Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown is another book that I've seen being recommended. It and its sequels are available here in libraries so I decided to check out the first one. I didn't look any more to what kind of books they were but the quote on the cover from Scott Sigler told me exactly what was I about to read: "Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow."

In the book's world, humanity is divided into castes named after colors and is taking the steps to colonize the Solar System. Reds are pioneers, working hard in the underground of Mars, mining helium-3 so that the planet can be terraformed and claimed as their own.

Darrow is a young, hotheaded, and daring miner, a Helldiver. His wife Eo leads him to a recreational area meant only for Grays who form the soldiers and police force of society. The couple is discovered and breaking rules is punished harshly. Eventually both end up getting hanged.

Unknown to the Reds, their distant dream has already happened: Mars supports life and the rest of the Colors live there in excess. The Reds are slaving away to the benefit of a society that does not care about them. The Reds in the mines are not even just Reds but lowReds. Meanwhile highReds on the surface and elsewhere are aware of things, though still as the caste pyramid's base. (This camelCase format Brown liked to use for words in the novel bothered me: programming variable names everywhere!)

Darrow learns this after his not-quite-dead body is recovered by the Sons of Ares, a resistance movement that aims to overthrow the hierarchy. Darrow is recruited to the Sons, to infiltrate the ruling caste, the Golds, and bring them down from the inside. Then follows sort of a training montage. Darrow has to study to pass as a Gold and his body needs to be heavily modified: Darrow's stringy, malnourished Red frame is nothing next to the 7-feet-tall Golds.

I find it implausible that the Golds would have never learned of the resistance and were not aware of their schemes. There are so many people involved with it that the secret would be impossible to keep.

The Golds have observed the cyclical nature of civilizations in history: their rise and inevitable fall. This is far from the first novel ever to feature such an observation but I was amused by how the terminology is the same as what Robert E. Howard's Conan uses: from Savagery to Ascendance to Decadence.

To prevent decadence from settling on their rule and crumbling their empire back to savagery, the Golds have come up with the Institute. There young Golds go through a hastened ascendance from savagery, the most brilliant students rising to become society's most esteemed, the rulers and generals, the Peerless Scarred who will keep the status quo. The game is rigged, however. It is not necessarily the best who win but those whom the most influential support. It seems decadence has already seeped in.

The story continues and ends predictably, although there is quite a number of identity-related twists. Some promise of tension is given for the following novels with how one of Darrow's fellow students knows that he's not a Gold.

Despite generally being mentally and physically superior, not all Golds are the same. Some of them might end up on Darrow's side. Also, I couldn't help but notice how despite there being a whole score of different Colors and shades in the caste system, black is not one of them, instead being Obsidian. I'm guessing the plural was problematic.