Welcome back blog readers! This week I’m going to discuss the fifth installment in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, Dark Age. I’ve blogged about the first four books in the series, and the fifth one was once again an incredible story that I’m excited to discuss. Let’s go!
Darrow and some of his Howlers, Sevro and Holiday are absent, arrive on Mercury to free Orion and assess the status of Mercury. Orion is in a bad mental state after being rescued, and Mercury is on the brink of falling to the Society. The Republic has two cities left, Tyche and Heliopolis. Darrow plans to make a last stand at one of those two cities, preferably the rebellion friendly Tyche.
Lysander arrives with Seraphina and Diomedes au Raa to meet the new dictator of the Society, Atalantia au Grimmus. There is animosity from Ajax au Raa, who views Lysander as a threat and doesn’t trust him. Ultimately there is an alliance formed to take out Darrow and the Rising.
Darrow is using a local Master Maker, Glirastes, to build a weapon to fight back. His sister, Rhonna, has become one of his top lieutenants along with Alexandar au Arcos. Alexandar is the best soldier in Darrow’s army and has formed a budding romance with Rhonna as well. The weapon they’re building is a Storm God, something used when terraforming the planet that can control the weather.
Atalantia demands that Lysander and Diomedes fall in the impending rain on Mercury. Seraphina steps in for Diomedes, and both prepare to launch an assault on Mercury. It will be a massive assault, and the first true military field experience for Lysander. If successful, the Core and the Rim Society’s will be allied with each other to restore Gold’s rule.
The assault begins to overwhelm the Rising and the Free Legions. Darrow calls to Orion to activate the Storm God, and massive storms begin to incapacitate Atalantia’s army. Orion, however, goes overboard and snaps. She wants to end the war and kill everyone, cranking the storms up to max power. Darrow uses a kill switch he implanted her to stop it, but the storm has already destroyed Tyche. The remaining soldiers fall back to Heliopolis to make their stand there.
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Lysander is met by his grandmother’s Praetorian Guard, let by the Love Knight Kalindora and legendary Gray soldier Rhone Ti Flavinius. They pledge allegiance to Lysander and begin fighting the Rising on Mercury. The Storm comes, Seraphina is killed in the chaos. Lysander sees Darrow and attacks, Darrow brushes him away not bothering to complete the kills. Kalindora and Rhone are taken captive, Lysander is alone in the desert.
We also get Darrow’s POV of this encounter, just annihilating Lysander’s forces and heading to Heliopolis to make their stand. Darrow goes sicko mode, eliminating the attackers and personally repelling Ajax and Atlas. The Society forces retreat, and Darrow’s team has bought themselves more time for the Republic to send help despite taking heavy casualties. The Mercurians are livid, their planet has been destroyed by the Storm God. His new plan is to have Glirastes build a mega EMP that they can use to incapacitate Atalantia’s fleet while they repair the Morning Starand escape.
Lysander wanders for days, injured and looking for help. Ajax sends a team of assassins to kill him one night. Lysander is trained with the Mind’s Eye, an ability that allows him to slow down his surroundings. Lysander uses a flashbang to blind everyone, then one by one takes the team out, and finds Apollonius au Vali Rath who wants to help in exchange for learning the Mind’s Eye. Lysander refuses and continues his trip through the desert.
Meanwhile, Ephraim is under the custody of the Obsidians on Olympia. They were found before the Syndicate could get them, but Sefi keeps them as wards, so she has leverage with Victra and Mustang. Ephraim is tasked with training Sefi’s Skuggi group for special ops, while Pax and Electra are being trained/educated in the Obsidian way.
Mustang is holding a vote to send military aid to Mercury, and she finally finds Sevro to get his help. Sevro, Mustang, and Holiday find evidence that Dancer was unknowingly in a relationship with the Duke of Hands, who has been informing on him to the Syndicate. Dancer agrees to vote in support with them with the Vox Popli’s vote.
Sefi wants to take over some of the Mars helium mines and give the Red people a cut of the profit. Victra and Mustang are willing to make that concession to get Pax and Electra back. Ephraim is training the Skuggi on how to do counterespionage and is beginning to form a good relationship with Pax. He even gives Pax the tools to build an escape ship should they need it.
Meanwhile, Lyria and Volga are tortured and held captive in Victra’s main ship. The are in a puzzle they can’t solve, and slowly withering away. They begin passing notes between each other using their blood and clothing. A friendship forms, despite Lyria knowing Volga’s role in the abductions. Figment arrives one day and tells them they will be sent back to Sefi in exchange for Pax, Electra, and the Helium mines. Suddenly, the ship is attacked by aliens, who turn out to be the Obsidian Ascomanni tribe. Fig is killed, and a little robot parasite crawls out of her head and into Lyria. The parasite is able to guide Lyria but is damaged and needs repair. The leader of the Ascomanni is Volseng Fa, who captures the ship as Lyria, Volga, and Victra all escape.
During the senate vote, Dancer starts convulsing and dies as he has been poisoned. Mustang receives a distress call from Sevro, he has been captured on Earth. At that moment, Pluribus leads a revolution and overthrows Mustang. Mustang, Daxo, and the rest of the pro-rising senators try to flee but the mob attacks. Daxo is killed along with most of them, Mustang is captured. Lilath descends to reveal herself as the queen of the Syndicate, and she has re-incarnated the Jackal as a clone. Sevro is brought in with Clown and Pebble, they watch as the Abomination (new Jackal) burns most of the Howlers alive and takes Mustang captive. Turns out the Vox Populi was a creation of the Jackal’s in effort (and success) to displace Mustang as the Sovereign.
Ephraim’s Skuggi take control of the Mars helium mines. There is discontent from the male Obsidians, mainly Sefi’s mate Valdir who is their strongest warrior. They a go on a ceremonial dragon hunt, Sefi is unable to kill the dragon, but Ephraim saves her with sniper cover. It is revealed that Sefi was poisoned and is slowly dying, but Pax takes the blame for the failed hunt. Sefi’s best warrior Freihild is also sleeping with Valdir, and there’s drama about who should be leading the Obsidians.
Victra, Lyria, and Volga link up and run from the Red Hand terrorists who occupy their landing zone. They takeover a home where Victra proceeds to give birth, trusting the family there. However, they are ambushed while Volga goes to call for help. Victra is taken captive and Lyria seeks shelter at a nearby home. Lyria pretends to be a new woman “recruit” for the hand and gets taken to their prison hold. Using tools form her parasite, she gets most of the girls to take poison pills to attack their captors. It works, she is able to free herself and go get Victra. Victra goes on a rampage, they are able to rescue Volga and kill the Red Hand leader, Harmony.
Ephraim and the Shaman Ozgard are ambushed by intruders, finding Freihild killed and are greeted by Volsang Fa. Ozgard is maimed, and they race back to Sefi. When Freihild is discovered to be dead, Valdir revolts which leads him to imprisonment. Ephraim knows he has to leave, so he takes Electra and Pax to escape off the planet and return them to Victra. When he returns, he learns that Sefi’s white, Xenophon, is behind the betrayal. Pax convinces Ephraim to go back and tell Sefi, Lyria and Volga disagree and don’t want to see Ephraim go back.
Mustang is interrogated by the Abomination, she realizes Lilath did not give him all of his old memories back and is able to manipulate him. Eventually, she uses a poison flower to incapacitate him and Lilath. While escaping, she makes the tough decision to leave Sevro, Clown and Pebble behind as she has no way to rescue them.
Ephraim arrives back on Olympia and tries to use his Skuggi to break Valdir free. The plan is thwarted, and he is being held by an irate Sefi. Valdir is missing, and his jailbreak plan has failed. Volseng Fa enters, announcing that he is the father of Sefi and Ragnar and has come back to take his thrown. Sefi and him duel where she is quickly killed, Fa tells his army to go sack Olympia. Ephraim attempts to blow everyone up, killing many including Xenophon but Fa survives. Ephraim then has his heart ripped out by Fa, ending his story.
Darrow meanwhile is continuing his escape plan, he has not seen Alexandar since he went to help people dying on Tyche. Darrow knows he is probably dead and is moving on to the final plan. The plan is to send an EMP to the Grimmus fleet and escape in the chaos.
Lysander finds many impaled Reds, and he goes to mercy kill them. He is trapped however by a net and taken captive by Atlas’s men along with Alexandar and his crew. After days of torture, Lysander admits who he is, and it brought to Atlas. He convinces Atlas to let him “escape” and take Atlas captive to Darrow, Alexandar and team are freed. They arrive to Heliopolis where Darrow is skeptical but grateful for Alexandar’s return. Lysander is using an alias and is not recognized by anyone, but Glirastes, who used to be loyal to the Sovereign.
Darrow heavily interrogates Lysander, ultimately releasing him to the custody of Glirastes when he couldn’t prove that Lysander was lying. Lysander gets Glirastes and the rest of the Core loyalists on his side, he gets them to turn the EMP plan into an internal attack on Darrow. Lysander is about to start his plan when he is approached by Alexandar and Rhonna who want to have a drink. Darrow finds out who Lysander is, and radios Alexandar and Rhonna to remain calm until he arrives. Lysander realizes what’s happening and incapacitates Rhonna. Alexandar wants to dual Lysander, but that pussy just shoots Alexandar in the face because he’s not capable of beating anyone 1v1. The EMP goes off, and Lysander goes to rendezvous with his people.
Darrow races to find Lysander only to find wounded Rhonna and the dead Alexandar. Darrow rages war, but Lysander has freed the cavalry which gives him a huge advantage in the blacked-out world. Darrow’s forces are able to kill a lot of them but are overrun and are forced to retreat. Darrow charges Lysander, but with a much smaller horse and Lysander with two razors it isn’t a fair fight. Darrow’s slingBlade is destroyed, and one of the razors is impaled through his lung. All hope is lost, but at the last-minute Cassius swoops in with his ship to buy them time to escape off the planet. Let’s go!!!! I completely forgot about Cassius, unreal that he survived and then iced up to join our fight. We have hope once again, Darrow is off of Mercury and we’re back in the fight.
Mustang and Victra reconcile, but Victra is livid her son has died and Sevro is still missing. She is turning all of her freightliners into war ships. Mustang realizes how much Pax has changed, and he heads to the Academy to learn how to be a fighter pilot. They do not know if Darrow and Cassius are alive, and need to focus on defending Mars as it will soon be under siege. Lyria is dispatched to the asteroid belt to repair the parasite, if it’s operational she can turn into the advantage the Republic needs.
Lysander offers marriage to Atlantia to unify the core. She accepts, and they agree to work together. However, on her death bed, Kalindora tells Lysander that Atlantia, Atlas, Aja, and Kalindora all were responsible for killing his parents at his grandmother’s directive. Lysander is sick, dead inside. Hate to see it, enjoy banging your mom’s killer! It is also disclosed that the Sovereign had Lysander’s memory altered, forming him into the ruler she wanted. Again, you hate to see it!
This was a LONG book. Almost 800 pages including the prologue. However, it didn’t feel long at all. This was on par with the earlier entries, and they even added Mustang’s perspective for the first time. Just a masterclass in storytelling, especially the back and forth with Darrow and Lysander. The Lysander POV is extremely well written, but tough to read. Just a hypocritical delusional little shit, if there’s any justice here, he’ll end up impaled and left for the vultures. This book we got COOKED. There are so many opps I don’t know how were going to do it. We have to fight Atlantia, we have to fight Volseng Fa, we have to fight Lysander, we have to fight the Raa’s. The deck is absurdly stacked against us. Like in Golden Son, this book was a beat down. I guess we have to get knocked down before we get back up.
I can’t speak enough on this book or this whole series. It is the best sci-fi content that I’ve ever consumed and is probably the best fictional story I’ve ever read. Light Bringer is the 6th installment in the series and is the highest rated on Goodreads. I’m about 200 pages in and will get the review up next week. As for Dark Age, this joins the other Red Risingbooks with a 5.0/5.0. This is elite, everyone needs to read this before the TV show launches with Netflix. Thanks for reading, catch you next time!
