“I cannot believe there is caste system in society; I cannot believe people are judged on the basis of their prosperity.”- Saina Nehwal

Red Rising

Why I Chose It

Besides, my other favorite genres include Science Fiction and Fantasy. With these genres there really is no limit to what the author can write about. I love learning about new worlds, new characters and new super powers that someone can gain or learn. These books offer an escape from reality. When looking up popular books I found Red Rising was offered multiple times. Reading into what the book is about, many people said it was a combination between Hunger Games and the Percy Jackson series, both of which I have read and seen in their respective movies. I liked both books, but definitely loved the Percy Jackson series more. The idea behind these books was novel. Therefore, with the combination I thought I should give Red Rising a try.

The Red Rising Book Cover

Summary - Spoilers!

Mars

The book starts off with a memory. Darrow, the main protagonist, is remembering how as a younger child he remained stoic as his father was hanged on live television. The people who televised his father’s death are called “the Society”. This group acts as the government of mankind. Darrow’s whole life has been on planet Mars. He has learned how mankind has colonized other planets for the last 700 years. With this colonization, there is a color based hierarchy; on the bottom are the Reds and on the top are the Golds as they are physically superior. When reading the novel I imagined the Red’s as 18th century British people living in the countryside, while Golds were more gentlemen and royalty-like except for their bloodthirsty nature. As a Red himself, Darrow is tasked with the rest of them to mine for helium-3, an isotope of helium, to terraform (the theoretical process of modifying a planet’s features such as atmosphere, temperature etc to make it Earth like) Mars to make it suitable for others. He works as a Helldiver–the most difficult job for a Red to assume. He must dangerously drill into Mars to find helium-3. Based on how he dives into this job, we see he is reckless, audacious, and willing to lose his life to accomplish a mission. He is constantly reminded of the greatness of the Gold and he should abide by their philosophies.

Color Hierarchy in Red Rising

Darrow is married to the love of his life Eo. Eo is like Darrow, but even more audacious and reckless. Eo eagerly talks about bringing down the Society. However, Darrow is more cautious about doing so. But, when Eo and Darrow are found in a forbidden area, they are captured. Darrow is whipped and tries to also take the whips for Eo. To no avail, Eo is whipped. Yet, in the middle of the punishment, Eo starts singing a forbidden folk song to protest against the Red’s enslavement. Mars’ ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus orders his troops to hang Eo while Darrow is forced to watch his own wife hang. He cuts her down and buries her body. This too is considered a crime and he is hanged as well. When he wakes up and finds out he is not dead, he is surrounded by the Sons of Ares. They are a terrorist group of Reds who fight against the oppression of being a “low Color”. He realizes he had been drugged and delivered to this group. This group has adopted the video of Eo’s song and uses it as a way to rally their cause. The group offers to turn Darrow into a Gold so that he can take over “the Society” from the inside. When he refuses, the leader of the Sons of Ares takes him to the other part of Mars where he sees a civilization. He realizes that centuries beforehand Mars had already been terraformed. With this new revelation, recognizing all of his efforts had been in vain, and Eo’s unjust death, he immediately accepts the offer.

A fan made video of what the song Eo sang would have sounded like

Violet

Wanting to make his Eo’s death meaningful, Darrow decides to go with the plan of changing himself to Gold. He is taken to a club-like place with members of the Son of Ares where he meets a Violet named Mickey. While Red’s are known for being workers and terraformers, Gold known for being superior, violets are known as carvers. Mickey successfully transforms him into a Gold. But, the process is done through many excruciating surgeries and implants. Once the entire physical process is complete, he learns a new identity. He is now a Gold “student” studying to be accepted in the Golds’ Institute. Darrow and other members of the Son of Ares in a club filled with other Violets

Gold

This elite school is for the best of the best Golds. In order to gain entrance into the school, Darrow must pass a test. Darrow is the only student that attains a perfect score. He is accepted into the Institute under the pretense of a perfect Gold student. In the Institute, the students are divided into twelve Houses: Apollo, Bacchus, Ceres, Diana, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Neptune, Pluto, Venus, Vulcan. After arriving at the Institute, he befriends Cassius au Bellona, who is charismatic and arrogant. He makes swift enemies with Antonia au Severus who is cold. When meeting with the Golds, Darrow has mixed feelings about being around them but he remembers Eo and is swiftly brought back to reality.

Darrow is selected for the House of Mars by Proctor Fitchner. Members of the House of Mars are known for having a fiercely aggressive personality. However, they can lose stamina easily. Completing the Placement test is the first part of “the Passage”. Completing the Passage, especially in the top, will give the student the greatest opportunities. For the second part of the Passage, the 100 new students in each of the twelve houses are paired with another house member–tasked to kill each other. Darrow is forced to murder Cassius’ brother Julian to survive. Darrow sees that Julian is significantly weaker than he is, and understands the Institute is using this brutal test to remove the weaker half of the students. After killing Julian, Darrow knows he cannot tell Cassius as he is an ally and cannot make enemies here. When Cassius learns of his brother’s death, he becomes filled with cold anger. He confides to Darrow that he tried his best to teach Julian how to fight and tried to deter him from joining the Institute. He is heartbroken that despite this, Julian ended up dying. House of Mars emblem

The Game

The third part of the Passage includes each House being assigned a fortress and a scepter. The scepter is called a standard. This is what each House must protect within the Institute’s confines with their goal also being to enslave all the other houses with the standard. Within the Mars House itself, it is fractured into four different groups: Darrow and Cassius, Antonia, Titus au Ladros, and Servo. Titus has been going on a violent rampage, attesting true to his house’s characteristics. Meanwhile, Darrow and Cassius have been withholding matches needed to cook food from the other groups in the Mars household.

With Titus’s violence going to make it easier for other houses to bring them down during the Winter time, Darrow manipulates House Minerva, led by a person named “Mustang”, and allows her and her troops to take Mars’s fortress and imprison Titus. In the meantime, Servo and Darrow together steal Minvera’s standard and trades it with Minvera to reclaim Mar’s castle. Darrow becomes Primus of Mars with Servo and his group declaring their loyalty to him. When Darrow goes to meet Titus, Titus starts to ramble and says the word “bloodydamn”. From his manner, Darrow realizes that Titus was also originally a Red. Due to this, Darrow sentences Titus to death. Titus is executed by Cassius as he was humiliated by him. While fighting the other Houses such as Ceres and Diana, a mysterious person by the name of Jackal has been thwarting Darrow’s intentions every step of the way. Jackal gives a huge blow to Darrow when he sends a “holo” to Cassius showing that Darrow killed Julian. Cassius and Darrow engage in a duel where Cassius strikes him with an ion blade. Thinking Darrow is dead, he leaves him in the Snow. Fan art of characters in Red Rising [1]

Mustang finds Darrow and nurses him back to health for a whole month. Unfortunately, she herself falls sick and needs antibiotics to survive. When looking for it, Darrow runs into his Procter Fitchner. Fitchner discloses to Darrow that this game has been rigged so that Adrius, the ArchGoverner’s son will win. Therefore, if he tries to hinder the Jackal’s or Adrius’s plans, the other proctors Jupiter and Apollo will kill him.

Darrow and Mustang discuss the way to win the Game. He realizes that keeping slaves was not the right strategy, remembering how the Society had treated the Reds. Therefore, he and Mustang devise a plan to free all the slaves. He reunites the House of Mars and leads them to house Apollo. Darrow captures the house but does not manage to capture Proctor Apollo. Darrow’s next target becomes the Jackal. When scouting for him, a boy named Lucian invites Darrow and his army into Jupiter’s castle. There, Darrow and Lucian talk and Darrow figures out that Lucian is from House Pluto, not Jupiter. He captures Lucian by stabbing his hand to the desk. Darrow has also deduced that Lucian is the Jackal when Lucian, accidentally, lets something slip. Darrow facetiously offers Lucian to set himself free if he cuts his own hand off. Lucian does so without any hesitation and in Darrow’s surprise, escapes.

During this time, Apollo captures Mustang and blackmails Darrow into giving up. However, Darrow is able to kill the Proctor with a special weapon given to him by Fitchner. Now having killed a proctor, Darrow goes to house Olympus where all the other Proctors are and captures them all. He frees Mustang and asks her to capture the Jackal. However, he learns from Fitchner that Mustang is actually Virginia au Augustus–twin to Lucian. He thinks he has been duped and prepares his army for another battle only to see that Mustang was loyal to him all along and gives him her twin.

Darrow won the game and is given a choice of a patron who can sponsor his future. ArchGovernor Augustus offers him his support. Even though this was the same man who killed his wife and almost killed him, he knows that in the grand scheme of things Augustus will give him the best opportunities to take down the Golds from the inside. He acquiesced the ArchGovernors offer.

Review

Fast Paced with a Beautiful Beginning and a Powerful Ending

Pierce Brown’s writing was fast paced and intriguing. With each of the chapters being short, I couldn’t help but continue on to the subsequent chapters. Each chapter was well paced and always had an intriguing detail or plot point. I couldn’t put the book down. The way Brown described different worlds, like Darrow’s home and Mars’s landscape, was incredible. I felt as if I could actually see it. The ending of the novel was also well done. The twists and turns such finding out about the Arch Governor’s role in Eo’s death and him being Mustang’s Father, was unexpected. Reading about the Game was also very entertaining, but it felt very familiar.

Hunger Games with Percy Jackson Flair

After finishing the book I realized that the “Game” was almost parallel to games in the Hunger Games because there were many ideas and plot points that were the same. For instance, instead of twelve houses there were twelve districts in the Hunger Games. There were Proctors who were Roman Gods in Red Rising, there are Proctors in the Hunger Games for each district and in the Percy Jackson series as well (they were Greek, however, there is a separate series that is part of this universe that has Roman mythology). The idea that the entire game is rigged is another, holos–a technology devices used to communicate with Proctors and “participants”, having one of the main characters be hurt while someone nurses them back to health, etc. It felt exactly like the Hunger Games. I loved the beginning and the ending of the book, but the middle, while thrilling, was not original. I can only described the first book as an “adult” Hunger Games.

Hunger games cover	Percy Jackson Series

Katniss is nursing Peeta back to health after he is hurt by other kids in the Games

Quotes that stuck with me

“Funny thing, watching gods realize they’ve been mortal all along.”

“Personally, I do not want to make you a man. Men are so very frail. Men break. Men die. No, I’ve always wished to make a god.”

“They pushed and pushed for so long. They knew I was something dangerous, something different. Sooner or later, they had to know I would snap and come to cut them down. Or perhaps they think I’m still a child. The fools. Alexander was a child when he ruined his first nation.”

“There is a flower that grows on Mars. It is red and harsh and fit for our soil. It is called haemanthus. It means ‘blood blossom.’”

Future

Although this is a series, I am not sure if I want to continue reading it. With most books, I am eager to wait for the next book. Despite the fact that all the books have been released I still don’t have that drive to read the next book. It might be because I am stressed out for grad school starting soon but usually my joy for reading supersedes that. The next title in the Series is called Golden Son. Some reviews say it is very good, but not great. It has the same pace as the first book but has a different plot point from the Hunger Games so maybe I will give it a try. However, as of right now I am reading a Sapiens: Brief History of Humankind. Once I finish that I will see if I want to continue this series or try another universe.

Golden Son is the next book in the series

Citations

[1]https://www.deviantart.com/scillavega/art/Red-Rising-character-doodles-598312645

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rising

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games