Iron Gold (Red Rising Series) Hardcover – Illustrated, January 16, 2018

I hate to be the voice of dissent here. But Pierce Brown set himself up by raising the bar impossibly high with all three installments of the Red Rising.Most of the elements (original pattern of speech, rich vocabulary, unapologetic exploration of emotional and philosophical undercurrents, unpredictable twists and turns, constant play of contrasts) that made the Red Rising a masterpiece, surviving my multiple re-reads, are preserved in this book but the soul is missing.Unlike its predecessors, this book is not blessed with self-awareness. I felt so far from the characters and the events like the story has been told too many times before it was written on the pages in front of me.I did get into it around the 80% mark. I wouldn’t even mind cliffhanger if the ride to the cliff was real and not a holo-immersion.Lysander's arc was not essential to this story. I assume it builds the next installment and was added to preserve the chronology. But it was distracting, albeit enjoyable. Lyria's arc is shallow, lots of telling and very little showing after she gets to Luna. I wanted to see Lyria's anger and isolation in a dialogue with other colors which would have helped the world building from the inside out.Too many planets to handle: Luna, Venus, Earth, Io. Too many social powers: Republic, Society, The Red Hand, Syndicate, The Rimm, houses, disassembled Sons of Ares. All of these elements are introduced through too many descriptives, page after page. To be a five-star book, the page count has to double. Or better yet, split it into two books with Lyria's and Lysander's points of view earning the spot of the main arc in two separate books. I will not abandon this author and the Red Rising series. I will not advise any readers to not read this book. Just prepare to put work into it and, perhaps, be ready for a mild disappointment the finish line. The hope for the future books to come is still alive and well. ADDED LATER: Try reading Lysander's point of view as a novel, skipping all others. And then try reading Ephraim's, Darrow' and Lyria's POVs​ as intended (skipping Lysander's). It flows so much better and your emotions are not at a constant​ "stop-and-go" pace.

First off, I believe Pierce Brown's original Red Rising trilogy (Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star) is one the greatest science fiction sagas in modern literary history. A blend of Star Wars and Game of Thrones - with no fantasy or extraterrestrial elements - the original trilogy offered readers a fully-realized world and nuanced takes on war, empire, and class systems, while also delivering a rip-roaring adventure story.However, Iron Gold - the first installment in a new trilogy set in the same universe - falls a little flat.The revolution is over. Set 10 years after the events of Morning Star, Iron Gold is about what it looks like to rule after a revolution and regime change. Once again, Brown creates a believable world preoccupied with moral dilemmas about politics, war, and power. And, instead presenting the entire narrative from the point-of-view of one protagonist (Darrow), Brown introduces three more POV-characters - which expands the scope of the series considerably.However, one of my issues with this book is its over-reliance on secondary characters. The future society in the Red Rising series is heavily influenced by ancient Roman culture, so nearly every proper noun in the series is unfamiliar to the reader. While this an unique spin (and, honestly, one of the distinctive elements and main draws of the series), it makes keeping track of all the different characters incredibly difficult once things start getting complicated.And, boy, do things get complicated fast.Between all the different Colors, Houses, planets, factions, dynasties, political parties, alliances, underworld gangs, rogue military units, marriages, spies, traitors, sibling rivalries, children, and family grudges, you'll be wishing for a far more detailed index of characters and places than is offered at the start of the book. Kudos to Brown for creating a world that rivals George R. R. Martin's labyrinth of interweaving characters in such a short amount of time.In other words, if you don't have encyclopedic knowledge of the Red Rising universe, you're probably going to spend at least a 1/3 of this book lost and confused.Multiple times throughout the book, I couldn't tell if I was being introduced to a new character or reintroduced to a character I should already know. And, unfortunately, this sapped a lot of the emotional urgency from the narrative when some of these characters were in danger or met grisly ends.At 600 pages, Iron Gold is the longest book in the series thus far, but it doesn't feel as if too much really happens. The action scenes are few and far between, and there are so many characters they sometimes feel as if they've been reduced to pieces moving on a chessboard than fully realized people.I know it sounds as if I'm being overtly negative, but the original trilogy was so riveting, engaging, and personal, it's hard not to feel a little let down by a novel that wants to be so much more than the sum of its parts. With all that being said, there are several elements of the book I can praise.Whether it's an orbital bombardment, beachfront assault, or one-on-one combat, there are very few writers who can capture the horrors of war with such beauty and mess. And Brown is a master at plotting. His ability to create unexpected confrontations and scenarios in a genre so overridden with cliches is second-to-none. At no point was I ever bored.Even though it was (more than) occasionally frustrating, I enjoyed my experience with Iron Gold. I have to remind myself that it's a setup for an entirely new trilogy arc. I am excited for the next installment, and I genuinely care what happens to the characters - including some of the new additions. I'm looking forward to Dark Age, which is due out this fall.

I read Pierce Brown's "Red Rising" as a pre-release reviewer and loved it, so did my teen and college-aged children. We also read the other two books that followed in the original trilogy. I therefore looked forward to reading "Iron Gold" and even bought a hard-cover edition (not my usual mode for books). Anyway, I started and was happy to see that there was a (long) list of main characters as well as a map of the solar system showing who controlled which planets, moons, etc., since I had to refer back to these MANY times as I read.I can usually slice through a book in a few days to a week if it holds my interest. This one took perhaps a month to get through...including breaks of a few days here and a week there until I finished up.Compared to the earlier books in the series, I found this book to be a rather difficult journey. I felt like I was shot here and there through the entire solar system and was expected to juggle LOTS of characters. At the same time I felt like the author expected me to care about all of the characters, but I could not understand why several of them were supposed to matter. In fact, when I went from one chapter to the next, it would take me a few pages to figure out who was involved and what they were doing.Like my daughter said when we was reading it, why am I supposed to care about much less remember this character or that one...? She's an even more avid reader than I am.In short I finished the book because I bought it and therefore felt obligated to get through it.Sadly, my experience wasn't stellar and I doubt that I will continue to read any more in this series.

I read one book after the other in the original trilogy followed by this one and the differences are huge. Firstly Darrow is no longer the only focus as the story is told from Lyria, Lysander, Ephraim and Darrow's points of view. The epic cross galaxy wars are now told from individual perspectives so you lose the grandeur of the original books.The problem with that is that the stories are just boring. The book starts 10 years after the end of Morning Star and there's political unrest in the Republic, Venus is the last standing power and uprising in the ring. That situation doesn't change at all by the end of the book. Simply put, nothing happens in this entire book.Spoilers ahead.This book could have been great had they told the story from Mustang, Cassius and Darrow's points of view but they don't. Cassius dies but this is merely told to Lysander and just seems so flat after his heroic arc in Morning Star. Mustang is almost written out entirely, appearing only very briefly at the beginning.The worst part by far though is how stupid the author has made Darrow. He constantly makes decisions that are so unbelievably dumb that it makes no sense. He was set up as a man of the people, devoted and loyal to his friends and Mustang. In this book, he constantly betrays them, treats them like they're the enemy and generally always opts for the most idiotic path to take. For example, he leaves his son and wife then kills Republic guards trying to arrest him even though he knowingly accepts it would damage his wife politically, he loses half his army leaving Luna, ignores and loses Sevro by the end of the book and when he learns his son has been kidnapped decides the best course of action is to not go home. The author has tragically ruined the amazing character he spent 3 books building in this one book.

The differences in this book will leap out at you as soon as you begin reading; no longer is Darrow the sole narrative standpoint, but we get the viewpoints of three new(ish) characters as well. The scope of the story has changed significantly as well, which is what (arguably) necessitates the inclusion of the extra characters.Whereas before we had Darrow's Rising unfolding before us with a series of climactic scenes and battles, the struggles presented in this book are broadly political and take place concurrently over the whole Solar System, from Mercury and Venus all the way to the Rim planets. To cover all of that you need more points of view, right?Well, no. Not really. The earlier instalments also had significant scope and managed just fine. It's not as easy to convey the solar-scale events with a single viewpoint, but it would certainly be doable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with multiple viewpoints, and there's many reasons to recommend it.So why am I calling attention to it in a critical review? Because in this book, it causes issues.The biggest issue is one that sometimes crops up in longer series with a lot of viewpoints, and is also common in books that, like this one, are following on from a solidly concluded previous instalment.Nothing important has happened.The whole book is spent getting to the point where the book should have started. The book starts with the Republic struggling politically, at war with a nearby power, and with trouble brewing on the Rim. It then spends 600+ pages to end up in the same situation, just with slightly different flavours of trouble and war.You could remove the entirety of the Lysander sections and replace them with a one-page intelligence report to one of the other characters. The Ephraim sections build up to an important event, but there was no need to waste a quarter of a book doing it. You could have had both sections happen off-screen, and they would arguably have had more emotional impact since they wouldn't have been tortuously telegraphed.I'm pretty sure, thinking back, that everything relevant in Ephraim's sections could have been done through Lyria's POV. That would have made the story stronger, I feel, because her sections represent an interesting counterpoint to the overall theme; the Rising has risen, and our downtrodden are now part of the ruling class. But Lyria shows that even in this brave new world there's still those downtrodden. They show the darker parts and prejudices in the Republic. Her bits are the saving graces of the book, tbh.And oh my, the counterproductive mess that is Darrow. He's clearly taken a few blows to the head in the intervening 10 years since he repeatedly admits that his actions will damage the Republic, whilst also saying that his actions are to protect the Republic. He also cheerfully betrays his wife and friends, and just generally does the stupidest thing imaginable over and over again to achieve... nothing. And it's not even like his plan was a longshot to turn the tide. It was an attempt to end the war against an enemy who was suing for peace anyway, and was foiled by the complicated machination of the enemy actually having more than one person capable of leading a fleet.This book did not need four characters. It's not a short book, but splitting the narrative into 4 creates some disjointed pacing and means that each character is getting far less screen time. This has the knock-on effect of preventing the author from displaying the depth of character development and writing flair that were major strengths of the first books, as he's busy trying to cram everything in wherever it will fit.And I guess the sub-tragedy here is that with the way this has been structured, he almost has no choice but to continue with the 4 POV setup for the next book. Hopefully it won't suffer quite so badly.Given all that, I suppose it might seem a little odd that I still give the book 3 stars. For all its flaws, there are still some fantastic bits of action there, and I really like the tone and setup of Lyria's sections. If Amazon allowed it I would have given it 2.5, but on the strength of the bits that were good I felt it deserved to go up half a star rather than down.But seriously Darrow, sort yourself out.

After the original trilogy I wasn't sure what to expect and I like that PB really shook things up!This book is set 10 years on and is full of your favourite (surviving) characters from Morning Star.I really liked the jump forward in time. I like seeing how relationships and people have changed over time and what the Republic has achieved in 10 years.The biggest change is the multi POV style. This book follows two characters from the original series as well as two new characters, Lyria, a red from the Martian mines and Ephraim a disillusioned grey.PB is just so good at making you fall in love with characters (and then kill them!) I still love Darrow, Sevro and Cassius but Volga is my new favourite Obsidian and the Telemanuses and Sophocles will always be favourites.One thing I didn't enjoy though is I spent the whole book terrified PB is going to kill off my favourites, if he does then I will wish he just left it as the original trilogy... I've had enough heartbreak!A minor point is that Pacing seemed to be back to red rising style- slightly inconsistent.Some parts-amazing and gripping, others a little ploddy/filler-y. I guess with the multiple POV there was a lot of introducing the characters and their backstories-even the two you know.This world that PB has built is absolutely amazing, its so well thought out, the overall plots are intricate, complex, full of betrayals, policitics, action but I do think its the characters that will stick with me. Started Dark Age as soon as i finish this!!

“Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.”Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown5*I have decided to review the first 3 books as one review, as I read them in quick succession (I guess you already can guess my impression of the books!). The reviews will not include any spoilers for those who have not read the second or third books, and minimal spoilers for the first book.The series is based on a future when we have colonised the planets in the solar system and it is organised by a caste system divided into colours with the Golds at the top who live in luxury and other colours who serve them, Blues who fly the ship, the Pinks who provide sexual services etc. Each colour has been genetically modified to perform a specific function, or look a certain way and their role in life is dictated by the colour they are born into, even their personalities moulded to keep them in line, though circumstance, upbringing or even manipulation.Our main character, Darrow, is a Red, a miner and is smaller than most other colours but his role as a Helldriver requires him to be more dexterous and fearless than other Reds. He is based on Mars and he works in difficult conditions, believing that one day his descendants will benefit as he helps make the surface of Mars viable for living for future generations.However, Darrow learns that he is betrayed, and the higher colours have been lying and are living opulently on the surface for many years. This and other personal reasons, sends Darrow on a mission to “break the chains” and infiltrate the Golds to bring the caste system down from the inside. His transformation is (view spoiler)I especially liked the camaraderie that develops between unlikely friends in the books, and more so the realistic fragility within these friendships as it says in one of the books “Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.”I also enjoyed the fight scenes and starship battles that are spread throughout the books, and be aware that not everyone survives!Lastly, there is a political element to the story as many people and influential families try to persuade Darrow to their point of view or their solution to the situation. Will he accept the privileges offered to him or continue to fight the cause for those he left behind.“The measure of a man is what he does when he has power.”The three books build on each other, with the stakes getting higher in each book, both for Darrow and those he loves. And that kept me enthralled and forced me to pick up each book in succession.The only negative point is that Darrow can be at times unlikable, he is melancholy, whiny, self-absorbed and files off the handle quickly. However, remembering he is a 16 yr old with his world torn from him.. I will give him a pass!If you like this book, read the series then I would suggest the The Interdependency series by John Scalzi, Divergent series by Veronica Roth and reluctantly accept others' comparison to the Hunger Games but I would put this series above them all in terms of world building, relationships and action. Adding The Expanse by James SA Corey for things happening in space

This book starts off differently than the rest, starting multiple threads of different characters, most to converge towards the end. These threads show the impact of the by now 10 yrs old war across different levels of the society....and how the main characters are becoming weary.Compared to the other books in the series this started off slow and remains as such until about mid way with several "fillers".I did not find the book as engaging, leaving about a two months gaps to finish yhe book after i got mid way.Still, it is an integral part of the main story and character development, so i would not recommend skipping it.