Iron Gold (Red Rising)
Reading Iron Gold -- the first book of the sequel to the Red Rising Trilogy and loving it so far.
So, what happens after you have your revolution? What cans of worms did you open by overthrowing the previous order? Is the freedom to starve really freedom?
Also, where the previous trilogy was told from Darrow's POV, in this one, we've got 4 narrators, two of whom are adults, and two of whom are teens who have come of age in the post revolutionary world.
We have Darrow of Lykos -- who is both Red & Gold
We have Ephraim -- who is Grey (and a gay man) [Ephraim was a minor character in the first trilogy]
We have Lysander (teen) -- who is Gold
We have Lyria (teen) -- who is a Red (but of the Gamma Clan)
One of the limits of Brown's writing is that they all speak in very similar voices, but at least he's trying something new with his storytelling, and they are having very different (mis)adventures all of which explore a different aspect of problems created by the overthrow of the old order. Brown is also pointedly making it clearer that the Colors come in all skin colors -- it's your eyes, hair, and sigils that marked your Color.
Sevro au Barca still has his epic mancrush on Darrow.
So, when Ephraim and Trigg (his fiance) were introduced in the later part of the the first trilogy it really felt like they were stapled on in an effort by Brown to correct the fact that while he built a world where nobody blinked twice at same-sex relationships he'd (inadvertently) written the only major gay character as a villain about as warped and evil as it got.
Except, Trigg doesn't make it out of Book 3. He gives his life to save Darrow's and he dies rather horribly in front of Ephraim (when he could've been captured or maimed, so it was a murdering). To be clear, he's a casualty of war.
But, still, on the one level, it's "kill your gays."
(And yes, there's another background m/m couple who make it out of Book 3 alive and well.)
But.
Holy fucking shit is Brown blowing it out of the water in showing how PTSD'd Ephraim is by what happened the cold winter day that Trigg was murdered. He joined the revolution because he wanted revenge, and yet it lost all meaning for him, and he mostly just doesn't give a shit anymore. His first chapter opens with him cradling the watch Trigg gave him and thinking how every tick just takes him farther from a world with Trigg in it. There's a gut punch scene where Ephraim looks over a railing and thinks that if he went over right now, his body, too, could be splattered far below in the ice and snow, just like Trigg's.
(So, on the one hand, yes, kill your gays, but on the other ... Ephraim had the entire course of his life re-written that bleak day, and what it did to him couldn't be more different than what a similar loss did to Darrow.)
He and Holiday (Trigg's sister) meet up every day on the anniversary of the day he met Trigg in the bar where he met Trigg, and it's breaking their hearts, but they can't stop.
Also, what do you do when you were the Military/Law Enforcement caste, but you don't want to do that anymore, but you have to eat? Why you take what you know about law enforcement, planning, and operations, and you head a crew of thieves.
(Holiday, by contrast, has thrown herself full throttle behind the new government and holds a high rank in the executive branch.)
So, as you can see, on the one hand, I'm torn. I'm over "kill your gays" and yet it's a fucking compelling exploration of grief and PTSD.
So, what happens after you have your revolution? What cans of worms did you open by overthrowing the previous order? Is the freedom to starve really freedom?
Also, where the previous trilogy was told from Darrow's POV, in this one, we've got 4 narrators, two of whom are adults, and two of whom are teens who have come of age in the post revolutionary world.
We have Darrow of Lykos -- who is both Red & Gold
We have Ephraim -- who is Grey (and a gay man) [Ephraim was a minor character in the first trilogy]
We have Lysander (teen) -- who is Gold
We have Lyria (teen) -- who is a Red (but of the Gamma Clan)
One of the limits of Brown's writing is that they all speak in very similar voices, but at least he's trying something new with his storytelling, and they are having very different (mis)adventures all of which explore a different aspect of problems created by the overthrow of the old order. Brown is also pointedly making it clearer that the Colors come in all skin colors -- it's your eyes, hair, and sigils that marked your Color.
Sevro au Barca still has his epic mancrush on Darrow.
So, when Ephraim and Trigg (his fiance) were introduced in the later part of the the first trilogy it really felt like they were stapled on in an effort by Brown to correct the fact that while he built a world where nobody blinked twice at same-sex relationships he'd (inadvertently) written the only major gay character as a villain about as warped and evil as it got.
Except, Trigg doesn't make it out of Book 3. He gives his life to save Darrow's and he dies rather horribly in front of Ephraim (when he could've been captured or maimed, so it was a murdering). To be clear, he's a casualty of war.
But, still, on the one level, it's "kill your gays."
(And yes, there's another background m/m couple who make it out of Book 3 alive and well.)
But.
Holy fucking shit is Brown blowing it out of the water in showing how PTSD'd Ephraim is by what happened the cold winter day that Trigg was murdered. He joined the revolution because he wanted revenge, and yet it lost all meaning for him, and he mostly just doesn't give a shit anymore. His first chapter opens with him cradling the watch Trigg gave him and thinking how every tick just takes him farther from a world with Trigg in it. There's a gut punch scene where Ephraim looks over a railing and thinks that if he went over right now, his body, too, could be splattered far below in the ice and snow, just like Trigg's.
(So, on the one hand, yes, kill your gays, but on the other ... Ephraim had the entire course of his life re-written that bleak day, and what it did to him couldn't be more different than what a similar loss did to Darrow.)
He and Holiday (Trigg's sister) meet up every day on the anniversary of the day he met Trigg in the bar where he met Trigg, and it's breaking their hearts, but they can't stop.
Also, what do you do when you were the Military/Law Enforcement caste, but you don't want to do that anymore, but you have to eat? Why you take what you know about law enforcement, planning, and operations, and you head a crew of thieves.
(Holiday, by contrast, has thrown herself full throttle behind the new government and holds a high rank in the executive branch.)
So, as you can see, on the one hand, I'm torn. I'm over "kill your gays" and yet it's a fucking compelling exploration of grief and PTSD.