Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
Blurb:
They call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life.
A decade ago Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But the Rising has shattered everything: Instead of peace and freedom, it has brought endless war. Now he must risk all he has fought for on one last desperate mission. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself?
And throughout the worlds, other destinies entwine with Darrow’s to change his fate forever:
A young Red girl flees tragedy in her refugee camp, and achieves for herself a new life she could never have imagined.
An ex-soldier broken by grief is forced to steal the most valuable thing in the galaxy—or pay with his life.
And Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile to the Sovereign, wanders the stars with his mentor, Cassius, haunted by the loss of the world that Darrow transformed, and dreaming of what will rise from its ashes.
Red Rising was the story of the end of one universe. Iron Gold is the story of the creation of a new one. Witness the beginning of a stunning new saga of tragedy and triumph from masterly New York Times bestselling author Pierce Brown.
Review:
Pierce Brown Tokyo-drifts this action-packed, blockbuster phenome into a mature meditation on the aftermath of a rebellion heralded in by the Reaper god of war. And I am HERE for it.
Iron Gold begins the second arc of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga. The rebellion has been successful, Mustang leads the Senate from the hallowed halls of Luna, and Darrow has unlawfully called for an Iron Rain to decimate the Ash Lord and bring a final peace to the Core. It’s been 10 years since Darrow’s triumph in Morning Star.
From the very beginning, Brown expands the Red Rising universe from the solitary POV that captivated us throughout Red Rising, Golden Son, and Morning Star. We now view this brave new world through the additional eyes of Ephraim, the vengeful Grey mercenary who loved Trigg; Lyria of Lagalos, who has been living in the slums of Red Mars since the victorious Rising took power; and the abandoned orphan, Lysander, grandson of Lorn au Arcos. I know this was a controversial choice for some readers, but it worked perfectly for me. The world of Red Rising is expanding, and this is more than just Darrow’s story now.
“Do not let fear touch you. Fear is the torrent. The raging river. To fight it is to break and drown. But to stand astride it is to see it, feel it, and use its course for your own whims.”
Iron Gold is a slower burn than any of the books in the first trilogy. There are some knuckle-biting action scenes and tear-jerking moments, but there is significantly more introspection and thoughtful building of this new world. This book is a necessary transition to establish the impact that Darrow and Mustang have had on the Core, the implications that have trickled down from that evolution, and to create the high stakes that are going to be explored in the remainder of this series. By not making this transition a quick footnote in setting up the remainder of the series, Brown has allowed us to truly understand and feel the build up and emotional impact that is coming.
“Honor is not what you say. Honor is what you do.”
With the more mature feel of Iron Gold, there were a handful of scenes that hit me in a way that the previous books in the series hadn’t. Darrow feels the enormous weight of establishing the peace for his new Republic, but he is a man of war in a world that is becoming increasingly regulated by demokracy and the popular vote of a Senate. He has to balance this violence with his role as a husband and father. Throughout the book, he reflects that all he really wanted as a Red was to have a family and children and raise them in safety and love. But he is painfully torn away from them by his commitment and sense of duty. On a personal note, as someone who has a career that is extremely demanding time wise, this incongruity of sacrificing to create a better world for your children while simultaneously sacrificing your relationship with them in order to create that better world struck me hard. The scene at the beginning of the book when Pax showed Darrow the hover bike he made, hands him the key, and says, “I made it for us to share,” and they take it out for a ride before Darrow violently rockets away from his family to pursue the Ash Lord broke my heart.
“I feel the distance grow between us, and I wonder if this is what it is like to be a bad father—always finding a reason to be gone, a reason that, no matter how virtuous or shining in the eyes of a child, will seem empty and false in the memories of the man he will soon become.”
As Darrow manically bulldozes his way through all opposition between him and the Ash Lord, gathering a diabolical cadre of war lords to augment his fractured Howlers, he begins to cycle back on the oppression that stole Eo from him. We see the squalor of his Reds in Mars through Lyria’s damaged eyes, the Red Hand slaughtering without repercussion to demonstrate superiority and enact revenge. Once Darrow and Apollonius finally carve their way into the Ash Lord’s lair, they find him already dying in his bed, a fracture of his previous power. Before burning to death, he stares into Darrow’s eyes and says: “My last Fury. You destroyed her home. You murdered her sisters. Now you come to take her father. She was a frivolous girl. She would have lived in peace, Darrow, but you have brought her nothing but war.” As Augustus created Darrow in the afterthought of savagery, Darrow has created Atalantia.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”
Lysander’s POV was a standout for me. His personal progress and development throughout this book is fascinating, and the implications on the rest of the series are obviously monumental. The Raa family are perfect foils for the devastation he has witnessed from the Slave King. A people filled with cold, brutal justice, buttressed by a sense of honor that refuses to bend a knee. Romulus’ death walk was perfect.
“We are fighting against a religion whose god still lives. At this moment, he is mortal. He strains under the burden of rule, and the seams of their alliances fray. But if we sail on Mars or Luna, the Colors will unite. They will become a tide and their now mortal general will become, one again, their god of war.”
“This is not the end. I loved you before I ever met you. I will love you until the sun dies. And when it does, I will love you in the darkness.”
Iron Gold is few people’s favorite book in the Red Rising saga, but this was the perfect book to set up the series to become what it needs to be as it expands into a solar system wide war that has the potential to drop humanity into a new Dark Age. Red Rising continues to be one of my favorite series.
Hail Reaper.
Omnis vir lupus.
