Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was worried that a crowd pleaser might be a dull book, a shallow book, or yet another silly recreation of Greek myths.

What I received was a truly excellently paced SF that read like a standard Fantasy rebellion story that had to have humble beginnings and the first great challenge to prove our Hero's worth. What places this work above so many other rebellion stories is its writing. I mentioned how well paced it was, and I'm not joking. It read like free-flowing water, always keeping me interested in character development and plot pacing while consistently grabbing me with each rise and fall. Success and failure, success and failure. It breathed and it breathed life into my enjoyment.

Oh yes, I enjoyed this novel quite a bit.

Eo was the standard sacrificial lamb to stake all the rage onto, and that wasn't nearly as convincing as I believed it could be, but everything else, from the fixing of his body to the staging of the great game on terraformed Mars to see who gets what postings or patronage, was pretty damn convincing and it allowed me to sink into the story without such near breaking points as I suffered when I began reading.

Honestly, I wanted to slap someone silly with questions like, "Hey! This is a marvelously advanced tech society! Why the HELL are they forcing peeps to do a robot's work?" Well. It's a plot hole I could drive a truck through, but I have to ignore it because it establishes major motive for the grand rebellion and I frankly don't know if it will be revealed later as an "Ah-ha" or a reversal later, so I'll just keep my mouth shut and keep my fingers in my ears. [I wanted to slap someone silly with questions like, "Hey! This is a marvelously advanced tech society! Why the HELL are they forcing peeps to do a robot's work?" Well. It's a plot hole I could drive a truck through, but I have to ignore it because it establishes major motive for the grand rebellion and I frankly don't know if it will be revealed later as an "Ah-ha" or a reversal later, so I'll just keep my mouth shut and keep my fingers in my ears. (hide spoiler)]

But ignore that. Everything else was pretty damn awesome. Rebellion stories these days seem to be a dime a dozen, it seems, so now we have to rely on a bit of criteria and judgment as readers to determine which are Good and which are Not. Is the rebellion believable? Do we care? Is there Deus Ex involved? Is the writing so good that we just don't care?

I'll answer that: It's Good. Yes,Yes, No, and Yes.

I'm hooked. I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in the series and the next after that. Setup is Complete. I've GOT to see how this popcorn story sorts its way out. :)
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