'Iron Gold' by Pierce Brown
'Iron Gold' by Pierce Brown

3.5 stars.

The good

  • I loved the original trilogy, and as the third book in the series really managed to stick the landing, wrapping up things in a very satisfying way, I was worried that this 4th book would have nowhere to go, and might feel like the author just trying to milk the series without anything meaningful at stake. I was happy to find that wasn’t the case. This new book takes place 10 years after the original trilogy, and manages to pick up the story nicely, and to extend it with plenty more action, tragedy, mystery, and suspense.

  • Darrow, Sevro, Virginia, Cassius, and the usual gang are all still strong, interesting characters.

  • The universe of the Red Rising Saga, with all of its peoples, planets, technologies, language, and culture is still as fun as ever. I mean, how can you not enjoy olympic knights clad in pulse armor and star shells, zipping around in grav boots, and doing battle with razors and pulse fists?

The not so good

  • Every few chapters, the story switches focus to a different character, which I’ve seen work well in other books, but in this one, I found it a bit jarring and frustrating.

  • I think part of what made the original trilogy work was that all the characters felt very well developed, including the relationships and conflicts between them (e.g., Darrow as both a Red and a Gold), and you got very attached to seeing them succeed. For some reason, I didn’t feel nearly as attached with this 4th book. Maybe it’s because the story kept switching from one character to another, so you don’t get to go as deep with any one of them?

  • The battles and action scenes weren’t as creative and fun in this book as the previous ones.

  • The twist ending wasn’t particularly surprising or interesting. I’ll avoid any spoilers here, and only say here that it fell flat for me.

Rating: 4 stars