As a Red, Darrow grew up working the mines deep beneath the surface of Mars, enduring backbreaking labor while dreaming of the better future he was building for his descendants. But the Society he faithfully served was built on lies. Darrow’s kind have been betrayed and denied by their elitist masters, the Golds—and their only path to liberation is revolution. And so Darrow sacrifices himself in the name of the greater good for which Eo, his true love and inspiration, laid down her own life. He becomes a Gold, infiltrating their privileged realm so that he can destroy it from within.
A lamb among wolves in a cruel world, Darrow finds friendship, respect, and even love—but also the wrath of powerful rivals. To wage and win the war that will change humankind’s destiny, Darrow must confront the treachery arrayed against him, overcome his all-too-human desire for retribution—and strive not for …
As a Red, Darrow grew up working the mines deep beneath the surface of Mars, enduring backbreaking labor while dreaming of the better future he was building for his descendants. But the Society he faithfully served was built on lies. Darrow’s kind have been betrayed and denied by their elitist masters, the Golds—and their only path to liberation is revolution. And so Darrow sacrifices himself in the name of the greater good for which Eo, his true love and inspiration, laid down her own life. He becomes a Gold, infiltrating their privileged realm so that he can destroy it from within.
A lamb among wolves in a cruel world, Darrow finds friendship, respect, and even love—but also the wrath of powerful rivals. To wage and win the war that will change humankind’s destiny, Darrow must confront the treachery arrayed against him, overcome his all-too-human desire for retribution—and strive not for violent revolt but a hopeful rebirth. Though the road ahead is fraught with danger and deceit, Darrow must choose to follow Eo’s principles of love and justice to free his people.
By Ditching The Hunger Games, Golden Son Finds Its Footing
4 stars
Better all around than Red Rising. By changing the focus to the politics and precarity of revolution, Darrow and company have much better set pieces and characterization to work with.
While the ending does seem to draw a little to much inspiration from The Empire Strikes Back, I'm nevertheless still interested to see how Ol' RedGold wriggles his way out of THIS one.
Following Red Rising in much the same vein, Darrow is now out of school, has sworn himself to a new master, and is progressing his plan to gain power within the highest circles of the Golds. As we follow his attempts to command space fleets and redeem himself for some serious errors, it's fairly hard to like anything about the society or most of the people we meet in it, but there are a few exceptions and Darrow tries to surround himself with those.
Not to say too much about the plot because of spoilers, but it's pretty much more of the same from book 1 and I imagine will continue in the same vein throughout the series, ending with a terrible cliffhanger that will send you looking for book 3 right away.
I loved the complex characters (Darrow and Mustang especially my girlie deserves even more pages) and complex world building, the writing was efficient and poetic at times, though I really had to focus, and some action scenes lost my attention a little. I knew what would happen in the end, being a reread, but the enjoyment was still there and I recommend this Sci Fi saga to whomever this appeals, even a bit, to.
I have to say that this tale was good, right up to the last 50 pages or so. The end was uninspiring. I may read others in this series, but the end of this work left me much less enthusiastic than I was when I began this second novel.
Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.
Superb! The Red Rising trilogy continues to fire on all cylinders and delivers an excellent middle instalment. The story picks up a few years after Red Rising #1 and the scale of what's at stake hasn't decreased at all.
I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one.
Familiar characters from Red Rising #1 make an appearance, friendships forged at the Institute are questioned and all the while the story continues to question the caste structure in place. Amongst the fast paced tale there are moral questions raised, challenges of preconceived notions and a sprinkle of heartbreak.
I am a child of hell, and I've spent too long int heir heaven.
Darrow continues to have a wonderful story arc as he …
Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.
Superb! The Red Rising trilogy continues to fire on all cylinders and delivers an excellent middle instalment. The story picks up a few years after Red Rising #1 and the scale of what's at stake hasn't decreased at all.
I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one.
Familiar characters from Red Rising #1 make an appearance, friendships forged at the Institute are questioned and all the while the story continues to question the caste structure in place. Amongst the fast paced tale there are moral questions raised, challenges of preconceived notions and a sprinkle of heartbreak.
I am a child of hell, and I've spent too long int heir heaven.
Darrow continues to have a wonderful story arc as he struggles with his upbringing and who he has become. He looks for the good in everyone and embodies MLK with his ambition of having "people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
This has been a fun couple of books and no reason to stop now, so I will plunge head first in to Red Rising #3.
I highlighted a few other passages from the book, and to avoid them being lost forever I'll include them below: - Everyone's honest till they're caught in a lie. - In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and me, we're just passing time before death reaches down for us. - Power is resolute. It is the mountain, not the wind.
I read the second book with a very critical mindset throughout. It was fun to be terribly critical for once! But I think ultimately I was trying to enjoy this series the wrong way. I'm used to sci-fi that takes itself more seriously. This series should be enjoyed as mindless fun instead!
Anyway, no way to fix that now. So, what did I dislike in particular?
Finally we are out of school. School was dumb. Having to master sword fighting. Like anybody does that on spaceships!
Actually they do. Swordfighting is the singular way of combat in this series, no matter if you are in a spaceship or underwater. I have to call out two examples to illustrate how it gets.
1) Spaceship vs spaceship in orbit around the Moon. Solution: put people in very very hard armor and shoot them at the other spaceship. The shots penetrate all the …
I read the second book with a very critical mindset throughout. It was fun to be terribly critical for once! But I think ultimately I was trying to enjoy this series the wrong way. I'm used to sci-fi that takes itself more seriously. This series should be enjoyed as mindless fun instead!
Anyway, no way to fix that now. So, what did I dislike in particular?
Finally we are out of school. School was dumb. Having to master sword fighting. Like anybody does that on spaceships!
Actually they do. Swordfighting is the singular way of combat in this series, no matter if you are in a spaceship or underwater. I have to call out two examples to illustrate how it gets.
1) Spaceship vs spaceship in orbit around the Moon. Solution: put people in very very hard armor and shoot them at the other spaceship. The shots penetrate all the way to the command bridge and the heroes lay waste to the enemy. Why did we even need to put people in the armor if we can shoot it into the enemy bridge? Why not just shoot sacks of potatoes at that point? (The answer of course is the Rule of Cool.)
2) Dropping an army on Mars from orbit. Every man in one of those very very hard armors. Enemy aircraft ("ripWings") intercept them. No worry! Our hero has a sword!
Enemy ripWings followed us into the atmosphere, but here we’re more maneuverable, and we kill the big fighters with ease. I swoop in on one from behind with the Howlers hot on my tail, and slash it with my razor. I fly off as it spirals down through the clouds into the ocean below.
Even in Star Wars the Jedi fly spaceships to combat spaceships. They don't generally attack aircraft with lightsabers. Here, it's as if firearms never existed. Our hero holds a roomful of generals hostage with a sword. Nobody considers shooting him.
Months have passed since I read Golden Son, and I cannot stay angry about swords in space for this long. We get to visit a few planets/moons and they all have air and swordfighting. In a nod to science, gravity can be slightly different.
But my opinion of the plot structure has not improved with time. The hero was super at everything in school. But a few years later in the real world he gets beaten in space combat, he gets roughed up by a bunch of kids. No longer so invincible. He goes on anyway to challenge the best fighter in the universe to mortal combat. The duel is off to a bad start. Then we learn that he's been taking lessons in secret and is in fact the best fighter in the universe! Yay! This is not how books are supposed to go!
Normally the reader gets some hints in advance. It would be pretty easy to fix too. Like, in one scene an EMP disables all the tech. But surprise! Razors (swords) are not affected. Their control is "chemical". This would be fine by me if it had been mentioned earlier. But as it's just pulled out of thin air to save the hero in a seemingly hopeless situation it just feels like the author is messing with me. If razors are chemical, did the people with the EMP not know this? Why didn't they shoot something that disables razors too? (Like a grenade. They just wanted to kill everyone anyway.)
I found great satisfaction in the ending though! The hero walks into a clear ambush and everybody gets killed.
A very satisfying follow up to Red Rising, avoiding shallow waters and heading directly into the riptides of politics Darrow can't just stab to conquer (he still stabs lots of things, don't worry). The lessons of book 1 provide interesting set ups for book 2, both where Darrow learned from his mistakes, and where the conflict between his friendships and his origins means he repeats them. Warning: the ending is a real kick in the teeth.
It keeps uo the frantic rhythm of the first book and if anything ups the stakes. It is again, like a young adult fiction that's aware of politics. Good fun summer reads, good twists, good action... but I am not spoiling it for you. Go read it!
I didn't like this one quite a much as the first because it got a bit... disjointed i guess, from the protagonist characters origin, also they got a bit superheroish.
Picks up right where the last one left off. I read the first 2/3rds pretty slowly and then raced through the end in an evening, going straight into the next one.
Warning: the whole series is quite bloody. Not for the squeamish really.
J’avais déjà beaucoup aimé le premier tome de cette trilogie, la mise en place des personnages et de l’univers proposé par Pierce Brown m’avait conquise. Et pourtant, cette introduction me paraît à présent bien en dessous des volumes suivants, Golden Son et Morning Star.
Great read! Pierce Brown has grown in his writing. Once again a very predictable plot, even the "twists". There was only one bit I didn't see coming: the identy of Ares. I had some suspicions in the right direction, but not entirely right. The plot near the end is quite mature and the characters are not all black and white.
Wow. This book has a lot of flow. Of momentum. The author references the idea quite a bit from the protagonist's life as a Helldiver. I found myself often swimming with this flow and enjoying so very much of it.
Psychologically, there is a bit too much strife going on in Darrow's head. I have a hard time struggling with the 20-something-year-old at this points point of view but I get it more often than not; again it's a novel for the youthful struggle and within a construct of some very delicate political maneuvering which is executed very well.
The alliances, the stress within the moments, the inevitable--and sometimes surprising betrayals. Especially the betrayals. Did we have a red wedding moment here? I think we did. Goodness. My heart rate monitor spiked 20bps and made my blood go cold.
I await the next book, wtf is transpiring here. ;)
