. It is readable, it is thrilling and it is engaging. A lot of authors explore and repeat the same old tropes and clichés of the genre but where many fail – to make a novel interesting and exciting – Pierce Brown succeeds with flying colours.
The Book Palace 