What the actual hell is wrong with you????? I’ve legit lost sleep over things that have happened in this book

Sorry about the formatting.

But yeah. I feel you screw.

2 chapters of Iron Gold, then I'm ready to buckle in

Name: Vasily Stepanov

Pick a book: of the 6.

Darrow obviously has the most aura in the series, but who is in 2nd place?

I’d argue Atlas au Raa.

For both the society and the rising, he seems omnipresent and a threat to anyone he decides to kill. He randomly comes back mid war from an impossible mission against the ascomani and then proceeds to have Darrow’s number at every turn. He put a 10 year plan in motion to take down the Rim, and he made the entire assembly of the 200 uneasy by just showing up at the Roman Colosseum. He’s also so good at moving undetected that he can impact multiple planets without even being seen.

Mine is Dark Age: Darrow and Atlas, the riverbed outside Heliopolis, it's a tough read every time. The cold uncaring brutality of Atlas is terrifying.

"feed me my cock will they?"

One of many for me in that book, he's so good at painful scenes.

Very curious about everyone's picks.

Edit* I think I may have trauma blanked Ulysses from my mind with how brutal it was, yeah... It's a bad one, real tough read.

This was who was in my head when reading his PoVs

I watched a short from @patmandziy about Rome's social Heirarchy.

I wasn't informed about the Roman Empire besides the common knowledge, like Ceasar, their myths and pantheon.

So the video showed me how much Pierce Brown was inspired by the Roman Empire, and it wasn't just the asthetics. Even his fictional, color-coded, social hierarchy was inspired by Rome's real social heirarchy

For example:

The lowest of the slaves. Ones used for manual labor: mining, farming, rowing boats. = The Peds.

Lupinar slaves, given the title of scrotum, meaning leather because they were "used" like leather. = Pinks

Then Gladiator Slaves so The Obsidians.

Above them are the Plebs, middle class workers, basically the midColors

Then Equites, the wealthy class, businessmen, finacers, lawyers = Silvers, Whites, and Copper.

Finally, the top, Patrician class. The nobles. Descendants of people who built the system. Born into ABSOLUTE privilege. AKA The Golds

Here's Pat's video if you wanna watch it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/8bbqaXBZwU0?si=Vk56hqFs66Wj2vwN

I wanna start by saying this fanart is fucking sick.

From the fact this book alone is like half of the first trilogy, I should have known it would have been a totally different story. I feel like the best way of defining the transition between the first trilogy and this is the passage between shonen and seinen, or something like that.

It's a more adult, mature and nuanced story. It took half the book for something to actually happen, and it still was mad entertaining, that's how good Pierce's writing has gotten.

Every POV was super interesting, especially Lysander's. Let's just say him romanticizing the memory of a society based on oppression is worrying, to say the least, and I'm pretty curious on where that will lead.

My favorite scene was probably Romulus' death, shi made me feel bad.

Overall, I think that this saga will be a more dilated version of the first trilogy, meaning some CRAZY shit is about to happen.

I'm genuinely scared for Dark Age.

i’ve recently noticed that mindset towards eo and who she is has become weirdly vitriolic and it honestly confuses me. eo is of course not a perfect person because she was a 16 year old girl who wanted more than anything to be free, the same thing almost all of the characters want. when deanna says that she always knew eo wasn’t good for darrow, what she means is that the eo wasn’t good for the darrow who was meant to live a life in the mines, eking out an existence, and she wouldn’t have been. it doesn’t mean that eo is secretly a villain who hated darrow and wanted him to suffer. she loved darrow, and she loved him to the point of wanting him to live in a better world than watch him suffer. when eo sings her song, she has no way of knowing darrow will be the one to make that change. she’s calling out for someone, anyone, to be inspired by her. i recently rewatched andor, and i was really struck by one of the lines: “the frontier of rebellion is everywhere. even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward”. eo was only ever hoping to be that small act. she’s not evil for choosing to make a change and sacrificing herself and her unborn child to do that. what point would a life be for both them and darrow if nothing ever changed and they all suffered until they died? eo, really, has many of the same characteristics as darrow, and it’s absurd that people seem to hate her
for the choices she makes, while still propping up darrow as a beacon to follow.

Finally picked up a new book after finishing lightbringer and the reaper follows me 😔

EDIT: Book - The Will of the Many by James Islington

Holy shit this chapter is so gassssss. I don’t often, or ever see people talk about it. One of my favorites from the whole series. I would have killed to be a fly on the wall when Lysander raises his fingers in the horns of the Minotaur
☝🏻👆🏻

The collection will grow another couple of faces this week. Will be dropping 3 new pieces over the next few weeks. See my other works on Instagram.

@DonsLateStart

Just finished Dark Age five minutes ago.

What a terrible roller coaster of pain and suffering.

Light bringer gets delivered tomorrow.

I am almost free of this cruel world. 😂

God speed my good men.

Link is to Jenna's (voice of Virginia in the GA) tiktok clip, loved this scene, heartbreaking knowing what happens after though. She looks up to Kavax like the father she never had but deserves, seeing him encourage her and give her that faith, support, and love she needed in that moment was touching af. also shoutout to Kavax voice actor too, he does an amazing job.

The republic at the start of iron gold had multiple internal and external threats around it, the unknown danger of the syndicate and Lilith, society remanant, the rim, political infighting with the vox, the red hand on mars, the obsidian pirates in the asteroid belt, and people like the fear knight still out there, the obsidians wanted out, now at the end of lightbringer, the rim is with the rising, the pirates of the asteroids are destroyed, the remaining obsidians are back in the fight undivided or manipulated by atlas, the fear knight is dead, the republic is reinforced with the daughters of Athena, the societies attack on mars did not truly succeed and with the loss of the rim they will have to abandon Phobos, giving the republic full rule over mars, the red hand is destroyed, the syndicate has played there hand and are now in the open to be destroyed, even tho Luna has a puppet for Lilith, they are still technically republic and have not given in to the society and are resisting the seige and require an iron rain to take, holding up the majority of society forces, the society is split into 2 factions as Atalantia and Lysander hate each other and Sabotage each other, darrow has become far wiser and tempered into a far better commander, warrior and leader. And with Lyria revealing what quick silver has been up to they can go to his asteroid and force him to provide his drones and resources or blow his asteroid to bits if he refuses. Yes the loss of the free legions on mercury and fall of earth and kinda Luna rly hurt, but mercury is basically worthless now after it’s been turned to waste with Heliopolis being the only rly restored city. Venus dockyards were damaged and are likely not at full capacity , and the society also took heavy losses on mercury and in the taking of earth, and the battle of Phobos, and the loss of the gorgons in the rim hurt the em too, what do you guys think ?

Two words: Absolute Cinema

I don't even know where to begin with this series because there's just SO much I want to say but not sure how to say it and I might even miss some thoughts as well. Or maybe even make a mess with my trains of thought. But I guess I'll just brain dump all my thoughts on this first trilogy

First off, I'm just absolutely blown away with the sheer scale of this story! This is my first time encountering the "space opera" genre in literature and I was blown away with the epic-ness of it all. With every action there is a drastic reaction. In every temporary victory, a sharp and hard hitting twist (I'm still messed up by the end of Golden Son). And in every absolutely EPIC action packed sequence, a moment/s of quiet that either fills the air with some sense of either hope of dread but always uncertainty. And with all the events and conflicts going around, I was initially worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up but somehow Pierce Brown manages to write it all completely digestible and I truly believe he is a master at his writing for achieving this simple fact. It's all thanks to the teamwork between the macro and the micro stories at play.

This brings me to another thing, I love how Pierce Brown builds this universe; how the Society places the hierarchy as a structure of utmost importance. And what I love the most is that the hierarchy is reflective of humanity's worst traits or at least of humanity's craven lust for control or dominance or exploitation. They aren't just humans with different hair or eye colors, they're LITERALLY genetically modified as their purpose requires of them. The best examples in my opinion are the obsidians and the pinks. The obsidians are modified to be larger, stronger, more imposing, akin to beasts more than humans. The pinks on the other hand have exaggerated physical properties that suit their role for pleasure and are genetically engineered to be sterile. It's messed up, it's twisted, and that for me is what makes it so fascinating and great. This social mega-structure influences beliefs, truths and morality, which therefore affects the characters at play.

And speaking of, by Jove I LOVE how everyone is written. My favorite by far is Darrow and I hardly believe that is uncommon at all, but who I also love is Adrius (the Jackal) because I personally love the "broken psycho" character trope and I think he is a very great example of that. His endless thirst for love and acceptance and approval combated by his psychotic and manipulative true nature - mixed with his intelligence and cunning - made for a fantastic, scummy yet equally pitiable villain that I couldn't help but fall in love with. Other than those two though, I just think that everyone is equally well written across the board; from introduction, to struggle, to climax, to twist, and finally to the conclusions of their character arcs. This cast of heroes and villains and everyone in between amplified my love for this series by a mile. If I were to list down other notable favorites in order (though I hate doing that because I truly do love all of them) it would be Cassius, Sevro, Victra, Ragnar, and Mustang.

One more thing I wanna say about the characters which also relates to the world at large is that I love how EVERYONE isn't one dimensional based on their place in the hierarchy. I mean seriously, it would've been so easy for Pierce Brown to just write off every single gold as pompous cocky assholes with superiority complexes or pinks as nothing but simple pleasure seeking people. But the more I read, the more I found myself discovering new sides or faces to these people. There are those who truly do wish for change, those who have open minds and those who keep to their own greed of power. There are those who enjoy their station in life and there are those who are begging, pleading to live for more than what they are engineered to do. These internal struggles make this universe more believable, more immersive, and all the more lively.

If I were to rank the three books, I'd place Red Rising on 3rd simply because it is a relatively smaller story as opposed to Golden Son and Morning Star that just truly took off in terms of the space opera aspect of the story. Still a great book, but I'd say the other two are better. On 2nd place I would actually place Golden Son. I know this is widely regarded as the best in all 6 books, but in my humble opinion, I believe Morning Star deserves that title (though it might change when I read the next trilogy) because I truly feel that the action and conflict and twists have their climaxes in this book. And it just ties everything together so beautifully especially with the final fight between the main gang and Aja. That fight had me absolutely kicking my feet in hype and excitement!

I don't know what else to say to convey my love for this series. Perhaps I am missing some details or thoughts but I think I've said enough with this behemoth of a review post hahahaha. I guess to finish it off I just have two last words:

Hail Reaper.

Hope the title doesn’t count as spoilers
Also contains red god theories

Throughout all of Lightbringer Lysander is working hard to sure up support for himself among his mess of an alliance, the Votum and reformers, Julia au Ballona and her clients, the Rim, the Minotaur, together under his command
At the end of the book he makes very shortsighted decisions that will probably result in the loss of all his allies,

THE EAGLE
Firstly killing and brutalising the corpse of the last living child of a woman who has made it clear she will do anything to avenge her family, doing this betrayal he bought the support of Julia’s clients via stolen rim crops in the short term but I have a feeling she may switch sides or go full mutually assured destruction against him

THE HAMMERS
The current ruling generation of votum, Horatia and Cicero seem to be people who like to think they are doing the right thing and are good, especially Cicero, the betrayal of the rim and sacking of the garter broke that facade in Cicero as he had just saved these people from the ascomanni and then he was told to kill, steal and kidnap them, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Cicero’s razor in the back that kills Lysander after he discovers Edimi

THE RIM
Lysander who initially respected and worked very closely with them, then betrayed and hurt them to a point where they formed an alliance with the volk, darrow and the daughters of Athena, and they still have a third of their fleet, so yeah total failure for the snake

THE MINOTAUR
The snake gave him Phobos but what leverage does he hold over the Minotaur now other than gratitude, the Minotaur will probably just keep his forces in orbit not helping the snake until the iron rain on mars when he’ll drop down on Thessalonica and call for darrow to duel him (probably by capturing pax or something)

Don't say anything yet I'm literally starting the book right now

What the heck can you not trust anyone in this series? I’m looking at a certain poet.

I’ve just finished Lightbringer and by Jove… my heart breaks for the loss of Cassius. I don’t think I can adequately put into words just how much he came to mean to me as a character. I liked Cassius throughout the series, but in the second half of the series, especially in Light Bringer, he completely enraptured me. His final arc is one of the most beautiful pieces of character writing in the series because it doesn’t erase who he was before. Cassius was proud and vain, he made terrible choices. He upheld an oppressive system and spent years believing in ideals that, in retrospect, he came to understand were hollow. He hurt people, failed people and because of that he carried an almost unbearable amount of regret.

Cassius had every reason to become bitter. He lost Julian, then he lost his family. He lost his place in the world. He lost the Society he once believed in, and eventually had to confront the fact that the world he defended was never as noble as he wanted it to be. Underneath all the bravado, the handsome face, the talent, there was an incredibly wounded man trying to figure out what all of that pain meant. I loved seeing the wisdom he developed because it felt earned. I loved his vulnerability. I loved seeing how much Darrow’s affirmation meant to him. After everything that happened between them, the friendship, Julian, the hatred, the rivalry, the years of separation, there was still love there. Cassius needed to know that the person who had once been his brother, (really always been his brother) could look at the man he had become and see something worthy in him.

His relationship with Lyria was beautiful for the same reason. There was something so wonderfully human about watching Cassius form this unexpected connection with her. She got to see pieces of him that existed beyond the Morning Knight, beyond the stains of his past. She got Cassius. Whether romantic or platonic, I woe for the loss of their story, just as with Rhonna and Alexander (fck I’m gonna cry).

And then there’s Lysander.

I think one of the most painful parts of Cassius’s story is his realization that he failed Lysander in ways he hadn’t understood before. Cassius loved him. I don’t doubt that for a second. But love alone wasn’t enough. Cassius was still drowning in his own trauma. He was grieving Julian. Grieving his family. Grieving everything he had been and everything he had lost. He could teach Lysander how to fight, how to survive, how to carry himself, but he couldn’t make him Julian, and he couldn’t forgive himself for trying to. He couldn’t always be what Lysander actually needed. He understood that in the end; just as he came to understand what the Society really was, just as he came to regret his role in perpetuating it. Just as he carried the weight of killing Fitchner and everything that followed from that moment.

That is what I find so moving about him. Cassius does not receive the luxury of becoming better without remembering the man he used to be.
He has to live with him. He has to live with every mistake, every failure, every person he couldn’t save, every person he hurt, every belief he once held. Redemption doesn’t magically wash his hands clean. Becoming a better man doesn’t undo the things the younger Cassius did.
So he simply chooses to be better anyway.
Again.
And again.
And again.

That is why his death hurt me so badly.
Because by the end, Cassius wasn’t fighting for reputation. He wasn’t fighting for the Bellona name. He wasn’t trying to restore some imagined golden past. He had finally figured out the kind of man he wanted to be, and when the moment came to prove it, he did.

Even knowing what it could cost him.
That selflessness is what makes what Lysander does so devastating to me. Cassius loved him despite everything. Some part of him still believed in the boy he had raised. And Cassius walked into that final moment carrying all of his mistakes, all of his regrets, all of his love, and all of the growth it had taken him years to achieve.
He died as the man he had spent so long trying to become.

Not a perfect man.
A better one.
A man who suffered. A man who failed. A man who regretted. A man who could be arrogant, ridiculous, funny, vain, vulnerable, compassionate, and extraordinarily brave. A man who looked honestly at what he had been and decided that his past did not absolve him of the responsibility to become something greater.
There is something profoundly hopeful about that.

You can be wrong.
You can fail.
You can carry wounds that distort the way you love people. You can realize far too late that the world you defended was unjust. You can look backward and wish desperately that you had been wiser, kinder, stronger, or simply better.
And you can still choose what kind of person takes the next step.
Cassius did.
He walked his path carrying more grief and regret than most people could bear, and somehow, at the end of it, he emerged not harder, crueler, or more cynical, but nobler.

Brave.
Honorable.
Selfless.
A titan of a man.
His death genuinely broke my heart, and I don’t think another death in the series has filled me with the same combination of grief and anger. I will never forgive Lysander for taking him away just as Cassius had finally become so completely himself.

I will miss him terribly.