Oct 29, 2026
Red Rising Review: Is the Series Worth Reading?
Spoiler-free: the weakest Red Rising book still got five stars from us, and the best one is the sixth. Here's why the series is worth it.
Read by one of us, who has read all 6 books so far · Pierce Brown's Red Rising series · Our rating: 5 / 5
The short answer: yes, and start sooner than we did
Here's the strangest thing about Pierce Brown's Red Rising series: the first book is our least favorite, and we still gave it five stars. Everything after it is better. By the sixth book the series is doing things most space opera never attempts.
If you've had it on your list for a while, our advice is the same one we'd give our past selves: just do it sooner, it's super worth it.
What it actually is
Darrow is a Red, a miner working deep under the surface of Mars, at the bottom of a society sorted into castes by color. The Golds rule everything. Darrow gets remade to look like one of them so he can infiltrate their ranks and tear the whole thing down from the inside.
That's the setup. What makes it stick is the mix. This is a far-future, multiplanetary humanity, with spaceships and planet-spanning politics, but the people in charge fight like Roman aristocrats. Duels are settled with blades. Battles are won by fleets maneuvering like navies in the age of sail. Think Star Wars lightsaber fights crossed with a war epic, all wrapped in a political thriller about who really holds power.
Is Red Rising just The Hunger Games in space?
Book one, honestly, kind of. An outsider gets thrown into a brutal competition while the powerful watch. If you've read The Hunger Games, you'll recognize the shape immediately, and we're not big fans of that trope. That's why Red Rising ranks last for us.
But it's still good, good enough for five stars, and the series drops that setup fast. Golden Son and Morning Star leave the arena behind for wars, alliances and politics on a scale the first book only hints at. If book one feels familiar, that's normal. Keep going. The comparison stops making sense by the middle of book two.
Two trilogies, two very different stories
The series splits cleanly in half, and the halves want different things.
Books 1-3 are a rise to power. An underdog fights his way up through a system built to crush him. It's propulsive, it's satisfying, and it lands on an ending that feels earned and, honestly, pretty feel-good. You could stop there and be happy.
Books 4-6 pick up about a decade later and ask the uncomfortable question: what happens after the fairy-tale ending? Winning a revolution is one thing. Running what's left is another. These books are about how an empire rebuilds, or fails to, after its head has been cut off. If you've watched the Star Wars sequels, the premise will feel familiar: the big victory happened, and the galaxy didn't magically fix itself.
The second trilogy is darker, more mature and more ambitious. It also stops being only Darrow's story. Starting with Iron Gold, several narrators share the page, and you see the war from angles the first trilogy never showed you.
Best and weakest
Best: Light Bringer (book 6). Just really, really good. The second trilogy spends two books spreading its story across characters, factions and planets, and Light Bringer is where those threads start pulling together. The scale is huge, the emotional weight is heavier than anything earlier in the series, and the payoff feels like it was set up books ago. It's the book that makes the whole second trilogy worth the darkness.
Weakest: Red Rising (book 1). Not bad, just the most familiar. The Hunger Games structure keeps it from feeling as original as what comes later. Treat it as the on-ramp.
The character you'll end up loving: Sevro
Every big series has the one character readers argue about, quote and get attached to. Here, for us, it's Sevro, Darrow's right-hand man.
He's chaotic, loyal and nothing like a typical sidekick. What makes him great is that he doesn't stay in Darrow's shadow. Across the series he goes through huge ups and downs and has to find his own path, separate from the hero he follows. Some of the best moments in the books are his.
What to know before you start
- It gets darker. Each book is a little grimmer and more grown-up than the last, especially in the second trilogy.
- It's violent. War is the main event, and the books don't look away from it.
- The choices are hard. Characters make calls with no clean answer, and the series makes you live with the consequences.
If those sound like selling points rather than warnings, you're the target reader.
Who should read it
Read Red Rising if you like:
- Space opera with real scale: fleets, planets, empires
- Political conflict and scheming as much as the battles themselves
- Big wars, sword fights and characters who have to pay for their choices
- Series that grow up as they go
Maybe skip it if you want something cozy or low-stakes. This is not that.
What's next for the series
Six books are out. Pierce Brown has said a seventh, Red God, will end the series, which means now is a very good time to catch up.
Where to start
Start with Red Rising and read in publication order. Our Red Rising books in order post lists every book.
And don't wait as long as we did.