#6 in Dystopian
Red Rising
- 468
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list, peaked at #6
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Our view
“Red Rising” runs on momentum and on Darrow, a lowborn miner on a future Mars who infiltrates the elite Golds; readers who take to him cheer him the whole way and reach straight for the next volume. Some readers see it as a chosen-one power fantasy and find it derivative and poor in its treatment of women. Best for readers after tense, vengeful science fiction in a long series.
Worth knowing Pierce Brown sold it after a string of rejected manuscripts, and it was published in 2014. Society is split into colours, from the Red miners at the bottom to the Golds at the top, and the opening chapters mostly set the scene: the book changes gear once Darrow enters the Institute. The original trilogy ends with Morning Star (2016); a second arc began with Iron Gold in 2018.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Red Rising is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown. It is the first book and eponym of the series. The novel, set in the future on Mars, follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Golds.
Reading order · Red Rising Saga
Full order & progress →- Red RisingThis book
8.48.4 / 10 - Golden Son
8.88.8 / 10 - Morning Star
8.88.8 / 10 - Iron Gold
8.18.1 / 10 - Dark Age
8.68.6 / 10 - Light Bringer
9.19.1 / 10 - Red GodRed God–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.4 across 4,193 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 97% of the weight and the score stays at 8.4 — the Dystopian average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 102 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.4 | 4.1K | 98% |
Frequently asked
How long is Red Rising?
It has 468 pages — longer than 59% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 7.9 and 8.3, closest to this book.
