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A review by maddibleu
Red Rising: Sons of Ares #1 by Rik Hoskin, Eli Powell, Pierce Brown
5.0
Originally posted on RudeFiction.com***
The world-building is phenomenal, and the system so much more complicated than that little description. That's why it's been so hard for me to review Red Rising itself. It would go on forever, and I'd never be able to do anything other than praise Darrow's world.
In the graphic novels, you get bite-size pieces of Brown's creation. You get images of the Sons of Ares' world. From the pages of the novel and Brown's prose, you get bloodshed and spaceships, razors and wrath, and so much more.
The graphic novels follow Fitchner Au Barca, a Gold who never fit. Small and ugly, he is berated as a "Bronzie" - someone not quit Gold enough, not quite perfect enough, to fit among the children and the people of the Gold class. It follows him first to the Institute, where the Golds send their children to be culled, content for only the strongest to emerge into society as adults, even if it means losing their own children for the sake of the system.
Fitchner is never expected to survive. As a "bronzie," they plan for his death to be a lesson for the student who must kill him to earn a place at the institute. But Fitchner is underestimated his whole life, and he emerges into the institute where he is made vicious and pissed off.
For someone who doesn't normally venture into graphic novels, the pull of the Red Rising origin story was too strong for me to stay away, and despite how limited graphic novels feel compared to prose, Fitchner's story had me all the way through.
Fitchner is a compelling character, fighting against an oppressive regime that reviles him for simply not looking Gold enough.
The art in Sons of Ares is beautiful, and I felt that it fits the landscapes of the novel nicely. Set throughout space, I did sometimes struggle to keep up with where the characters were and had to flip back a couple times looking for place markers like the one in the last panel ("Agea, Mars"). But the colors... in a book where colors are castes, I found it ironic that the environments of their world harkened back to all. On Mars, the red planet, the Reds toil beneath the soil and on the ground, unable to experience their skies and their freedom. In the cities, the Golds live above, looking down through the pink haze, enjoying the yellow and orange sunrises over brown and gray streets, tinged with life in shades of green.
On the page, I found that the characters often talked in their color, their speech bubbles branded blue or green or purple according to their place in society. Some pages the speech was all gold, the accent and word choice fluctuating with the shine, other times pages were filled with red dialogue: suspicious, and angry, and even reverent in other colors. The lighting followed the same pattern: scenes about technology tinged green, murder and its neighbors on all black panels like the Obsidians the Golds use to bolster their armies.
There were moments when I doubled-back, the plight of reading too fast and missing a name or a color or a place, trying to figure out the story fast and skipping an image or a piece of dialogue. Mostly though, there were no issues. Only once in volume two was I seriously confused, trying to figure out that's not Fitchner??? when I see him in a different place, then okay well... who is that??
Even with how fast everything moves in Sons of Ares, it feels big. Detailed. While Darrow gets six novels (admittedly with quite a bit of Fitchner in them), Fitchner's origin story gets two graphic novels, and somehow... through the magic of our two writers and our artist, it feels just as complicated and well-rounded. It's partially because Red Rising set the scene beforehand, but also because this world is just so good. It's not just Fitchner's origin story. It's the origin of everything that is to come: revolution, war, autonomy, realization, heartbreak, love, death, and Darrow.
Fitchner is just so well-characterized. He's an anti-hero on the right side, unafraid to do what he needs to do. Throughout the course of both books, the topic of empathy and emotions arise again and again for Fitchner. What he went through pushes him to become this version of himself that scares the people around him, but they need him that way in order for the Sons of Ares to succeed in their goal. He is Ares, and while he refuses to mourn or feel guilt for the loss of life around him, those who are able to get close to him mourn the version of him that shrivels more and more with every loss and every responsibility heaped on his shoulders.
The graphic novels are clever and lead Fitchner from personal revenge to full-scale rebellion in the subtlest of changing angles. He rebels against the Golds and the system their put in place to subjugate others in order to maintain their bourgeois way of life. For a man who is mentally exhausted throughout the series, he manages to start a revolution so catastrophic that (it continues into a six book series and) rages for approximately forty more years.
At least. (Depending on the last Red Rising novel.)
I can't tell you how much this world pulls me in. When I first read the books, I was stunned. I didn't know what to say, and I still don't. When I try, I just ramble incoherently, trying to put so much into just a few words. Red Rising is my favorite book series, and the prequel graphic novels do not disappoint. The first one was great, the second one was even better, and as a whole, they make made that there isn't more, even though I know what's coming once Red Rising starts and they pull Darrow from his mines on Mars.
The world-building is phenomenal, and the system so much more complicated than that little description. That's why it's been so hard for me to review Red Rising itself. It would go on forever, and I'd never be able to do anything other than praise Darrow's world.
In the graphic novels, you get bite-size pieces of Brown's creation. You get images of the Sons of Ares' world. From the pages of the novel and Brown's prose, you get bloodshed and spaceships, razors and wrath, and so much more.
The graphic novels follow Fitchner Au Barca, a Gold who never fit. Small and ugly, he is berated as a "Bronzie" - someone not quit Gold enough, not quite perfect enough, to fit among the children and the people of the Gold class. It follows him first to the Institute, where the Golds send their children to be culled, content for only the strongest to emerge into society as adults, even if it means losing their own children for the sake of the system.
Fitchner is never expected to survive. As a "bronzie," they plan for his death to be a lesson for the student who must kill him to earn a place at the institute. But Fitchner is underestimated his whole life, and he emerges into the institute where he is made vicious and pissed off.
For someone who doesn't normally venture into graphic novels, the pull of the Red Rising origin story was too strong for me to stay away, and despite how limited graphic novels feel compared to prose, Fitchner's story had me all the way through.
Fitchner is a compelling character, fighting against an oppressive regime that reviles him for simply not looking Gold enough.
The art in Sons of Ares is beautiful, and I felt that it fits the landscapes of the novel nicely. Set throughout space, I did sometimes struggle to keep up with where the characters were and had to flip back a couple times looking for place markers like the one in the last panel ("Agea, Mars"). But the colors... in a book where colors are castes, I found it ironic that the environments of their world harkened back to all. On Mars, the red planet, the Reds toil beneath the soil and on the ground, unable to experience their skies and their freedom. In the cities, the Golds live above, looking down through the pink haze, enjoying the yellow and orange sunrises over brown and gray streets, tinged with life in shades of green.
On the page, I found that the characters often talked in their color, their speech bubbles branded blue or green or purple according to their place in society. Some pages the speech was all gold, the accent and word choice fluctuating with the shine, other times pages were filled with red dialogue: suspicious, and angry, and even reverent in other colors. The lighting followed the same pattern: scenes about technology tinged green, murder and its neighbors on all black panels like the Obsidians the Golds use to bolster their armies.
There were moments when I doubled-back, the plight of reading too fast and missing a name or a color or a place, trying to figure out the story fast and skipping an image or a piece of dialogue. Mostly though, there were no issues. Only once in volume two was I seriously confused, trying to figure out that's not Fitchner??? when I see him in a different place, then okay well... who is that??
Even with how fast everything moves in Sons of Ares, it feels big. Detailed. While Darrow gets six novels (admittedly with quite a bit of Fitchner in them), Fitchner's origin story gets two graphic novels, and somehow... through the magic of our two writers and our artist, it feels just as complicated and well-rounded. It's partially because Red Rising set the scene beforehand, but also because this world is just so good. It's not just Fitchner's origin story. It's the origin of everything that is to come: revolution, war, autonomy, realization, heartbreak, love, death, and Darrow.
Fitchner is just so well-characterized. He's an anti-hero on the right side, unafraid to do what he needs to do. Throughout the course of both books, the topic of empathy and emotions arise again and again for Fitchner. What he went through pushes him to become this version of himself that scares the people around him, but they need him that way in order for the Sons of Ares to succeed in their goal. He is Ares, and while he refuses to mourn or feel guilt for the loss of life around him, those who are able to get close to him mourn the version of him that shrivels more and more with every loss and every responsibility heaped on his shoulders.
The graphic novels are clever and lead Fitchner from personal revenge to full-scale rebellion in the subtlest of changing angles. He rebels against the Golds and the system their put in place to subjugate others in order to maintain their bourgeois way of life. For a man who is mentally exhausted throughout the series, he manages to start a revolution so catastrophic that (it continues into a six book series and) rages for approximately forty more years.
At least. (Depending on the last Red Rising novel.)
I can't tell you how much this world pulls me in. When I first read the books, I was stunned. I didn't know what to say, and I still don't. When I try, I just ramble incoherently, trying to put so much into just a few words. Red Rising is my favorite book series, and the prequel graphic novels do not disappoint. The first one was great, the second one was even better, and as a whole, they make made that there isn't more, even though I know what's coming once Red Rising starts and they pull Darrow from his mines on Mars.