Red Rising

Red Rising Saga, #1

by Pierce Brown

Paperback, 382 pages

Published July 8, 2014 by Del Rey.

ISBN:: 978-0-345-53980-9
Goodreads:: 52880778

View on OpenLibrary

View on Inventaire

(176 reviews)

The Earth is dying.

Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it. The Reds are humanity's last hope.

Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie.

That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds.

A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought. Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside.

But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only …

The Earth is dying.

Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie.

That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds.

But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only student with an agenda.

Break the chains.

Live for more.

8 editions

Leaving_Marx@wyrmsign.org reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Is it a trope

4 stars

Started this series literally cause it is sci-fi on mars and talking about class conflict. This first book follows some really tired trends in sci-fi, overdone by YA fiction, of a school for youth who are trained in conflict to prove themselves. but this isn't a YAF booked, there is copious amounts of blood, the politicking, and alliances are more complex. It was definitely a slow burn for me where by the end of this first book i was invested enough finish the series.

a sneak peak to book two is I like it much better so consider working though it. Definitely a space opera for those who despise them, so you have been warned.

WillHayward reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

More Like Rome Rising, Amirite?

3 stars

"Rome in Space" has been done before but this might be my favorite adaptation. Starts off shakily by introducing its color system of societal hierarchy, making it seem much more like a "Hunger Games" knock off than it feels, even when it too falls into a "Battle Royale" style conflict, but by integrating it much more into its parent society, it feels much more vital and purposeful than Collins' usage of the same trope.

And for all that, it's a fun read. Not perfect but makes the time go quickly, and that's what I was looking for.

As an aside: It is shocking to see that it hasn't already been adapted for film or tv, but deciding the audience it would best serve seems like the largest challenge. Like "Ender's Game", the 16 year old protagonist and schoolyard relationships taken to bloody extremes are a tough balancing act when you …

And for all that, it's a fun read. Not perfect but makes the time go quickly, and that's what I was looking for.

blackbrokkoli reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Very much "the chosen one goes to magic high school". But fun.

V171 reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

dnf at 10%

the main character's wife gets fridged to advance his personal character development. Any story that utilizes such a tired and lazy trope has nothing interesting to offer in my opinion.

Melissa reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

This might be both my fastest DNF to date, and a surprising one. I always have a soft spot for scifi generally, and am especially compelled by any intersection of labor and any speculative fiction.

Maybe the strongest antipathy I have is toward the protagonist, which I register is something that could just be a matter of personality. Like, I can’t say I was fond of Ignatius J. Reilly, but I was almost always interested in what he was thinking. And an important detail here is that, at least as far as I got, the protagonist is just a kid (a 16-year-old boy) living a nightmare.

But as I read more, I realize more often that I’m always working with a finite and fluctuating pool of charity toward any given book (I tried at least twice before this year to read A Confederacy of Dunces and didn’t have the patience). So, being finite, the charity I can extend to, say, Darrow, is limited by the charity I feel like I have to extend to the rest of the work. So when Darrow is occasionally not r/iamverybadass-ing around and I read this:

> A cadre of Tinpots eye us as we trudge by over the worn concrete floor. Their Gray duroArmor is simple and tired, as unkempt as their hair. It would stop a simple blade, maybe an ion blade, and a pulseBlade or razor would go through it like paper. But we’ve only seen those on the holoCan. The Grays don’t even bother to make a show of force. Their thumpers dangle at their sides.

I spend a long time in my notes enumerating all of the tropes I hate and finding the right TVTropes url for them. I’m typing this all on a phone and, well, don’t have the patience to include them all + formatting now, but maybe will later. Or maybe I’ll find one be swept away again by one of the literally thousands of books I would like instead!

Wild Woila reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Recycled ideas

3 stars

Recycled ideas: hierarchical oppression, revolution, infiltration, proving ground. Reasonably done, but takes time to build up a good head of steam.

SciFi #SFF #Books #BookReview #Bookstodon #BookWyrm

Andy Christmas reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Top notch read, one of the best new series I've read in a while!

CuriousLibrarian reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Great page turner. I listened to the audio version, the reader did a great job of reflecting the protagonist's transition by the use of accents since it was told in the first person.

Chris M reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This one was a surprise. I didn't expect to like it as the military school trope has been done to death in both sci-fi and fantasy. However this one grabbed me early on and never let go. It started a bit slow for me but built up to a good story with a fantastic ending.

m9p909 reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

beginning was a little rough, main character just magically wins everything despite having far fewer advantages than his competitors
- Main character is really annoying until halfway through the book
- Gets much better in the second half
- not going to comment on the rest cause spoilers, but it's really good
- In summary, first half of the book is not terrible but pretty rough, second half is pretty good.

tivasyk reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

probably ok for a ya novell: harry potter meets lord of the flies meets the time traders... meets who knows what else. readable, but i have no high hopes for the (inevitable, unending) series.

ToadyNerd reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Very good read. It is cross between science fiction and fantasy, with a little mythology.

anaulin reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

My notes and highlights: anaulin.org/blog/book-notes-red-rising/

Anne reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'GoodReads'

3 stars

If I hadn't promised my spouse I would read this book, I would have quit sometime in part 1 or 2. In the beginning I found everyone unlikable—the main character, Darrow, was annoying; his wife, Eo, was very two-dimensional; and moving on to the surface of Mars I liked Matteo, but that was about it. Through all this, I hated the narrative voice. There was just something about it—petulance, arrogance, then highbrow British boarding school-esque talk—that just grated on my nerves. When Darrow finally got to the Institute, though, things got interesting.

Finally, I saw some character development for people beyond Darrow. Besides that, I enjoy a good war story, with all the betrayals, strategy, shifting alliances, and machinations that go into it. For all that I hated the first couple sections, I do have to admit that Pierce Brown knows how to write a page-turner, and that was very evident as the story progressed. The battle scenes were brutal but I couldn't tear my eyes away, needing to know what happened next. And the human element—who's allied with who, and the injustice at the hands of the Proctors—made me invested in the story and in what would happen to Darrow, Mustang, Sevro, and the others. For all my earlier complaints, when I finished Red Rising I knew I had to read the next one to find out what happens.

ManyRoads reviewed Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Saga, #1)

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

An excellent read. Excitement, tension, war, strategy, politics, betrayal, loyalty are all there. The flawed hero's soul and his very being are challenged. A struggle for the soul of society.
...it all takes place on the planet of Mars.