"Red Rising": The Helldiver Hath Unmatched Fury

A brutal depiction of alien caste systems (and its numerous shortcomings).

[First Published: July 22, 2022]

I was eager to read Pierce Brown’s Red Rising. The reason? I love the idea of combining dystopian fiction with a science fiction setting, particularly a setting with interesting and colorful themes. The environment is the book's strongest point since Brown does create a world that is bright and fascinating to explore.

Red Rising is the first book in a trilogy that took the world by storm back in 2014. I unintentionally avoided the series, but I am glad for your frequent emails to give this book a try. The first novel is one of the most gripping stories I have read in a while. Pierce Brown is a sadist who is unafraid to kill the characters you fall in love with. If you are looking for a comparison, I would say that this book is like Ender's Game (previously reviewed) meets Game of Thrones (book reviews to come).

The story takes place in the far future, where a space-faring society has thrown away democracy and separated people into color-coded castes based on the roles they are required to fulfill. There are many different colors, from the Golds, who are rulers of all, to the Greys, who provide security services, to the Pinks, who offer comfort and pleasure services, and more. The story follows Darrow, a Red, who lives under the Martian surface mining for ores used to terraform planets and moons. The Reds are the pioneers and were promised that once the terraforming has been completed, they will be greatly rewarded for their services, but they have been mining for a long time now, and the work is extremely dangerous. After a great tragedy befalls Darrow, he is brought to the surface where he learns that the Reds are not pioneers, they are enslaved, and he is allowed to fight for their freedom.

Red Rising is a story slow to start but fast to finish. Brown spends the early chapters setting the stage for what is to come. It is hard to talk about this book without spoiling many of its surprises, which speak to the size of the journey Darrow embarks upon. While Darrow begins as the Helldiver for an underground Martian colony, he spends most of the book fighting for survival at a cutthroat academy, looking for opportunities to demonstrate his talents, and boy, are those talents considerable. This is not a survival of the fittest story, as many of the fittest characters never make it to the end; this is a survival of the ruthless survival of the deceptive and resourceful. At least one of your favorite characters will likely die.

Darrow is a brilliant young man, demonstrating capacity beyond what a Red is supposed to demonstrate. Many see him as a brilliant-at-everything-and-almost-unstoppable character. I do not see Darrow this way. I think Brown establishes that while Darrow may be a skillful protagonist, he has many issues and weaknesses that undermine his skills. I also think Brown significantly stacks the odds against Darrow to the point where any slip-up has severe consequences. Darrow's transition from underdog to dangerous predator is one of immense fascination throughout the story. Brown demonstrates throughout the book how easy it is for the mighty to fall.

One last point I want to touch on is the manner in which Brown delicately paces his humane and inventively constructed world. I was rarely able to predict any outcomes, with Brown keeping me on my toes for the duration. He manages to put Darrow into situations where there are multiple decisions available, with each decision having a different but equally appealing outcome, with a different but similarly unwanted set of consequences attached. I was rarely able to determine with any certainty which option Darrow would make because you could easily justify why each option would be the appropriate one. I also enjoyed that there was no “safe option.” There was no clearly advantageous option, and a positive outcome relied on Darrow and the team being able to respond to any complication brought about by his decision-making effectively. This continues to the final page, and I applaud Brown for being able to pull it all together in such a coherent and impactful way.

Red Rising is a book that deserves all the hype it received upon release and in the subsequent years. It is not a perfect book; the start can be hard to get into, and parts of the final act seem unnecessary, but there is so much beauty in the book that I find it easy to look past the minor faults. Red Rising is a book that has stayed with me for days after I finished reading it, and it has been a long time since a book had such an impact on me.