I’ll admit it: I truly didn’t believe that it could get much better than the original Red Rising trilogy – and yet, with Iron Gold, author Pierce Brown broke the chains mold.

*This Iron Gold review is spoiler-free*

Do you remember when you were reading everything through Darrow’s point of view, how difficult it was to put down Red Rising, Golden Son, and Morning Star? Welcome to a new age, my goodmen…one in which it’s even harder to set a Pierce Brown book aside, because this time you get not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR scintillating points of view.

Of course, if you follow any of the author’s social media, the official Sons of Ares fan group Twitter, or are part of the ever-growing Howler family in the Hic Sunt Leones Facebook group for Red Rising fans (just to name a few places that have shared Iron Gold news), you probably knew about the four points of view. In fact, my fellow Geekiary writer Jamie wrote about it almost exactly a year ago!

So yes, Darrow is back (in all of his maddening glory), but more often than not it was the new point of view characters – a Red named Lyria, a Gray named Ephraim, and Lysander au Lune, grandson of the late Sovereign – who stole the show. (Or should I say story?)

It’s been ten years since the success of the Rising, but [not surprisingly] that success isn’t all it was cracked up to be. While it’s easy for authors to wrap up a series about a rebellion and move on to other things, often leaving readers to believe that nothing much of note happened once the heroes won the day, we all know that’s not how the world really works. And yet there are so many examples of worlds torn apart by war – worlds that we are led to believe were put back together again without much fuss at all: the original Star Wars trilogy, the Hunger Games trilogy, even Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, are just a few such tales. Of course, personally I would rather have that than a sub-par follow-up book or series. (Have we forgotten how rough some of those Star Wars EU novels were?)

Thankfully, Iron Gold is nothing of the sort. Brown delves right back into the vivid world he created without missing a beat, and if you had any worries about his ability to voice more than one POV character, please dispel them now. While I can’t say too much – it would be the absolute opposite of prime for me to spoil Iron Gold for you – I will admit that by giving us more than a few really amazing new characters, the author had to push some of my old favorites aside. Which is to be expected, but hey, I’m still going to be sad about it!

Also, despite the fact that Brown did quite a bit of world-building in the first three books (particularly in Golden Son and Morning Star), I’ll be the first to admit that I was left wanting more. And let me tell you, Iron Gold absolutely delivers in that respect!

Needless to say, I can’t wait to write a full review without worrying about revealing too much. That article will be released sometime in late January; I highly suggest following The Geekiary on Facebook and/or Twitter so that you don’t miss that once it’s posted. In the meantime, feel free to find me on Twitter so that we can gush about our mutual love for the Red Rising saga together!

Oh, and don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Iron Gold! If you do it through Amazon, it will arrive the very day it’s released: January 16, 2018. I can’t imagine waiting any longer than that!

Author: Tara Lynne Tara Lynne is an author, fandom and geek culture expert, and public speaker. She founded Ice & Fire Con, the first ever Game of Thrones convention in the US, and now runs its parent company Saga Event Planning. Twitter



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