Okay, you guys were right. I shouldn’t have waited so long to jump on the Red Rising bandwagon.
I just finished book one and I’m blown away. Brown’s writing is top-quality, giving readers all the tension, intrigue, moral dilemmas and twists we long for in Space Opera, all from a single first person POV that brings the reader right into the centre of the action to feel every scene personally. I’m impressed, and so ready for more.
Good thing all but the final book in this seven-novel series (technically a trilogy and tetralogy) have been released. If they’re all as amazing as Red Rising, I hope to binge every one before the expected final release of Red God in 2026.
The Story
In case anyone else has been living under a rock like me and doesn’t already know this, Red Rising is a dystopian space opera that follows sixteen-year-old Darrow from life as a downtrodden Red in Mars’s dangerous underground mines to leader of an underclass rebellion.
Initially, Darrow is a hell-diver, already married at sixteen and expected to be dead from mine labour before thirty. He and his fellow Reds live beneath the surface of Mars, enslaved by the false belief that their hard work and sacrifice in the mines is necessary to prepare the planet for human colonization. But when Darrow’s wife Eo discovers they’ve been duped, she inspires him to join a secret rebellion.
Funded by a mysterious group of rebels, Darrow undergoes brutal surgeries and cosmetic transformation to become a spy in the futuristic society’s ruling class, which lives in a utopian metropolis on the fully-colonized surface.
But when Darrow finally achieves acceptance into the cutthroat Gold academy that will lead him to a position of influence, he discovers that this “school” is nothing like he imagined. Instead of classrooms, he and his new schoolmates are dropped into a Game-of-Thrones-like gauntlet where the winners will have to kill one another to survive.
What I Liked
Absolutely every detail of this story was well done, from the excellent pacing to the epic and surprising medieval-style battle scenes. But the element that impressed me most was Brown’s skill with characterization.
A lot of characters come and go throughout the story, and Brown manages to give every single one of them a clear sense of personality. I felt like I knew these people. And that connection to the characters is what made me so emotionally invested in the battles, betrayals, loyalty shifts and character deaths. And it’s what built those delicious “I’m shocked but yet I should have seen this coming!” moments when characters ended up taking me by surprise.
As a romance reader, I obviously adored Darrow’s relationship with Mustang as well. I can’t wait to see how this potential enemies-to-lovers dynamic develops in further books!
Overall Thoughts
IMO Red Rising is a must-read for all sci-fi aficionados.
I definitely rec this to fans of trad space opera. But even if you mostly read indie or if you normally only pick up sci-fi romance, this is one of those classics-in-the-making that IMO you should invest in just to cultivate an awareness of what’s going on in the genre big picture. And even if you pick it up solely for genre education purposes, I think there’s a very high likelihood you’ll enjoy it. Red Rising is a blockbuster for a reason.
