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Red Rising
Cover of Red Rising
Red Rising
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.
Red Rising ascends above a crowded dys­topian field.”—USA Today

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—
Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness

“I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.”
“I live for you,” I say sadly.
Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he toils willingly, trusting that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.
But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and lush wilds spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power.  He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies . . . even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.
Praise for Red Rising
“[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.”Entertainment Weekly

“Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow.”—Scott Sigler
Red Rising is a sophisticated vision. . . . Brown will find a devoted audience.”Richmond Times-Dispatch
Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga:
RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE • LIGHT BRINGER
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.
Red Rising ascends above a crowded dys­topian field.”—USA Today

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—
Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness

“I live for the dream that my children will be born free,” she says. “That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.”
“I live for you,” I say sadly.
Eo kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he toils willingly, trusting that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.
But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and lush wilds spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlords struggle for power.  He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies . . . even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.
Praise for Red Rising
“[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.”Entertainment Weekly

“Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow.”—Scott Sigler
Red Rising is a sophisticated vision. . . . Brown will find a devoted audience.”Richmond Times-Dispatch
Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga:
RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE • LIGHT BRINGER
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    0
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
    4.6
  • Lexile:
    630
  • Interest Level:
    UG
  • Text Difficulty:
    2 - 3


Excerpts-
  • Chapter One 1

    Helldiver

    The first thing you should know about me is I am my father’s son. And when they came for him, I did as he asked. I did not cry. Not when the Society televised the arrest. Not when the Golds tried him. Not when the Grays hanged him. Mother hit me for that. My brother Kieran was supposed to be the stoic one. He was the elder, I the younger. I was supposed to cry. Instead, Kieran bawled like a girl when Little Eo tucked a haemanthus into Father’s left workboot and ran back to her own father’s side. My sister Leanna murmured a lament beside me. I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing but without his dancing shoes.

    On Mars there is not much gravity. So you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.

    I smell my own stink inside my frysuit. The suit is some kind of nanoplastic and is hot as its name suggests. It insulates me toe to head. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Especially not the heat. Worst part is you can’t wipe the sweat from your eyes. Bloodydamn stings as it goes through the headband to puddle at the heels. Not to mention the stink when you piss. Which you always do. Gotta take in a load of water through the drinktube. I guess you could be fit with a catheter. We choose the stink.

    The drillers of my clan chatter some gossip over the comm in my ear as I ride atop the clawDrill. I’m alone in this deep tunnel on a machine built like a titanic metal hand, one that grasps and gnaws at the ground. I control its rockmelting digits from the holster seat atop the drill, just where the elbow joint would be. There, my fingers fit into control gloves that manipulate the many tentacle-like drills some ninety meters below my perch. To be a Helldiver, they say your fingers must flicker fast as tongues of fire. Mine flicker faster.

    Despite the voices in my ear, I am alone in the deep tunnel. My existence is vibration, the echo of my own breath, and heat so thick and noxious it feels like I’m swaddled in a heavy quilt of hot piss.

    A new river of sweat breaks through the scarlet sweatband tied around my forehead and slips into my eyes, burning them till they’re as red as my rusty hair. I used to reach and try to wipe the sweat away, only to scratch futilely at the faceplate of my frysuit. I still want to. Even after three years, the tickle and sting of the sweat is a raw misery.

    The tunnel walls around my holster seat are bathed a sulfurous yellow by a corona of lights. The reach of the light fades as I look up the thin vertical shaft I’ve carved today. Above, precious helium-3 glimmers like liquid silver, but I’m looking at the shadows, looking for the pitvipers that curl through the darkness seeking the warmth of my drill. They’ll eat into your suit too, bite through the shell and then try to burrow into the warmest place they find, usually your belly, so they can lay their eggs. I’ve been bitten before. Still dream of the beast—black, like a thick tendril of oil. They can get as wide as a thigh and long as three men, but it’s the babies we fear. They don’t know how to ration their poison. Like me, their ancestors came from Earth, then Mars and the deep tunnels changed them.

    It is eerie in the deep tunnels. Lonely. Beyond the roar of the drill, I hear the voices of my friends, all older. But I cannot see them a half klick above me in the darkness. They drill high above, near the mouth of the tunnel that I’ve carved, descending with hooks and lines to dangle along the sides of the tunnel to get at the small veins of helium-3. They mine with meter-long drills, gobbling up the...
About the Author-
  • Pierce Brown is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star, Iron Gold, and Dark Age. His work has been published in thirty-three languages and thirty-five territories. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next novel.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    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.

  • Kirkus

    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.

  • Booklist

    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.)

  • Library Journal

    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.

  • Library Journal

    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.

  • Library Journal

    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.

  • 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."
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