Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

This is another one of those $3.99 Kindle specials that will cost me more as I now have to continue the series. Darrow is a slave, a married 16 year old miner on Mars in the lowest social group on the planet, the Reds. He has never seen the surface of the planet, because he believes it is uninhabitable and he is doing God's work of mining to help make the planet safe for his children, or their children. Actually, he is just a slave, as the surface of Mars has been transformed for generations and holds thriving cities full of parks and green spaces.

His wife's execution sets off a series of events that see Darrow inserted into high society on the surface of the planet as sort of a Manchurian Candidate, sent there to gain power and eventually get high enough up to take it all down. Or at least that is what we think in book 1. Society is built on some perverted ideals of the Roman Empire, and Darrow has to find his place in an elaborate and violent game of Survivor that combines the spirit of The Hunger Games with a little Harry Potter.

Red Rising was a very pleasant surprise that I stayed up late several nights to finish.