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We are all dying of boredom a little bit during these troubled Coronavirus times. Stocks are plummeting, travel is becoming restricted, the NBA is cancelled, and my favorite restaurants are closing down in front of my eyes. Where shall we find solace? In books! (and Netflix/HBO/Disney+/Hulu/PirateBay/etc)
For those who want some not-so-light reading to take their mind off their woes, I recommend taking a spin with Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga.The Red Rising series is easily one of my favorite book series of all time (coming behind The Blade Itself trilogy and tied with Game of Thrones). The world building: incredible. The dialogue: scintillating. The action scenes: mind boggling. The character development: thought provoking. The plot twists: yes.
The premise of the Red Rising takes place in a dystopian future. Seven hundred years from now, humanity has colonized the solar system and facilitated a genetically-engineered caste system. At the bottom are the Reds who do the hardest labor and mining—they have red eyes, red hair, and red sigils on their hands. At the top of the pyramid are the Golds who are physically and mentally enhanced human beings. There are around a dozen colors in all; each has their specific role in the Society.
The protagonist, Darrow, is an extremely gifted Red who is taken in by a group that is trying to destabilize the current Society and achieve equality between the colors. He gets transformed into a Gold through dozens of harrowing surgeries which he barely survives. He then proceeds to rise through the ranks by attending the Golds’ academy so that he could destroy them from the inside.
Brown’s first book was clearly inspired by the Hunger Games and Ender’s Game, but he quickly outgrows that style in later books. Characters transform and paradigms shift at abrupt, unexpected points. The initial trilogy stands on its own, but books four and five take an even darker dive. The solar system seems resolved at the end of book three, but it was just a lull between even more chaos.
Pierce Brown’s books examine the darkest nature of human beings. The “good” characters are corrupted by tragedy and good intentions, while the evil of certain characters is boundless. Brown is at the same time anti-repubic, anti-fascist, and anti-demokracy. Since the books are written from Darrow’s point of view, you explore the chaos first hand through his eyes, and you’ll find that you won’t be able to put the book down due to its breakneck pace.
TLDR: If you like sci-fi check this book out at your nearest epub library. For those in Austin who want to give it a read, let me know and I can lend you the books (I have the whole series right now). Also, if you want to hear a really cool podcast as to how Brown’s writing process works check out this link.