Darrow is a Red in a world where the worst thing you can be is a Red. He works as a miner several miles beneath the surface of Mars with the rest of his family. They all dream of one day terraforming the surface and living up in the sun. But Mars was terraformed centuries ago, and the squalor, poverty, and pain the Red clans suffer only aids in growing the wealth of The Golds.

The Red Rising series by Pierce Brown isn’t here to pick through moral ambiguity. The Society is a military dictatorship that divides the population into colors according to the role they serve. It’s evil. Everyone who wasn’t born a Gold lives in service of the Golds. Some colors live more comfortably, while others toil their life away. The need for change is clear, the only question is: How will Darrow rise from nothing to break The Society’s shackles?

Book 1: A Rated-R Hunger Games

After a lot of pain and tragedy, Darrow finds himself on the surface and working for a radical group called The Sons of Ares. Outright rebellion is doomed to fail, so The Sons focus on infiltration. Darrow is carved into the shape of a Gold sent to The Institute. In The Society’s strict military system, The Institute is a brutal testing ground where the best up-and-coming talents are scouted for future fleet commands. The perfect opportunity for a secret Red to ascend.

The Institute is less of a school, and more of a year-long, ultra-violent game of capture the flag. Twelve tribes bearing the names of the twelve gods of the Roman Pantheon battle one another for control. The first Red Rising book focuses on Darrow’s exploits as a member of the violent and temperamental Mars tribe. It reads like an adult version of The Hunger Games. The mutilation, betrayal, espionage, and murder rise into rated-R territory, which also gives the story room to explore more mature themes.

I struggled with The Hunger Games, I think it’s because the participants were children and usually involuntary draftees. Red Rising solves this problem by ensuring every student in The Institute’s great game is wealthy, ambitious, and a little bit horrible. From minute one, Darrow is surrounded by backstabbing, violence-prone ‘allies’ with a long family tree of cruelty. When he is forced into drastic action, it’s hard to blame him.

Even the idealists in this story are far from objectively good. Mustang is the leader of house Minerva and the ambitious daughter of a governor. She serves as the romantic interest and the conscience of the Golds. Through the horrors of The Institute, Mustang grapples with the concept of abandoning the colors and embracing democracy, though it’s more of a thought exercise for her.

By the end of the book, Darrow is established as a towering figure of ability, and a knack for not only excelling, but breaking Gold systems.

Book 2: Playing The Game of Power

In Golden Son, Darrow accepts a position with one of the most powerful figures in the solar system. Governor Nero au Augustus. The simulations and tests of the first book come to a rapid end as Darrow enters the brutal world of interstellar power politics.

The transition proves difficult. Enemies made in The Institute pursue Darrow with lethal intent. He finds himself on the outs with his governor and facing a contract termination that is all but guaranteed to result in his death.

Golden Son is a non-stop rollercoaster ride of court intrigue, feuding families, and outright warfare. Underneath it all lies the tension between Darrow’s long-term goals and his short-term actions. Governor Augustus is no Democrat, his vision for the future of The Society is to stand on the top of the pile. To serve him risks putting a new monster in charge.

Like in the first book, we see brutal betrayals and heroic deeds all around. Each time Darrow recruits a new ally, the friction grows between his true self and the self he shows to others. Each kindness he offers to a member of a lower color costs him dearly in the political sphere.

Golden Son is like a scaled up version of Red Rising. The violence is grander, the betrayals are more sudden, and the stakes are always life-and-death. One big difference is that the Golds are much more empathetic this time around. We see that many of them are simply doing the best they can from within the system they grew up in.

Book 3: Honest War

The final book in the trilogy, Morning Star, starts with a hard reset. Darrow’s Gold identity is peeled away and he is forced to start anew. There are no beautiful feasts and high-end parties this time around. Without any political influence or status, Darrow’s enemies don’t hold back. Golds eager to enforce The Society punish entire innocent populations in their endless hunt for Darrow and The Sons of Ares.

Although the story is filled with epic battles and tense sequences, Darrow’s true war is for the hearts and minds of the people. The Sons of Ares mindless rage has to be redirected towards productive action. The working classes are fed a near-deified vision of Darrow to inspire a general uprising. The Obsidians, a group of zealous and fanatic fighters, have to be broken free from The Gold’s implanted beliefs. Finally, The Golds themselves, who liked to speak of their disgust for the military dictatorship for recreation, are forced to ask themselves if they are willing to help tear down their own system.

Book 3 was a continuation of everything that worked in Books 1 and 2. Lots of cool space battles. Lots of narrow escapes. Plenty of intrigue in the ranks. The trilogy ends in a fulfilling conclusion that makes the journey worth it.

Conclusion

Red Rising depicts an evil society set in its ways. By the end of the first chapter of the first book, you’ll already know who is good and who is evil. The moments when the book shines most were when it pitted Golds against their own system, or forced radicals to recalibrate from violence to revolution.

If you’re looking for a science fiction that is non-stop action, tension, and political thriller, the Red Rising series delivers in spades.