Red Rising

, #1

Paperback, 382 pages

Published by Del Rey.

ISBN:
978-0-345-53980-9
Copied ISBN!
Goodreads:
52880778
4 stars (152 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 …

7 editions

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The audience for this is clearly intended to be "People who liked The Hunger Games." Except for straight white men.

Our hero, Darrow, lives in a stratified, classical Greece inspired society, which is almost hilariously evil. Like, his caste, the Reds, live underground, starved, labouring in a fatally dangerous job, lied to that they are working for the day when Mars is inhabitable. What they don't know is that Mars is already inhabitiable, it's just that their labour is still useful. Also, they labour all month to win a competition that will give them extra food, but when they win, the prize goes to the other team because their overlords, the Golds, are Just That Evil. Anyway, his wife is murdered by the Golds, and Darrow is recruited into the resistance, where he is given a plastic surgery makeover to look like a Gold, and he becomes Revenge Batman to …

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This started off really annoying. It was slow, it was predictable. Had it not been recommended by two friends, I'd have put it down and never picked up again. Luckily I kept going on, it really got better page after page once Darrow was kicked into the game/school/whatever the hell that was. While reading the last 200 or so pages, I literally couldn't put it down.
I'm not sure why there are no women except for LoveInterestGirl and RandomBystanderGirlWhoCouldBeAGuyAsWell in the game, but I'll take a guess at "because that's how it always has been".

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

I think the book was better than I give it credit for, but I went in having accidentally hyped myself up and not having read any specifics about it. I found the premise of the book rather cheesy and from there nothing the book did could save it for me.
What is it with no-class-mobility dystopias and colour coding the classes to emphasise it? In what human world could that happen?

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A fun sci-fi novel that follows the YA Dystopian bandwagon. It follows the quest of a young miner who must break from his social caste to infiltrate the tyranny that keeps his people enslaved. It reads fast and I enjoyed it. Not the best writing but good for YA. The worst issue was pacing but a great debut.

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Interesting premise, but it may crib too much from existing works, since very little is surprising beyond the setup. Unlike Hunger Games or Ender's Game there are pretty much no likeable characters. It is all mere savagery, and the mournful obsessions that teenage me would have eaten up. That said, it is still a fairly entertaining read.

I think my review of Hunger Games is just as applicable to this book, especially the quote from Stephen King: www.goodreads.com/review/show/253234489

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Red Rising is the first part of what seems to be a fun, fast paced trilogy which genuinely surprises you with plot twists and that flows along like the Hunger Games once did when I read it for the first time.
There's not much about the plot you can say without spoiling the story and that's more than half the fun in this book, so I will just say I think the world building is detailed enough to feel immersive but not so much you get bored.
I recommend it if you enjoy adult fiction with some serious political questions motivating the story. Not a lot of depth to the character building though, once you get the archetypes figured out you can sort of identify everyone's role in the story.. but it still manages to be exciting fun and, oddly enough, surprising at some points.
Great summer reading, for fun …

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Going from heavy lifting reading of dark places to young adult reading of dark places is a bit distorting. It's like going from hiking mountains to a jaunt in some hilly woods. Takes a bit to get used to. ;)

Ah, the story of someone who is wronged, a caste system that is broken, and the ever present martyrs that catalyze a change. I thought I was entering a familiar trope--wouldn't you?

We go from that to a bodies transmogrification to something more familiar to Hunger Games, maybe in that it's just a wooded game--which is, of course, rigged, which of course, the protagonist wants to break the living crap out of.

Go get'm tiger..er Reaper!

It read fast, very fast, very easy, and I barked a few laughs here and there. When things go well though there is a palatable pitfall you can taste coming, and they do. Time …

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

TL;DR if you liked the Hunger Games, Ender's Game or similar dystopian Panem et Circenses style books you'll enjoy this first volume of the trilogy. Promised. Also lots of cool technology and interesting society, so if strange new worlds is your thing: read this.

But at its base, it is yet another iteration of the Hunger Games / Ender's Game variant of young adult stories. It starts out in a dreary, sweaty way that nearly made me put down the book. For some reason, I don't like beginnings where everything is already in the dregs. I like beginnings shiny before things take a turn for the worse.

The protagonist Darrow starts out as a Red. And in this world some 7 or 8 centuries in our future humanity has remade itself into color-coded castes using brutal eugenics, and the Reds are at the bottom of the hierarchy, they are the …

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

Review of 'Red Rising' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The gravity on Mars is lower than on Earth. When a person is sentenced to be hanged you have to pull their feet. They let their loved ones do it.

This mix of love and brutality summarizes this series for me. It that sounds tragic but intriguing to you then check out this recently completed trilogy.

avatar for Nr616

rated it

3 stars
avatar for james

rated it

3 stars
avatar for selykg

rated it

5 stars
avatar for buu709

rated it

5 stars
avatar for nonskanse

rated it

4 stars
avatar for rainer

rated it

5 stars
avatar for tempse

rated it

3 stars
avatar for booker

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Tazlog

rated it

5 stars
avatar for salvage

rated it

3 stars
avatar for NC

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Heavyboots

rated it

4 stars
avatar for palousegeo

rated it

4 stars
avatar for masyukun

rated it

3 stars
avatar for kimkarma66

rated it

4 stars
avatar for astroMD

rated it

4 stars
avatar for keithd

rated it

4 stars
avatar for vandermore

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Tamino

rated it

5 stars
avatar for jumpinggrendel

rated it

4 stars
avatar for wakatara

rated it

4 stars
avatar for clayferris

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Dunedinmouse

rated it

4 stars
avatar for ricargoes

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Juliane

rated it

3 stars
avatar for squishymage42

rated it

5 stars
avatar for brlockwood

rated it

3 stars
avatar for kanedo

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Jolteon

rated it

4 stars
avatar for osiris

rated it

5 stars
avatar for JustGrist

rated it

4 stars
avatar for bryanjd

rated it

4 stars
avatar for MandolinDan

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Coalford

rated it

5 stars
avatar for paudie

rated it

5 stars
avatar for mattmerk

rated it

3 stars
avatar for susurros

rated it

3 stars
avatar for xianny

rated it

4 stars
avatar for tremain

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Justtryin

rated it

5 stars
avatar for fighting

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Wyatt

rated it

3 stars
avatar for CSND

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Zelanator

rated it

5 stars
avatar for sml

rated it

4 stars
avatar for 73pctGeek

rated it

3 stars
avatar for AndySoc1al

rated it

4 stars
avatar for nightgolfer

rated it

4 stars
avatar for astrodad

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Manzabar

rated it

3 stars
avatar for AnotherFelix

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Shack70

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Angzarr

rated it

4 stars
avatar for chase

rated it

4 stars
avatar for wislander

rated it

3 stars
avatar for casocial

rated it

4 stars
avatar for tlj

rated it

5 stars
avatar for CapnJazzHandz

rated it

5 stars
avatar for srypher

rated it

5 stars
avatar for bachya

rated it

5 stars
avatar for lumii

rated it

4 stars
avatar for SeaJay

rated it

5 stars
avatar for JoeClu

rated it

4 stars
avatar for eviley3

rated it

3 stars
avatar for trevor

rated it

4 stars
avatar for philiporange

rated it

5 stars
avatar for lacop

rated it

5 stars
avatar for dactyl

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Jorn

rated it

3 stars
avatar for npchampion

rated it

5 stars
avatar for jamesbrooks

rated it

3 stars
avatar for molgar

rated it

4 stars
avatar for inerte

rated it

5 stars
avatar for antwan

rated it

4 stars
avatar for mivade

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Dzzt

rated it

3 stars
avatar for piotr

rated it

5 stars
avatar for fatalicus

rated it

4 stars
avatar for starstryke

rated it

5 stars
avatar for aaronhktan

rated it

2 stars
avatar for jmc142

rated it

4 stars
avatar for retro198908

rated it

4 stars
avatar for karlhungus

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Nikita

rated it

3 stars
avatar for msr901

rated it

3 stars
avatar for peter_hall

rated it

5 stars
avatar for estranho

rated it

5 stars
avatar for annyreading

rated it

5 stars
avatar for tcgoetz

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Shtakser

rated it

5 stars
avatar for BillieCodes

rated it

4 stars
avatar for pdrbstmnt

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Axl

rated it

4 stars
avatar for cargide

rated it

4 stars
avatar for DraagDunk

rated it

3 stars
avatar for PineappleButtonUp

rated it

5 stars
avatar for joka

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Yehlaer

rated it

5 stars
avatar for kursis

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Minnozz

rated it

5 stars
avatar for SirEvil

rated it

5 stars
avatar for BraveSirJeff

rated it

4 stars

Subjects

  • Fiction
  • Science Fiction

Lists