Dark Age

Pierce Brown

Jul 2019 · Red Rising Series Book 5 · Sold by Del Rey

About this ebook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Morning Star returns to the Red Rising universe with the thrilling sequel to Iron Gold.
 
“Brown’s plots are like a depth charge of nitromethane dropped in a bucket of gasoline. His pacing is 100% him standing over it all with a lit match and a smile, waiting for us to dare him to drop it.”—NPR (Best Books of the Year)

He broke the chains. Then he broke the world….
 
A decade ago Darrow led a revolution, and laid the foundations for a new world. Now he’s an outlaw.
 
Cast out of the very Republic he founded, with half his fleet destroyed, he wages a rogue war on Mercury. Outnumbered and outgunned, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will he become the very evil he fought to destroy?
 
In his darkening shadow, a new hero rises. 
 
Lysander au Lune, the displaced heir to the old empire, has returned to bridge the divide between the Golds of the Rim and Core. If united, their combined might may prove fatal to the fledgling Republic. 
 
On Luna, the embattled Sovereign of the Republic, Virginia au Augustus, fights to preserve her precious demokracy and her exiled husband. But one may cost her the other, and her son is not yet returned.
 
Abducted by enemy agents, Pax au Augustus must trust in a Gray thief, Ephraim, for his salvation. 
 
Far across the void, Lyria, a Red refugee accused of treason, makes a desperate bid for freedom with the help of two unlikely new allies.
 
Fear dims the hopes of the Rising, and as power is seized, lost, and reclaimed, the worlds spin on and on toward a new Dark Age.

Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga:
RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE • LIGHT BRINGER

Ratings and reviews

Fine. Predictable, depressing, and (for the most part) to long. None of those big aha moments or sitting at the edge of my seat with this one. No catharsis or relief from all the action. "...Any good song, any good dance, is a game of tension leading to a climax of sound and movement." All sound and movement and tension at all times. Not in an exciting way. More like whiplash. An extraordinary amount of character deaths for no particular purpose. No real surprises. Any time an offhand remark was made for "world building" it was always followed up with a narrative twist. After twist one, the remarks become easy to see and the plot simple to predict. Will probably just read Darrows chapters and skip everyone else next time. I love the series, I will definitely read the next book in its entirety. I will continue to recommend everyone I meet to read Red Rising. But this one was a tough read and I don't feel very good for having gotten through it.

Feels rushed and inconsistent. This may be petty, but Darrow describes Ajax's weight in pounds in the beginning, when in every instance of this series and every time afterwards Brown uses metric units. Also, in Golden Son when Darrow and Sevro storm the "Pax" he describes how lower colors were dying from collapsed lungs due to pressure difference. But two other characters go through a similar situation in this book and are perfectly fine. The flow of this newest trilogy is always "and then, and then" instead of "this event happened so this took place because of it." And sardines...what the hell.

An exciting ride. Not the best in the series. Numerous narratives makes it a bit different from the other books. Yet doesn't cutback on the thrills. The stakes have never been higher. Can't wait for the next one.

About the author

Pierce Brown is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star, Iron Gold, and Dark Age. His work has been published in thirty-three languages and thirty-five territories. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next novel.