Print List Price:	$18.00
Kindle Price:	$12.99 Save $5.01 (28%)
Sold by:	Random House LLC Price set by seller.

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $4.99

Audiobook Price: $24.60

Save: $19.61 (80%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Pierce Brown

+ Follow

More books from this author

Morning Star (Red Rising Series Book 3)

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

VIDEO

Morning Star (Red Rising Series Book 3) Kindle Edition

by Pierce Brown (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.7 40,598 ratings

Book 3 of 6: Red Rising

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

See all formats and editions

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Red Rising thrilled readers and announced the presence of a talented new author. Golden Son changed the game and took the story of Darrow to the next level. Now comes the exhilarating next chapter in the Red Rising Saga: Morning Star.

ITW THRILLER AWARD FINALIST • “[Brown’s] achievement is in creating an uncomfortably familiar world of flaw, fear, and promise.”—Entertainment Weekly

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society’s mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Finally, the time has come.

But devotion to honor and hunger for vengeance run deep on both sides. Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness to break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied—and too glorious to surrender.

Praise for Morning Star

“There is no one writing today who does shameless, Michael Bay–style action set pieces the way Brown does. The battle scenes are kinetic, bloody, breathless, crazy. Everything is on fire all the time.”—NPR

“Morning Star is this trilogy’s Return of the Jedi. . . . The impactful battles that make up most of Morning Star are damn near operatic. . . . It absolutely satisfies.”—Tordotcom

“Excellent . . . Brown’s vivid, first-person prose puts the reader right at the forefront of impassioned speeches, broken families, and engaging battle scenes . . . as this interstellar civil war comes to a most satisfying conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A page-turning epic filled with twists and turns . . . The conclusion to Brown’s saga is simply stellar.”—Booklist (starred review)

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

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2016: An entire trilogy rarely stays strong all the way through. The middle may sag, or the end might fizzle. That’s not the case with Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, and his third and final book has again made the cut as a Best of the Month pick by the Amazon Books editors. Torn between loyalty to his Gold friends and his drive to free the lowColors, our battered hero Darrow is more vulnerable than ever as the fate of the solar system rests on his shoulders. Will Darrow’s allies stay true now that they know who he really is? Does his rebellion against the Golds have any chance at all? Will everyone (or anyone) survive? As Darrow searches for a conclusive win in the civil war he’s leading, he makes choices that will change his life, the lives of his friends, and the lives of millions of people struggling against the tyranny of the Golds. Morning Star keeps the action red-hot as it leaps between epic battle scenes in space and hand-to-hand combat on Mars while never losing sight of the emotions that drive the characters toward their fates. This is an incandescent, deeply satisfying finale to a series that has forged a new generation of science fiction readers. —Adrian Liang

From Publishers Weekly

In the excellent closing book of Brown's Red Rising trilogy, revolutionary Darrow is given a second chance to overthrow the government of a class-based future society obsessed with Ancient Rome and segregated by color-coded functions. Red-born Darrow's attempt to incite revolution while hiding among the godlike Golds, rulers of the Solar System, has failed, but it inspired an open revolt. Darrow struggles to figure out whom to trust; uniting an interplanetary uprising requires unstable and unpalatable alliances. His decisions often make him barely better than the oppressors he seeks to overthrow, blowing apart the all-too-overused trope of a plucky good-hearted band overcoming a corrupt oligarchy. Brown's vivid, first-person prose puts the reader right at the forefront of impassioned speeches, broken families, and engaging battle scenes that don't shy away from the gore as this intrastellar civil war comes to a most satisfying conclusion. (Feb.)\n

Review

“You could call [Pierce] Brown science fiction’s best-kept secret. In Morning Star, the trilogy’s devastating and inspiring final chapter, . . . he flirts with volume, oscillating between thundering space escapes and hushed, tense parleys between rivals, where the cinematic dialogue oozes such specificity and suspense you could almost hear a pin drop between pages. His achievement is in creating an uncomfortably familiar world of flaw, fear, and promise.”—Entertainment Weekly

“There is no one writing today who does shameless, Michael Bay–style action set pieces the way Brown does. The battle scenes are kinetic, bloody, breathless, crazy. Everything is on fire all the time.”—NPR

“Morning Star is this trilogy’s Return of the Jedi. . . . The impactful battles that make up most of Morning Star are damn near operatic. . . . It absolutely satisfies.”—Tordotcom

“Excellent . . . Brown’s vivid, first-person prose puts the reader right at the forefront of impassioned speeches, broken families, and engaging battle scenes . . . as this interstellar civil war comes to a most satisfying conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A page-turning epic filled with twists and turns . . . The conclusion to Brown’s saga is simply stellar.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune . . . an ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.”—Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Pierce Brown the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star, and Iron Gold. His work has been published in thirty-three languages and thirty-five territories.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Only the Dark

Deep in darkness, far from warmth and sun and moons, I lie, quiet as the stone that surrounds me, imprisoning my hunched body in a dreadful womb. I cannot stand. Cannot stretch. I can only curl in a ball, a withered fossil of the man that was. Hands cuffed behind my back. Naked on cold rock.

All alone with the dark.

It seems months, years, millennia since my knees have unbent, since my spine has straightened from its crooked pose. The ache is madness. My joints fuse like rusted iron. How much time has passed since I saw my Golden friends bleeding out into the grass? Since I felt gentle Roque kiss my cheek as he broke my heart?

Time is no river.

Not here.

In this tomb, time is the stone. It is the darkness, permanent and unyielding, its only measure the twin pendulums of life—breath and the beating of my heart.

In. Buh . . . bump. Buh . . . bump.

Out. Buh . . . bump. Buh . . . bump.

In. Buh . . . bump. Buh . . . bump.

And forever it repeats. Until . . . Until when? Until I die of old age? Until I crush my skull against the stone? Until I gnaw out the tubes the Yellows threaded into my lower gut to force nutrients in and wastes out?

Or until you go mad?

“No.” I grind my teeth.

Yessssss.

“It’s only the dark.” I breathe in. Calm myself. Touch the walls in my soothing pattern. Back, fingers, tailbone, heels, toes, knees, head. Repeat. A dozen times. A hundred. Why not be sure? Make it a thousand.

Yes. I’m alone.

I would have thought there to be worse fates than this, but now I know there are none. Man is no island. We need those who love us. We need those who hate us. We need others to tether us to life, to give us a reason to live, to feel. All I have is the darkness. Sometimes I scream. Sometimes I laugh during the night, during the day. Who knows now? I laugh to pass the time, to exhaust the calories the Jackal gives me and make my body shiver into sleep.

I weep too. I hum. I whistle.

I listen to voices above. Coming to me from the endless sea of darkness. And attending them is the maddening clatter of chains and bones, vibrating through my prison walls. All so close, yet a thousand kilometers away, as if a whole world existed just beyond the darkness and I cannot see it, cannot touch it, taste it, feel it, or pierce that veil to belong to the world once again. I am imprisoned in solitude.

I hear the voices now. The chains and bones trickling through my prison.

Are the voices mine?

I laugh at the idea.

I curse.

I plot. Kill.

Slaughter. Gouge. Rip. Burn.

I beg. I hallucinate. I bargain.

I whimper prayers to Eo, happy she was spared a fate like this.

She’s not listening.

I sing childhood ballads and recite Dying Earth, The Lamplighter, the Ramayana, The Odyssey in Greek and Latin, then in the lost languages of Arabic, English, Chinese, and German, pulling from memories of dataDrops Matteo gave me when I was barely more than a boy. Seeking strength from the wayward Argive who only wished to find his way home.

You forget what he did.

Odysseus was a hero. He broke the walls of Troy with his wooden horse. Like I broke the Bellona armies in the Iron Rain over Mars.

And then . . .

“No,” I snap. “Quiet.”

. . . men entered Troy. Found mothers. Found children. Guess what they did?

“Shut up!”

You know what they did. Bone. Sweat. Flesh. Ash. Weeping. Blood.

The darkness cackles with glee.

Reaper, Reaper, Reaper . . . All deeds that last are painted in blood.

Am I asleep? Am I awake? I’ve lost my way. Everything bleeding together, drowning me in visions and whispers and sounds. Again and again I jerk Eo’s fragile little ankles. Break Julian’s face. Hear Pax and Quinn and Tactus and Lorn and Victra sigh their last. So much pain. And for what? To fail my wife. To fail my people.

And fail Ares. Fail your friends.

How many are even left?

Sevro? Ragnar?

Mustang?

Mustang. What if she knows you’re here . . . What if she doesn’t care . . . And why would she? You who betrayed. You who lied. You who used her mind. Her body. Her blood. You showed her your true face and she ran. What if it was her? What if she betrayed you? Could you love her then?

“Shut up!” I scream at myself, at the darkness.

Don’t think of her. Don’t think of her.

Why ever not? You miss her.

A vision of her is spawned in the darkness like so many before it—a girl riding away from me across a field of green, twisting in her saddle and laughing for me to follow. Hair rippling as would summer hay fluttering from a farmer’s wagon.

You crave her. You love her. The Golden girl. Forget that Red bitch.

“No.” I slam my head against the wall. “It’s only the dark,” I whisper. Only the dark playing tricks on my mind. But still I try to forget Mustang, Eo. There is no world beyond this place. I cannot miss what does not exist.

Warm blood trickles down my forehead from old scabs, now freshly broken. It drips off my nose. I extend my tongue, probing the cold stone till I find the drops. Savor the salt, the Martian iron. Slowly. Slowly. Let the novelty of sensation last. Let the flavor linger and remind me I am a man. A Red of Lykos. A Helldiver.

No. You are not. You are nothing. Your wife abandoned you and stole your child. Your whore turned from you. You were not good enough. You were too proud. Too stupid. Too wicked. Now, you are forgotten.

Am I?

When last I saw the Golden girl, I was on my knees beside Ragnar in the tunnels of Lykos, asking Mustang to betray her own people and live for more. I knew that if she chose to join us, Eo’s dream would blossom. A better world was at our fingertips. Instead, she left. Could she forget me? Has her love for me left her?

She only loved your mask.

“It’s only the dark. Only the dark. Only the dark,” I mumble faster and faster.

I should not be here.

I should be dead. After the death of Lorn, I was to be given to Octavia so her Carvers could dissect me to discover the secrets of how I became Gold. To see if there could be others like me. But the Jackal made a bargain. Kept me for his own. He tortured me in his Attica estate, asking about the Sons of Ares, about Lykos and my family. Never telling me how he discovered my secret. I begged him to end my life.

In the end, he gave me stone.

“When all is lost, honor demands death,” Roque once told me. “It is a noble end.” But what would a rich poet know of death? The poor know death. Slaves know death. But even as I yearn for it, I fear it. Because the more I see of this cruel world, the less I believe it ends in some pleasant fiction.

The Vale is not real.

It’s a lie told by mothers and fathers to give their starving children a reason for the horror. There is no reason. Eo is gone. She never watched me fight for her dream. She did not care what fate I made at the Institute or if I loved Mustang, because the day she died, she became nothing. There is nothing but this world. It is our beginning and our end. Our one chance at joy before the dark.

Yes. But you don’t have to end. You can escape this place, the darkness whispers to me. Say the words. Say them. You know the way.

It is right. I do.

“All you must say is ‘I am broken,’ and this will all end,” the Jackal said long ago, before he lowered me into this hell. “I will put you in a lovely estate for the rest of your days and send you warm, beautiful Pinks and food enough to make you fatter than the Ash Lord. But the words carry a price.”

Worth it. Save yourself. No one else will.

“That price, dear Reaper, is your family.”

The family he seized from Lykos with his lurchers and now keeps in his prison in the bowels of his Attica fortress. Never letting me see them. Never letting me tell them I love them, and that I’m sorry I was not strong enough to protect them.

“I will feed them to the prisoners of this fortress,” he said. “These men and women you think should rule instead of Gold. Once you see the animal in man, you will know that I am right and you are wrong. Gold must rule.”

Let them go, the darkness says. The sacrifice is practical. It is wise.

“No . . . I won’t . . .”

Your mother would want you to live.

Not at that price.

What man could grasp a mother’s love? Live. For her. For Eo.

Could she want that? Is the darkness right? After all, I’m important. Eo said so. Ares said so; he chose me. Me of all the Reds. I can break the chains. I can live for more. It’s not selfish for me to escape this prison. In the grand scheme of things, it is selfless.

Yes. Selfless, really . . .

Mother would beg me to make this sacrifice. Kieran would understand. So would my sister. I can save our people. Eo’s dream must be made real, no matter the cost. It’s my responsibility to persevere. It is my right.

Say the words.

I slam my head into the stone and scream at the darkness to go away. It cannot trick me. It cannot break me.

Didn’t you know? All men break.

Its high cackle mocks me, stretching forever.

And I know it is right. All men break. I did already under his torture. I told him that I was from Lykos. Where he could find my family. But there is a way out, to honor what I am. What Eo loved. To silence the voices.

“Roque, you were right,” I whisper. “You were right.” I just want to be home. To be gone from here. But I can’t have that. All that’s left, the only honorable path for me, is death. Before I betray even more of who I am.

Death is the way out.

Don’t be a fool. Stop. Stop.

I lurch my head forward into the wall harder than before. Not to punish, but to kill. To end myself. If there is no pleasant end to this world, then nothingness will suffice. But if there is a Vale beyond this plane, I will find it. I’m coming, Eo. At last, I am on my way. “I love you.”

No. No. No. No. No.

I crash my skull again into stone. Heat pours down my face. Sparks of pain dance in the black. The darkness wails at me, but I do not stop.

If this is the end, I will rage toward it.

But as I pull back my head to deliver one last great blow, existence groans. Rumbling like an earthquake. Not the darkness. Something beyond. Something in the stone itself, growing louder and deeper above me, till the darkness cracks and a blazing sword of light slashes down.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00SPVPX2G
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey (February 9, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 11962 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 526 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #2,273 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #16 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #18 in Science Fiction Adventure
- #19 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.7 40,598 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Pierce Brown

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Pierce Brown is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of the Red Rising Saga. He spent his childhood building forts and setting traps for his cousins in the woods of six states and the deserts of two. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he scribbles tales of spaceships, wizards, ghouls, and most things old or bizarre.

www.PierceBrown.com

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

40,598 global ratings

1 star

0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Sandy Farmer

5 Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2016

Verified Purchase

You guys, I'm so sad that this series is over. This series has been so much more and so much better than I ever dreamed it would be. I never would have imagined that "a book about living on Mars" would have sucked me in so completely. I love the evolution of Darrow and the other characters over this series as well.

Spoilers for prior books ahead:

Darrow starts out the series as a lowRed--the lowest caste possible. The lowReds work in the mines of Mars harvesting helium3 which is essential for teraformation. They've been told that the surface of Mars is uninhabitable and they're worked to death to achieve a lie. Mars is not only inhabitable, but is teaming with a large population as well as other planets. Darrow's wife dies when she dares to dream of a different world. She's basically a martyr and starts Darrow down the path of rebellion. He starts his journey with an intense desire for revenge. He wants to bring low the Golds (the highest caste) for murdering his wife and enslaving his people. Darrow goes through an intense transformation process which Carves him into a Gold. He's sent off to the Institute where he and other Golds battle it out for domination. At the Institute, as unlikely as it may seem, Darrow actually makes friends with some of the Golds that he's surrounded with. Some are just as awful as the man who sentenced his wife to hang, but others aren't. Some are even...nice. But Darrow can't be honest with them about who he is. After winning Primus at the Institute, Darrow goes on to the Academy and works in the household of the ArchGovernor of Mars--the very man who killed his wife. What Darrow really doesn't expect is to find love again. Especially not in the daughter of the ArchGovernor. And can it be real when she doesn't know the truth about who Darrow is? Darrow incites war between the ArchGovernor's house and another major Gold house of Mars. This war is really just a cover for his main purpose of rebellion against the Society as a whole. At the end of Golden Son Darrow ends up captured by the enemy. And that's essentially where we being with Morning Star.

Because he was captured and tortured by the enemy for essentially a year, Darrow has been humbled. His Carved, superior body is once again weak. But he's learned a lot in the process too. Even though Eo inspired his fight against Society, he's learned that he has to fight for more than revenge and for more than one girl. That isn't what inspires him anymore. His true identity has been revealed, but this just means that Darrow no longer has to hide who he is anymore. And in truth this fact makes him stronger. He's Red deep down and therefore connects to the lower colors, but his body is Gold and he's lived in a Gold world and dominated and therefore connects to the higher colors too. But now it's much easier to see who's loyal because they stay knowing the truth. Yet it seems like not everyone is as sure of his supporters as Darrow is.

Darrow faces former friends turned enemies. These are either people that he once betrayed or that betrayed him. And that isn't an easy task. It's almost as if the Darkness has softened him. Darrow of all people is conscious of the cost of war--death. But this war needs to be fought--not for revenge, for the past but for the future. It breaks his heart when his friends and those around him die, but thankfully he no longer fights alone. He's surrounded by thousands of people who believe in him, who believe in the mission, who believe in the world that Eo once dared to dream of. And even though his crazy missions cause a lot of death, Darrow doesn't bear that lightly.

The other characters are just as diverse and complex as Darrow. Servo, even though he has a potty mouth, is one of my absolute favorite characters. His loyalty and devotion to Darrow is beyond what any hero could ask for. Yet he's got his own things going on. He's dealing with the loss of his father. He's taken on a huge responsibility in becoming Ares--the leader of the rebellion. And he's starting to see what his life could be after the war. There's Victra who is rough around the edges. She's all violence and tough girl. But deep down there's so much heart and bravery. There's Ragnar who was once enslaved and freed by Darrow. He's become as much of the heart of this mission as Darrow himself. He's also become extremely wise. As weird as it is to say, I'm so proud of him. And Mustang...sometimes it was really hard to read her--how she felt about Darrow. Which side of the lines does she fall on? I was rooting for those two. I wish there had been a bit more romance there, but I will say that it makes sense when you're fighting a war to be a bit preoccupied. And there were plenty of others as well.

Even Darrow's enemies are complex. And he has to face down with every single one of them. Cassius...I loved how this storyline was worked into Morning Star and worked out in the end. Rogue. Antonia. Adrius--the Jackal. Aja. The Sovereign. Every single person who has battled against Darrow that still lives was addressed and had a role to play in this book. And I loved that.

Pierce Brown offered me no less quoteable moments in Morning Star than any of his other books. Here are my favorite non-spoiler quotes:
-"This is always how the story would end...Not with your screams. Not with your rage. But with your silence."

-...I feel the rage burn across the dark hollow he has carved in my soul. I am not alone. I am not his victim. So let him do his worst. I am the Reaper.

-Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution.

-"I'd applaud a mouse that managed to kill an eagle, wouldn't you?"

-"Don't ask me to be different because you need validation, please. It's beneath the both of us."

-This is more a part of war than trumpets or starships. Quiet, unremembered moments of cruelty.

-I know death well enough to hear it gather its breath.

-I know friends can lie just as well as enemies.

-Death'll have to earn its bounty.

-"If your heart beats like a drum, and your leg's a little wet, it's because the Reaper's come to collect a little debt."

-When I looked up at my father as a boy, I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.

-If this is the cost of honor, give me a shameful murder.

-"Bye, Felicia."

-Few men truly like seeing beauty burn.

One of the best things about Pierce Brown's work and this series is that the twists and turns are rarely predictable. You might have a clue that something's coming, but there's just not enough information to predict exactly what's going to happen. He had me thinking one thing and then changing my mind and then back again only to find out something totally different was going on altogether. That's the mark of great writing.

The ending...man I dreaded the ending. Not just because I didn't want the series to end, but because my fear for these characters that I'd come to love was palpable. But this is war, and rarely does everyone survive war. I won't tell you how things ended. I can't spoil it for you, but I will say that I was really happy with how Pierce Brown worked everything in the end.

I truly feel like this review has not done this book or this series justice. It's a hefty series in both length and the emotional toll that it took on me. I was heartbroken, angry, saddened, appalled, frustrated, anxious as all get out, and proud along with a variety of many more emotions. Pierce Brown's writing is such that I'll definitely check out his future work no question. Morning Star gets 5 Stars from me. Have you read Morning Star? What did you think? Let me know!

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

David Maldonado

Philosophical, cathartic, mind-blowing my amazing! Not enough words to describe it all!

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

Hello readers,

I am excited to bring this review to you. I finished this book two days ago, and I just could not write a review outright. I know that sounds funny, but the overwhelming variety of emotions I felt after completing this book was just too much to bare. So please bare with me, as I do my best to describe why this book is so amazing, because I know for a fact there's no way anything I can say will do it justice.

The Red Rising trilogy is a rare trilogy that has been solid all the way through. Most authors burst onto the scene with vengeance, some gain momentum as they go, and yet others hit their peak midway through. Pierce Brown is a rare author who has written solid gold all the way through. Sadly, my blogging hiatus happened during the time I read Red Rising and Golden Son, so I never got to review it. I will say a bit about each before I move on to the glorious Morning Star.

Red Rising is a book that takes place in space, where everyone is part of a caste system. Golds are depicted as God like figures, and rule over the Greys, Obsidians, Pinks, and on the lowest level, Reds. (I'm sure I'm missing a color or two, but you get my point. Our protagonist Darrow is a lowly red, and like all his people, suffer because he's not part of the ruling class. Golds act like tyrants, and like all tyrants, they believe they rule for the better of everyone. Now, I won't give out spoilers, but a catalytic event takes place that sends Darrow on a road of revenge, glory, love, and most of all, betrayal. Darrow becomes a shining beacon for his people, and Red Rising is a book that shows us that Darrow is a character not to be taken lightly.

Golden Son, also known as book two, continues the journey Darrow and his band of misfit supporters have embarked on. Their goal: justice and freedom for all. An uprising has begun to happen, and Golden Son is smack dab in the middle of things. It was very political in the sense that, it reminded me of a Presidential Campaign. Who has who's vote? Who will fight for whom? What resources can you provide? Are you willing to double cross the opponent for the right price? And so on and so forth. The biggest theme for me is betrayal. Golden Son ends with the biggest cliffhanger I've ever read, and the fact that we had to wait a whole year for Morning Star was not easy. Darrow learns an important lesson and I'll just say he's never truly the same. Heart-breaking really.

Now, for the best book yet, Morning Star. Where to begin I ask myself...

Pierce Brown has created such a wide variety and swoon-worthy characters and he makes it feel effortless. Darrow is the hero we all want, deeply flawed but we love him viscously. Mustang is a fierce woman character that modern literature gravitated to, and with good reason. Dear old Sevro is by far one of my favorite characters in literature. He's hilariously blunt, a fierce fighter, deeply loyal to Darrow, yet we all can see he has daddy issues. On character I loved to hate was Aja. She was fierce, cruel, and entitled in her Gold status. She was definitely a female version of Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones. There's plenty of other characters to discuss, but these four stand out the most to me.The dialogue and fluid banter between characters is superb, and I'm sure I laughed out loud more times than I could count.

The. Damn. Plot. Oh! My! God! Never in my entire book-reading life have I ever been so on edge with a book. This book gave me twists and turns, perouettes, literally everything Pierce Brown could throw at you---he did! The battles are phenomenally described, and Brown doesn't bog down his book with murky and boring details, despite the massive length of his book that might make you think otherwise.

I don't think I can say anything else except me sharing some important quotes that are near and dear to me. These quotes come from some of the best moments in the book, and pretty much the trilogy. Many are empowering dialogues, philosophical cathartic moments, and some are just down-right heart breaking in the grand spectrum of things. Read them and weep :)

When I looked up at my father as a boy, I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is the lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.

Pierce Brown hit home with this quote. It spoke to my adult self, mourning the death of my youth. We can only dream now of our youthful glory days. Touché Brown, touché!

We were just an idea. But Roque has made them think the thought that unites all masters who have ever been: what if the slaves take my property for their own?

So insightful. I would have totally used this in my African American slave narratives class if I could have had the chance. I'm sure all tyrants fear this, as they should.

Battles are won months before they are fought

This gave me Sun Tzu Art of War REALNESS! It's a brilliant deductions, and so true. It reminded me of one of my favorite book trilogies The Shattered Sea by Joe Abercrombie, particularly book three Half a War. I can't find the quote but it was something like half a war is fought on the battle field, while the other half is fought politically. Horrible paraphrasing, but that is the sentiment behind it. Planning is everything!

And....that's it readers. I literally can go on for days about this book. It took me there and back again. I haven't felt so emotionally invested in a book in such a long time. It was refreshing to do so again. If you haven't read this trilogy, I urge you, PLEASE DO! Even if it isn't your type of genre, I promise you there's a little something for every kind of reader. And of course, if your are a YA, Fantasy, Science Fiction fan, this is a definite must-read for you.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

LPST

Wow. Just Wow.

Reviewed in Brazil on February 24, 2024

Verified Purchase

I don’t even have words to describe my feelings for this book. It’s definitely one of my favourite series ever.

Jelena Petrovic

Better then Book 1

Reviewed in Canada on September 4, 2023

Verified Purchase

This series was recommended by a friend. Book one was great but I felt the story drag a bit. Not a problem with book 2! The pace of progression keeps you on your toes and easily gets you lost within the pages of the book. Great character development and an exciting ending that leaves you yearning to know what will happen next! This is a great page-turning series, and one that will easily leaves you saying "just one more chapter"

One person found this helpful

Izzy

Amazing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2024

Verified Purchase

Such a gifted author, an incredible world and beautifully written

alejandro

Awesome

Reviewed in Germany on February 15, 2024

Verified Purchase

I really liked it. Pretty good conclusion of the first trilogy. In the end, it is always was a love story.

Ana

It keeps getting better

Reviewed in Spain on February 1, 2024

Verified Purchase

It’s a page turner. It adds a necessary layer of complexity to the overall story, and all the dilemmas that arise when you play the “change the world” game. Are heroes pure? How does a hero rise?

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

Morning Star (Red Rising Series Book 3) Kindle Edition

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Publishers Weekly

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

Videos for this product

Morning Star (Red Rising Series Book 3)

About the author

Pierce Brown

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries