3/19/25 - Finished Dark Age

Hello, feasyheads!

We've gotten the majority of the week behind us! There's little left.

Today I finally completed Dark Age by Pierce Brown. It was quite a long read. The final book in the series so far is Light Bringer, a little shorter but still a hefty ~680 pages to read. Hopefully I'll complete it by the end of next week, and that'll be the end of the Red Rising saga.

Now for Wally's review:

Dark Age mostly centers around the remnants of the Society trying to take back Mercury from the grip of the Republic. Although there's a lot of Darrow in the book, and he's still the main character, his story gets overshadowed, in my opinion, by that of Ephraim as he navigates the complex world of the Obsidians and how Sefi the Quiet is trying to unite all of the tribes. 

Like all of the books in the series so far, the story ends on not quite a cliffhanger but on something either like a betrayal or a great loss, either of someone or a battle. This was no exception, and got me looking forward to the next book.

Although it seems quite cumbersome to have five different POVs in one book, as usual, all come together and hold some sort of significance.

I can't lie, though, sometimes the story gets very confusing and it is hard to catch up. That might be just my reading skills, but at least there's a detailed list of characters.

What I liked about the book was that it had more action than Iron Gold, which was a little more slower-paced with not as much happening in terms of wars. I love the world that Brown created, and his characters are complex with many flaws. His writing style is also very descriptive, and I've grown used to the first-person perspective on everything. Brown is a great author.

My favorite character remains Sevro, although he doesn't appear as much in Dark Age. Hopefully he shows up in the next book, which I'm told is mostly on the character development of Darrow and Lysander. Let's be honest, both could probably use it. 

All in all, this gets an 8.5 out of ten. I love the story and series, but it's starting to get a little hard to stay caught up in all five characters' environment, especially considering a hundred pages later could be the next reappearance of a character. I wonder if Brown wrote them like this, taking breaks on each character, or if he finished each character then welded it all together. However, the world that the Red Rising trilogy is beautifully crafted, with special details for each member of the caste system. It's also prevalent that Brown did much, much research on the Greeks and Romans, and must know at least a little bit of Latin, because there's obvious inspiration especially from the Romans, and many words and sayings are in Latin. (My favorite is 'omnis vir lupus,' or 'everyone a wolf'.)

I would definitely recommend the series to anyone with an interest in dystopia, science fiction, especially space opera, and maybe even fantasy.

That concludes the review for today.

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night/3:00 AM,

Uncle Wally