Title: Red Rising (Red Rising Saga #1)
Author: Pierce Brown
Genre: Science fiction, dystopian 
Publisher: Del Rey, Random House
Publication Date: 2014
Format: Paperback
Length: 400 pages

Read if you like: political scheming, warfare and revolution, dystopian novels like The Hunger Games or Divergent series, space setting, black and grey morality

Rating: 

Red Rising has been on my TBR for ages and I’m kicking myself for not starting it sooner. Set on a futuristic version of Mars, in a solar system where planets have been conquered by humans, this book had a plot that sucked me in immediately and had characters that were gorgeously layered with complexities that I couldn’t wait to dive into. 

The book was a bit heavier than I expected it to be, but I can’t believe how immediately addictive it was. So much happened throughout this book that even now, the intricacies of the society created by Brown are still ruminating in my head, and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the next book to see where the story is headed.

The Book: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Red Rising takes place in a colony on Mars where humans are mining dangerous materials far below the surface of the planet to capture the raw materials needed to terraform the planet’s surface and provide an alternative living space for the humans of Earth; or, at least, that is what main character Darrow and all of his coworkers and family have been told. The work that they do to mine these materials is dangerous and gruelling, and most don’t live to see their later years in life, but having known nothing else, Darrow and his friends and family make the best of what they have and try to improve their circumstances within the means that they have available. Under the surface of Mars, Darrow and his compatriots are all Reds, a class of humans at the bottom of a complex colour-based caste system. While they make efforts to improve their living circumstances, they know they can only rise as far as their caste will allow them. 

Darrow’s wife Eo, however, believes that there is more to life than what their supervisors are telling them. When Darrow’s division fails to secure a significant prize that would improve his whole area’s living conditions, she insists that the system is rigged. She brings Darrow to a garden that she found on the other side of a set of abandoned tunnels and can prove that the bleak, lifeless surroundings that they all live in are being forced upon them and that a better life does exist beyond their grasp. Darrow, who has never seen grass nor the sun, is astounded by the discovery, so much so that he’s still in a partial daze when he and Eo are caught on their way back from the tunnel by soldiers who turn them in for treasonous activities. 

Both Darrow and Eo are sentenced to public lashings that will be televised to other similar colonies in an attempt to demonstrate what happens when people don’t obey society exactly, but much to Darrow’s despair, Eo uses the opportunity to sacrifice herself in the name of freedom. She sings a treasonous song that’s known to be illegal and as a result, they hang her for it. In Darrow’s fit of grief, he decides to bury Eo in the garden they found, knowing that it too is an act that would see him hanged. He goes to his death without remorse for trying to find his dead wife some peace.

Despite Darrow’s efforts though, he wakes up after his hanging to find he’s been kept alive and transported to a rebel group working against the society. The rebel group sees the power and ability that Darrow holds as one of the youngest and most accomplished workers in his settlement, and they choose him for a mission that will see him transformed into a Gold, the reigning class of humans, to infiltrate the system that reigns over all peoples, with the hope of bringing it down from within. They show Darrow that Mars has, in fact, already been colonized despite what his people are told, as have many other planets, and while there are different factions of people who live in different ways, the Reds are by far the least advantaged of all. Once Darrow sees the injustice for himself, he agrees to join their cause to honour Eo’s desire for him to be something more. 

As Darrow is transformed into a true Gold and accepted into the most prestigious Gold training academy within their society, he will have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is meant to be among those that he impersonates. Golds are ruthless, calculating, and power-hungry, and so when Darrow is thrown into the deep end of his class’s machinations, he knows it is either kill or be killed if he wants to make it far enough to be of any use to his cause.

The Review

What an utterly fantastic book. There was so much to love about it that it’s a lot to unpack, but I’ll start with the world itself.

I loved the Mars setting and the sci-fi/dystopian nature of it all. It initially feels incredibly dreary and dark, but as Darrow comes to find that his people have simply been left in the dark themselves, the society as a whole becomes so much more multifaceted and complex. The nature of the social hierarchy is both surreal and familiar, and I loved that Brown used real historical aspects to cement the history and structure of the society, giving this wildly fantastic concept roots in something that felt philosophically real. It was an inventive approach to world-building that I loved seeing unfold.

The plot was seriously meaty and I loved the build towards the cataclysmic ending. I also loved that despite how explosive it was, Brown then pulls it all back together into the context of the broader society and, despite all that the students have been through and experienced, he demonstrates that these people who came together to reach these massive conclusions about the flaws in their society likely won’t carry those opinions into the real world. It’s a depressing realization, that all that they’ve worked towards won’t be mirrored in the exterior world, but it also left me super curious about if the bonds that they formed were strong enough to form the basis of real change in the next book. I suspect at least some will, given that the series has two more books in this saga alone. 

I also loved the characters, all of whom had different layers and very distinct purposes. They all seemed to represent different facets of society, even within the Golds themselves, and they served to humanize the brutal ruling class. I’m very curious about what will happen to each of them now that they’ll no longer be in this fake world/simulation and whether or not the changes they wrought internally will hold.

Brown has a distinct writing style, one that had me thinking about William Golding but with a contemporary twist. I loved the way that he drew on classic moral and political thought, but simultaneously didn’t make the plot feel too ethereal or unrelatable. It was a thoughtful execution that had me appreciating the depth of the world’s history and politics and the character’s places within these facets.

If you’re like me and Red Rising has been on your TBR since roughly 2014, I’d highly recommend moving it up. I loved this novel and I can’t wait to take in the rest of the series over 2023-2024.