Golden Son

I kept going with the trilogy, and Golden Son is genuinely a step up from the first book. The scope gets bigger, the stakes feel more real, and Pierce Brown leans harder into the political maneuvering which keeps things interesting. If Red Rising was The Hunger Games in space, this one starts feeling more like Game of Thrones — with varying results.

The survival competition framing is mostly gone, replaced by factional warfare and court intrigue. That's a welcome change. Darrow is more capable here but also more out of his depth in ways that feel earned. There are a few twists that actually land, and the ending is legitimately rough in a way that made me want to pick up the next book immediately.

Still not a series I'm evangelizing. The prose remains functional rather than beautiful, and there's a certain predictability to the emotional beats even when the plot surprises you. But I'd be lying if I said this one didn't move faster than I expected.

It's the best book in the trilogy so far. If you made it through Red Rising and felt lukewarm, this one might edge you into actually caring about where things go. I did.