The past year, I've been getting into more fantasy and sci-fi. I started with Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea saga and Hainish cycle and I absolutely adored them, with very few complaints. The Tombs of Atuan is now one of my favourite books of all time. Stunning and profound fantasy that sits with you for a long time.
Le Guin may have set the bar too high as I kept reading more fantasy books, taking recommendations from BookTok and BookTube. I read The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Found it extremely average. Great plots and worldbuilding, very stale prose, downright horrible dialogue at times. Not worth 1000 pages. I hadn't given up on BookTok/Tube yet, however (but I should have)
I kept seeing the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown recommended as a 10/10 fantasy/sci-fi series. So I picked up the first book. And oh boy…
I did not enjoy this book at all. I almost couldn't finish it.
The prose was probably my biggest problem. It uses short, choppy sentences that are meant to feel intense, but instead came across as repetitive and exhausting (The Way of Kings by Sanderson has the same problem with its choppy prose IMO). Even in scenes that should feel high-stakes, I felt detached. I also felt the prose was trying very hard to sound profound, but it felt mostly forced and melodramatic rather than genuinely impactful.
The main character, Gary Stu Darrow, didn't work for me at all. He's simultaneously framed as an "everyman", but is also unrealistically exceptional at everything. He quickly becomes physically and intellectually superior in ways that defy believability. Instead of rooting for him, I found myself disengaged. Supporting characters were really underdeveloped and interchangeable, and with so many introduced so quickly, it became hard to keep track of who mattered.
It wasn't all bad – I found the setting and caste system really interesting for a science fantasy epic. The first half of the book, before the Hunger Games Institute, I actually found myself somewhat invested in the world (just not Darrow).
The book clearly aims for a strong political message about class struggle and oppression. While I love that message in theory, it feels overshadowed by the plot mechanics and Darrow's hyper-competence at everything. It felt less like an organic exploration of those themes and more like something being stated rather than meaningfully developed. I'm comparing that to Le Guin's books, where she always meaningfully explores something, rather than just stating whatever message she's trying to sell you. That's what fantasy books are supposed to do, IMO. They're not supposed to be manifestos.
I think I'm done listening to recommendations from book influencers. I don't understand why these books are hailed as masterpieces, and yet I haven't seen a single large book influencer recommend Le Guin
Rant over. What do you all think of online Book influencers? What did you think of Red Rising?
by sameseksure
27 Comments
Red rising is okay. The first trilogy is great. The entire series is a masterpiece. It’s awesome to watch Brown grow as an author over the series. I can understand why someone would put it down.
For me it’s a lot like Dune. I don’t think it’s really possible to get Dune until the fourth book and it’s actually not clear what the message is until the end of the fourth book and the opening of the fifth. Same with the Red Rising saga.
Try the second book. If the first third doesn’t grab you then the series isn’t for you. Second book is a lot of people’s favorite.
My problem with book influencers is that they recommend average books : good worldbuilding, but lacking prose. Prose requires investment, I believe, while choppy and short sentences can keep someone with a short attention span focused.
I did like reading Booktok recs to help with my attention span, but I quickly grew out of it. I didn’t read Red Rising.
I’d recommend Becky Chambers, if you’re okay with Sci-Fi. I’ve loved every part of *The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.* No Gary Stu whatsoever here. She’s inventive. She’s got good prose, although not up to par with Le Guin’s, but that a high bar to set.
Everyone I know that read this book, loved it. I’ve had it on hold for what feels like months, and Libby says I’m still 12 weeks away. I didn’t read the bulk of this thread cause I’m not all about the spoilers but maybe it a You thing?
You’re currently in your pretentious phase of reading. Red Rising was good popcorn reading with little depth. Just enjoy it for what it is and if you don’t, stop. Who cares? And nobody worth listening to thinks Red Rising is great literature.
It’s not for everyone, but it’s worth noting that RR is the clear weakest book in the series and is generally believed to largely be setup for what comes later/a necessary evil to sell the story that Brown wanted to sell to publishers because battle school/caste system/up-jumped protagonist stuff was wildly popular at the time.
Every book after is… significantly different from the first book. Without spoiling anything, it’s far more in the direction of space opera, far less moody teens with the weight of the world on their shoulders and a lot of bloodlust to go with it.
I’m with you I found it absolutely awful. Literally the longest it’s ever taken me to get through a book, I put it down for a year at one stage.
Also read the Inheritance Games which is another booktok flop 🤣
I think a lot of us simply don’t share the same taste as the influencers. A lot do, and that’s great for them. But I stopped reading things that were trendy, those books nearly always disappoint me. I’ve been happier looking through older books for things that are more suited to me.
I didn’t like Red Rising at all.
It’s why I have trust issues with reddit suggestions.
I liked how it started off, I like the caste system and the basic world building.
But once it got to the institute, the book read like YA slop. The pacing was quick, there was a lot of BS, the main characters was a mary sue with a child like relationship with the main love interest.
It became a hunger games / enders game rip off.
Now maybe I am just not the demographic and that is okay, but I truly thought it was rubbish, even though people have told me to read the second, saying the writing improves and becomes less YA. I just won’t do it.
I started reading it two years ago and thought it was horrible too.
I gave it another chance in audiobook form and I loved it. I’m working through Golden Sun now.
I kinda felt the same way about Project Hail Mary. Thought it was okay on my own read through but I decided to give the Audiobook a chance after my brother recommended it and the audiobook made it so much better.
Agreed. But you’re getting with BookTok recommendations of averages. How likely are you to like what’s average?
I find it more effective to read what the authors themselves liked, or at least what other readers liked.
I’d recommend the Book of the Long Sun.
the first book is the worst by far, and is a setup. books 2, 3, 5, 6, are all very very strong, especially 2 and 6
My biggest gripe with your review is the lines “I’m comparing that to Le Guin’s books, where she always meaningfully explores something, rather than just stating whatever message she’s trying to sell you. That’s what fantasy books are supposed to do, IMO. They’re not supposed to be manifestos”
While this statement is inherently pretentious, even what you said is silly because you’re comparing 1 book to a complete series. If you don’t like a book there’s nothing wrong with that, but then to say it’s supposed to do something when you’re not even giving it the chance to flesh its message out makes no sense.
If you actually read the series, which you in no means are required to, you’d find a more nuanced explanation to the message it’s pushing.
Now, you’re clearly not gonna do that so your criticism is obsolete
BookTube in general is just an extension of marketing departments. I only listen to Gen X booktubers because those guys actually recommend older books, not just what’s new and engineered to be popular through aggressive marketing.
EDIT & PS: the first Red Rising book is average at best and stinks of YA. It transitions to Space Opera starting the second book. The series is not a masterpiece, but it’s really entertaining. I got to appreciate this kind of simple entertainment in the last couple of years after seeing the “lol so random” Dungeon Crawler Carl series (and other litRPG books) got popular for some reason.
Stormlight and Red Rising are both adult fiction. Earthsea is middle grades.
That is probably a big reason why you don’t see adult booktok people mentioning Le Guin.
Another reason is that both SA and RR are ongoing series. The original Earthsea trilogy was finished 54 years ago.
I personally do not understand a fixation on prose as the primary quality in a book. Some of the best books I’ve ever read weren’t even originally written in the language that I read them in.
If that is a primary motivator for you, then you should probably find different content creators whose tastes match yours. Rothfuss and King are both known to have more complex prose and dialogue, although I find the lack of satisfying plot resolution frustrating.
If you value good prose in fantasy I highly recommend Robin Hobb. The Farseer Trilogy is fantastic IMO and some of the best writing I’ve read in the genre.
People who call Darrow a Gary Stu seem to not know what a Gary Stu is. Darrow is never portrayed as flawless and he doesn’t win every situation he’s in.
There are few protagonists in sci-fi or fantasy series that lose as much as Darrow does lol.
Also for the most part when people recommend Red Rising its more so because of what comes after the first book which is the weakest of the 6.
Booktok is s a poison and should be destroyed for a multitude of reasons.
You might want to give Tanith Lee a try. After Le Guin, Lee might carry some of the traits you liked. Also not really mentioned a lot nowadays.
Always assume that any influencer is is being paid to shill whatever product they’re representing.
I work in a restaurant that was recently featured by a fairly popular food influencer. The regulars that saw it were like “wow that’s so great you picked you guys” and are shocked when I tell them how much we had to pay them for that.
Red Rising is very YA – that’s either your thing or it’s not (it was not for me). Booktok also leans heavily towards YA and fairly straightforward novels. Earthsea is also YA, but Le Guin is one of the greats and her language is wonderful.
Try Gene Wolf, Guy Gavriel Kay, Steven Erikson or R. Scott Bakker if prose & nuance are more your thing. I haven’t read them but I imagine you’d like Piranisi & The Spear Cuts Through Water as well.
I read Red Rising books 1-3, and I think they’re on the good side of average. Not bad, but… not great. Competently average is maybe a good way to describe them.
I just finished Blood Meridian and it’s possibly a top 3 lifetime book for me. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
Read the first book, felt like YA trash. Put me off the rest of the series.
Yeah, same here. Forced myself through 2.5 books – doesn’t get better. Mediocre at best. Deus ex machina when the story stumbles – nothing special. No timing, no flow, no fun.
What’s you take on Children of time? Started it because of the same hype and dropped it after a third of the book. Cool ideas, but the writing …
I spend a lot of time on Booktok and have gotten a lot of great recommendations in SFF. I’m sorry but if you’re only getting mass appeal books for recommendations, that’s an algorthm issue. You’ll need to train your algorithm to get more diverse recs. Find people talking about Samuel Delaney, Butler, Louis Bujold, Atwood, Jemisin, Martha Wells, Terry Prachett etc. Interact with them then you’ll get better recommendations from readers in community.
So true about the Tombs of Atuan! Yeah unfortunately Red Rising, Way of Kings etc are all in that camp of Man Fantasy that I eye very suspiciously, I read a lot of fantasy and even stuff that IS big on Booktok (sometimes…) but they all seem to prioritise… different things to what I prioritise, which is character and prose and craft lol. There are certain books that Fantasy Blokes tout that I also like (Discworld and ASOIAF) but on the whole. No lol. I think there are a lot of book influencers with great recs but you have to go looking for them, the really massive ones tend to be casting the net very widely, and it means their personal tastes don’t always come through.
If you’re looking for more good fantasy/sf prose, though, Patricia McKillip, Katherine Addison, Susanna Clarke, Simon Jiminez, Vajra Chandrasekera, August Clarke, Hiron Ennes, Amal El-Mohtar, Hope Mirrlees (Lud In The Mist), Mervyn Peake and Angela Carter all have great stuff!
If looking for something epic with incredible world building try R. Scott Bakker Prince of Nothing trilogy.
You are correct about Red Rising.
You sound like someone who cares more about prose style than story.