Stunning and Intelligent, Red Rising is certainly the Best Science Fiction Novel in Years.

This novel takes place in the far distant future. Space has been conquered. And humans have devised a way to alter DNA, to change humans into hybrids. Humans are caste in different roles and functions; they are designated by their colors and distinguishing characteristics. Colors cannot change or ascend the hierarchy. Darrow is a Red, the lowest of castes, a mining Hell Diver who digs dangerously deep for the Helium-3 needed for terra forming Mars. He lives beneath the surface of Mars, as he and the Reds have done for seven hundred years. They are nothing more than slaves to the ruling class, the Golds, who live in luxury on the Terra formed surface of Mars.

The World building in this novel is spectacular, utterly believable.

The arrogance of the Ruling Class is underpinned with all things Roman, from their mythology to their military philosophy and strategies. Peirce Brown’s weaving and interlacing of the ancient Romanesque world is astounding.

It is a brutal world where justice is swift and merciless, and politics is rife with treachery.

This is the world Darrow is thrust into after the murderous and merciless whipping and hanging of his lovely and brave young wife, Eco, all because she longed to see the stars, because she sang a song of freedom.

Darrow is remade into a Peerless Gold. His mission for the Sons of Ares, the revolutionaries, is to win at the Institute, to become a Fleet Officer and take down the Society of the Gold’

Red Rising is a tour de force which combines the philosophy of the ancient Roman world and which resonates uncannily with the political forces at work in the modern world. The trilogy of Red Rising, Golden Son and Morning Star is certainly the best Science Fiction series in years.

Red Rising is a stunning novel, intelligent and brutal in its telling. Peirce Brown is a writer to watch and to love.