NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Morning Star returns to the Red Rising universe with the thrilling sequel to Iron Gold. “Brown’s plots are like a depth charge of nitromethane dropped in a bucket of gasoline. His pacing is 100% him standing over it all with a lit match and a smile, waiting for us to dare him to drop it.”—NPR (Best Books of the Year)He broke the chains. Then … (Best Books of the Year)
He broke the chains. Then he broke the world….
A decade ago Darrow led a revolution, and laid the foundations for a new world. Now he’s an outlaw.
Cast out of the very Republic he founded, with half his fleet destroyed, he wages a rogue war on Mercury. Outnumbered and outgunned, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will he become the very evil he fought to destroy?
In his darkening shadow, a new hero rises.
Lysander au Lune, the displaced heir to the old empire, has returned to bridge the divide between the Golds of the Rim and Core. If united, their combined might may prove fatal to the fledgling Republic.
On Luna, the embattled Sovereign of the Republic, Virginia au Augustus, fights to preserve her precious demokracy and her exiled husband. But one may cost her the other, and her son is not yet returned.
Abducted by enemy agents, Pax au Augustus must trust in a Gray thief, Ephraim, for his salvation.
Far across the void, Lyria, a Red refugee accused of treason, makes a desperate bid for freedom with the help of two unlikely new allies.
Fear dims the hopes of the Rising, and as power is seized, lost, and reclaimed, the worlds spin on and on toward a new Dark Age.
Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga:
RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE
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Forget Game of Thrones…this is the new, better gold standard for complex, morally-grey characters battling it out for control in a grimdark where occasional glimpses of love, family, and courage still shine through. Filled with memorable characters and vivid scenes enough for two seasons’ worth of television, Dark Age shows how much Pierce Brown has grown as a writer over the year, going from slightly-inferior Hunger Games knockoff to possibly the best fantasy series in recent memory in only five books.
My Rating:
In my mind, Dark Age is book #2 of the second trilogy of the Red Rising series. Officially Red Rising #5. If you’re a fan of Red Rising, you don’t need my review. I strongly recommend it to any Science Fiction fans, particularly if you love epic space opera/sagas. In this second trilogy it seems to me that Pierce Brown has abandoned the black and white of the fight between good and evil and has ventured in to the muddy marbled gray and white of reality.
Generally: Since this is the second book into the second trilogy of a complex epic space saga series there is no simple or generally.
I checked in at Fandom.com to refresh my memory on this book. The Dramatis Personae at Fandom has 5 separate tabs of classes of characters with no fewer than 5 characters in each tab. So if you are 5th book deep in the Red Rising series expect to challenge your memory with plots, subplots and character arcs that are both logical and as befuddled a tangle as the electromagnetic fields of our local sun. To steal a popular relationship phrase from Facebook: It’s complicated.
At this time, 8-2-20, the third book in the second Red Rising trilogy is slightly less mysterious than the odds that George Raymond Richard Martin will finish A Song of Ice and Fire series before he meets the Earth’s population Editor in the Sky.
I’ve grown to like and even anticipate chapters with Lyria, Ephraim, or Volga in focus in this series. While the Darrow, et al thread is still the primary plot arc, I’ve grown as interested in these “minor” characters. I suspect I will be surprised when the series concludes with some jaw dropping conclusion twist involving one of the new second trilogy POV characters.
For more detailed info about Dark Age check out the blurbs here or massive spoilers here.
My Notable Notes: Are deleted. I do recall having rather focused attention and emotions about Lyria of Lagalos. <--Link is major spoiler. Likes and Dislikes: (Possible spoilers). I've had to work at not discarding this second trilogy as it has ventured from the Heroic Journey plot that is nearly always uplifting to a more "looking-under-the-hood" of the reality of the Red Rising rebellion. Where do slaves go when the masters are driven off of their backs? Who enforces or even makes laws in ghettos or refugee camps when the authority slips away or worse, becomes tyrants with power and a belly full of resentment. The Technical: Pierce Brown is an excellent writer who understands the craft and how to tell stories. In Red Rising series there are literally 40 characters the reader is familiar with and interacts with on an emotional basis. This is certainly storytelling a reader can get lost in. Mr. Brown knows all these characters and their relatives. He's lived with them for ages and sometimes he is likely surprised they jumped instead of ducking. He's a courageous writer. I could write a novella on that topic alone but it isn't something any average reader will find amusing. Part of my souring on the continuation of the Red Rising series is precisely the character depth and the plot intricacy that is so real that it brings tears, or with me, nudged my genuine loathing of injustice. I think the reason so many folks tend to dislike Lyria, for example, is because she's genuinely disgusted with the failure of hope. I suspect some find this character a little too close to a reality that actually sucks and don't appreciate reality seeping into their mode of escape via literature. Writers like Pierce Brown continue to find interesting and even profound ways to take ancient plot and themes told in a million stories and make them feel like something entirely new. Read on... January 01, 02, 04, 05, 11, 12, 2020 More about me here.
I finally made it all the way to the end of this book. I had to take a lot of breaks to recover from all the violence, gore, and death of favorite characters, some of whom turn out not to be dead after all. The scope of this book is so vast, the characters so numerous, the plot so complicated, the various manners of death so gruesome, it’s like Game of Thrones on steroids—I didn’t even think that was possible. And after all that, IT’S NOT EVEN OVER. Yowza.
This is a culmination of differing philosophies, vivid action, and cunning politics all intertwined in a solar system where humanity has conquered the most daunting of environments. Good and evil, right and wrong, is merely a consequence of perspective as gods of war and generational thinkers battle one another for what they each perceive as justice, equality and order. The best installment yet in Pierce Brown’s best selling Red Rising Saga.
Amazing piece of work. Been a fan of the series for years now and I will say, the latest book did not disappoint. Seldom do books shock me with their story lines, this one went above and beyond. The words melted from the page as the intricate imagery nearly jumps at you. I highly recommend to anyone who loves fantasy novels.