This review is going to assume you’ve read through the end of Morning Star (as that point represents a major paradigm shift). Be forewarned. Even though I’m going to avoid specific spoilers past that point, I’m writing this review for people who have read through Dark Age and want a sense of what to expect.
This book was good in the way that Brown is always good. It’s got the action and excitement you would expect, and the twists and turns you don’t (but also do, because they’re always there). So for those who are hungry for more Red Rising stories, don’t worry. You’ll get it.
Honestly, and this is my biggest critique of the book, you’ll get too much. I think this should have been two books. Or maybe the first third should have been tacked on to the end of Dark Age? I don’t know. The series is undoubtedly suffering from bloat, and is pretty much at the point where it should be treated as one big thing. Hardly a unique problem among big fantasy/sci-fi series.
This is, somewhat ironically, a consequence of something Brown has done very well in the post-Morning Star portion of the series. The first three books were very tightly plotted, with the climax being exactly what it had been building towards: the death of the Sovereign and the toppling of the Society. Post-Morning Star, it’s been the explosion of chaos from the fallout of a centuries-old empire. Things certainly seem to be pointing towards a final climax, but I’m not going to make assumptions there because we’ve been here before.
Character-wise, we spend most of our time in Darrow’s head. Lysander is #2, and Lyria and Virginia come in more or less tied for #3.
To give a mood spoiler: this book is bleak. Iron Gold and Dark Age were also plenty bleak, so it wasn’t exactly unexpected, but this still was painful to read.
And one last point that I want to mention. Years ago, someone asked Willem DeFoe about how he was so talented at playing villains. To paraphrase, he said that he never played them as villains, because no one is a villain to themselves. Everyone thinks they’re righteous. That idea was on my mind quite a lot as I read this.
Looking forward to #7, but also dreading it, because I expect the butcher’s bill to be pretty high when we get there.