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Red Rising
Red Rising
Red Rising Series, Book 1
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pierce Brown’s relentlessly entertaining debut channels the excitement of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card....
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pierce Brown’s relentlessly entertaining debut channels the excitement of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card....
Reviews-
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May 20, 2013
Debut author Pierce shoots for the next Hunger Games with mixed results in this melodramatic SF series opener. Sixteen-year-old Darrow is a Red miner, the lowest worker caste on Mars. Darrow’s people live in hellish conditions underground and mine the precious silvery helium-3 needed to terraform the planet. Darrow’s father was hanged for performing a traditional dance, and when Darrow’s wife, Eo, discovers that Mars’s surface has been livable for centuries and then sings a forbidden dirge in public, she too is executed. Awash with grief, Darrow is recruited by the rebel Sons of Ares to infiltrate high-caste Gold society and help overthrow the government. After weeks of surgery and training, Darrow enters Mars’s most selective school, but being accepted at the Institute is one thing; surviving a murderous hazing, ruthless power struggles, and a brutal war game won’t be so easy. Determined to lead his people to a better future, Darrow will do anything to win. Pierce offers a Hollywood-ready story with plenty of action and thrills but painfully little originality or plausibility. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates. -
November 15, 2013
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power. In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He's a member of the Reds, an "inferior" class, though he's happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she's caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He's recruited by a rebel cell and "becomes" a Gold by having painful surgery--he has golden wings grafted on his back--and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mashup of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the "houses" in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot "pulseFists" and are protected by "recoilArmor." As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury. A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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December 1, 2013
A lot happens in this first installment of a projected trilogy. Darrow, living in a mining colony on Mars, sees his wife executed by the government, nearly dies himself, is rescued by the underground revolutionary group known as Sons of Ares, learns his government has been lying to him (and to everybody else), and is recruited to infiltrate the inner circle of society and help to bring it down from withinand that's all inside the first 100 pages. This is a very ambitious novel, with a fully realized society (class structure is organized by color: Darrow is a Red, a worker, a member of the lower class) and a cast of well-drawn characters. Although it should appeal to all age groups, there is a definite YA hook: despite being a veteran miner and a married man, Darrow is 16 when the novel begins. If told well, stories of oppression and rebellion have a built-in audience, and this one is told very well indeed. A natural for Hunger Games fans of all ages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.) -
September 1, 2013
Galley giveaways at BEA and at social media sites and author appearances at BEA and the San Diego Comic-Con (with the New York Comic-Con to come) have built a lot of enthusiasm for this dystopian debut, set in a dark future where class conflict is rising and a man named Darrow turns revolutionary after his wife's execution. Hunger Games comparisons; first in a trilogy.
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from September 15, 2013
All 16-year-old Darrow knows is mining for helium-3 deep below the surface of Mars, believing, as do all those of the Red clan, that they are the first peoples of Mars who sacrifice their lives to create a habitable planet for the inhabitants of an overpopulated dying Earth. But when his equally young wife is hanged for singing a forbidden song of freedom, Darrow follows her to the gallows only to be saved by members of a higher clan who want to use him to overthrow those in power. Surgically altered to resemble a Gold, the highest, most powerful clan on Mars, Darrow undergoes a demanding training and education regime in an effort to attain admittance into the Institute from which the future leaders of Mars are chosen. It is only after he is chosen as one of the top 100 most promising students that he and his classmates discover just how vicious the ruling classes are as they are forced to fight one another in war games where only the most intelligent and the most ruthless can survive and rise. VERDICT Brown's debut novel, the first volume in a planned trilogy, is reminiscent of both Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and William Goldman's The Lord of the Flies but has a dark and twisted power of its own that will captivate readers and leave them wanting more. [See Prepub Alert, 8/5/13.]--Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage P.L., AK
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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September 15, 2013
All 16-year-old Darrow knows is mining for helium-3 deep below the surface of Mars, believing, as do all those of the Red clan, that they are the first peoples of Mars who sacrifice their lives to create a habitable planet for the inhabitants of an overpopulated dying Earth. But when his equally young wife is hanged for singing a forbidden song of freedom, Darrow follows her to the gallows only to be saved by members of a higher clan who want to use him to overthrow those in power. Surgically altered to resemble a Gold, the highest, most powerful clan on Mars, Darrow undergoes a demanding training and education regime in an effort to attain admittance into the Institute from which the future leaders of Mars are chosen. It is only after he is chosen as one of the top 100 most promising students that he and his classmates discover just how vicious the ruling classes are as they are forced to fight one another in war games where only the most intelligent and the most ruthless can survive and rise. VERDICT Brown's debut novel, the first volume in a planned trilogy, is reminiscent of both Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and William Goldman's The Lord of the Flies but has a dark and twisted power of its own that will captivate readers and leave them wanting more. [See Prepub Alert, 8/5/13.]--Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage P.L., AK
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Entertainment Weekly
"[A] spectacular adventure . . . one heart-pounding ride . . . Pierce Brown's dizzyingly good debut novel evokes The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender's Game. . . . [Red Rising] has everything it needs to become meteoric."
- Richmond Times-Dispatch "[A] top-notch debut novel . . . Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field."--USA Today "Red Rising is a sophisticated vision. . . . Brown will find a devoted audience."
- Terry Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of The Sword of Shannara "A story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power . . . reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones."--Kirkus Reviews "Fast-paced, gripping, well-written--the sort of book you cannot put down. I am already on the lookout for the next one."
- Library Journal (starred review) "Pierce Brown has done an astounding job at delivering a powerful piece of literature that will definitely make a mark in the minds of readers."--The Huffington Post "Compulsively readable and exceedingly entertaining . . . a must for both fans of classic sci-fi and fervent followers of new school dystopian epics."--Examiner.com "[A] great debut . . . The author gathers a spread of elements together in much the same way George R. R. Martin does."--Tor.com "Very ambitious . . . a natural for Hunger Games fans of all ages."--Booklist "Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow: Pierce Brown's empire-crushing debut is a sprawling vision."--Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of Pandemic "A Hollywood-ready story with plenty of action and thrills."--Publishers Weekly "Reminiscent of . . . Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games . . . [Red Rising] will captivate readers and leave them wanting more."
