Red Rising is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown. It is the first book and eponym of the series. The novel, set in the future on Mars, follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Golds.
Inception
2014
Overview
Red Rising is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown, and the first book and eponym of a series. The novel, set in the future on Mars, follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Golds.
Red Rising has received generally positive reviews.
Plot summary
It has been seven hundred years since mankind colonized other planets. The powerful ruling class of humans has installed a rigid, color-based social hierarchy where the physically superior Golds at the top rule with an iron fist. Sixteen-year-old Darrow is a Red, a class of workers who toil beneath the surface of Mars mining helium-3 to terraform the planet. He and his wife Eo are captured after entering a forbidden area and are arrested. While Eo is publicly whipped for her crime she sings a forbidden folk song as a protest against the Reds' enslavement. She is subsequently hanged on the orders of the Mars' ArchGovernor. Darrow cuts down and buries his wife's body, a crime for which he is also hanged. However, Darrow awakes to find that he has been drugged and delivered into the hands of the Sons of Ares, a group of Red and others who fight against the oppression of the "low Colors". Ares have adopted the video of Eo's song and execution as a rallying vehicle for their cause.
Darrow is given the chance to infiltrate the Society to bring it down from within. He is physically transformed by Mickey, a Violet "carver", who gives him the abilities and appearance of a Gold. Using a fabricated identity Darrow is accepted into the Golds' elite Institute, where he befriends Cassius au Bellona and alienates the arrogant Antonia au Severus. Darrow is selected for House Mars by Fitchner. To continue to the next stage, Darrow must complete the Passage, a test in which the 100 newly chosen students in each of the twelve Houses are paired with another house member and tasked to kill each other as a means to eliminate the weaker half. Darrow is forced to murder Cassius' brother Julian to survive, but Cassius can only guess who killed him.
