Book Review | Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
Iron Gold by Pierce Brown is the introduction to a second trilogy in the Red Rising universe. The first trilogy ended with Morning Star, which you can read my review of here. I enjoyed Golden Son in the first trilogy, but books one and three were average at best. Still, I wanted to continue the story, so I picked up Iron Gold and started reading. But was it worth it? Did I enjoy it? Was Iron Gold even a necessary book, or should the story have been left alone? These are the questions I will be answering in this spoiler-free review of Iron Gold by Pierce Brown.
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Was the Story Necessary?
This is the main question I want to address. I’ve seen some reviewers say that they felt like Iron Gold didn’t add anything new or wasn’t even that great a tale. I came in with low expectations because of this, but by the time Iron Gold ended, I found myself disagreeing with these sentiments. Not only is Iron Gold a solid and necessary entry in this world, I felt like it was a better entry into the series as a whole. In fact, the story of Iron Gold feels immensely more important and unique than anything I saw in the original Red Rising trilogy!
Iron Gold picks up several years after Morning Star and is about the aftermath of Darrow’s semi-victory. He is finding the navigation of politics to be challenging (and frivolous), as he’s a man built (quite literally) for war. His hunger for war causes him to actively seek out reasons to go and fight and leads him to do some incredibly questionable things.
I absolutely believe that Iron Gold was necessary; it’s about the consequences of Darrow’s actions in the original trilogy. It follows the natural path that has been paved by Darrow’s violent, often terrible decisions from the first trilogy. I personally wouldn’t have minded having the original trilogy be one (shortened) book that ran through the course of Darrow’s war, working as more of a prologue to Iron Gold and the books that will follow. Iron Gold just feels like a better, more important story than the original trilogy. It brings more fresh ideas, approaches, and meaning to the table than the original trilogy did and I have a lot of respect for it and what it has accomplished.
The themes of Iron Gold are really strong. There’s a quote from the book that I think sums up Iron Gold well, and even shows why this second trilogy is a vital part of the story that Pierce Brown is telling. I’m going to omit or change a couple of words just to avoid spoilers, but this is the quote:
“Ah, I suppose that is what every man must tell himself in war. That there will be an end, and when it is done, enough of himself will remain. But we know it isn’t true. Don’t we? War eats the victors last.”
Improvements in Pierce Brown’s Writing
If you read my review of Morning Star, then you know that Pierce Brown had a writing habit throughout the first trilogy that I really didn’t care for. Specifically, he repeatedly had Darrow hide information from the reader, which caused the stakes to feel less real. Several times throughout the trilogy, Darrow would have some trick up his sleeve that we as the reader technically should have known about, but weren’t shown. This is absolutely a writing choice and isn’t necessarily an incorrect method of writing or giving the readers a surprise, but for me, it just became exhausting and irritating with how frequently it was used.
Iron Gold, however, nixes this issue.
I don’t recall a single instance of this approach to storytelling in Iron Gold. If it was there, it was so minor and carefully crafted that it didn’t stand out to me and pull me out of the story, which is just more praise for Pierce Brown. This was a big complaint I had about Morning Star especially, but it was largely absent in Iron Gold, which I really appreciate. It definitely led to greater enjoyment of the story, on my part.
Additionally, Iron Gold features more perspectives than just Darrow’s which is something I’ve been saying this series needs since the beginning. The world is too vast and the themes too complex for everything to be tackled adequately from one narrow-minded man’s perspective. This story and its world have always had the potential to be an epic-scale sci-fi story and I’m glad Pierce Brown decided to show us the world through more than just one pair of eyes. I feel I have a better grasp on his world and, as a result, his world is easily going to be getting five stars from me finally. I love what he has built in this book.
Criticism for Iron Gold
I have far fewer criticisms for Iron Gold than I do for any of the previous books in this trilogy, and some of them are so minor that they aren’t really worth mentioning. My primary issue with Iron Gold is that it’s a lot slower than what I’ve come to be used to with Pierce Brown. Part One in particular felt like it took an incredibly long time to get through, with very little happening to show where we were going with this story. It wasn’t until the last couple of chapters that the tale really began to start moving for me, which was a significant chunk of the book.
Once we got past that first third or so of Iron Gold, though, it was back to Pierce Brown’s trademark pacing for most of the story, save a few chapters here and there that focused on some much-needed slower moments.
Thoughts Overall
Iron Gold wasn’t just a necessary continuation of the Red Rising story, it was an excellent continuation. This book adds so much to the story and continues the natural progression that was set up by its predecessors. If you haven’t already picked up Iron Gold, but you read the original trilogy, I would strongly encourage you to check it out, even if you didn’t really care for those first three books! And, if you aren’t keen on reading the original trilogy, I think that Iron Gold is a sound-enough entry point if you just read some summaries about the first trilogy to get a gist of it.
Some diehard fans of the series may disagree with that, but I personally think that if the tale had started with Iron Gold (and if it had thus been written with the assumption that the reader knows nothing about the events that preceded it), this would be been a perfectly viable entry into Pierce Brown’s world and all of its complexities. Of course, it likely wouldn’t be as well-executed as it is, given that Pierce Brown has experienced exponential growth over the course of this entire series.
In the end, I’m feeling a solid four stars for Iron Gold. It had a couple of hiccups along the way, but is absolutely my favorite book in this entire series, so far, and it is a critical part of the story Pierce Brown is telling. This is an excellently written book and the story he’s telling is compelling. This is totally a book that I can recommend to anyone looking for a solid science-fiction epic.
Conclusion
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