Dark Age

This book finds that perfect medium in writing styles. So often books try to be either nail-bitingly entertaining or thought-spiralingly deep. Finding a balance between the two is hard, but finding a way to not only bring both to the table but excel in each is even harder. In Dark Age, Pierce Brown has not only done so, but done so with style.

So this is Book 5 in the Red Rising series, and to really understand it you’re going to have had to of listened to/read the previous four. Even after listening to all of them it took me a while to remember the litany of classically named characters, many of which can also be referred to by a reem of various titles and epithets. We know who our main guys and girls are, sure, but it’s very easy to get a little lost in the massive host of sub-characters that are hurled at us. We return to following the five main characters of Iron Gold, some on opposing sides and all with their own extremely individual perspectives. Even if you had each of the characters walk into the same room and perform the same task, you would know within seconds which one you were watching due to the brilliance with which their personalities shine through (or in some cases scratch against). Everyone who listens/reads this book will have their favourite, and for different reasons. I’ve got mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the others.

As mentioned, the writing style is both engrossing and thought provoking. We have some amazing action scenes that integrate wild future technologies and the best aspects of melee combat in a way that isn’t jarring at all. Grav-boots and giants battle-mechs are awesome, but when warriors get up-close and pull out their razors, you know the fun is really about to start. What we really see in this book is the toll that this decade-long war with the Society has taken on our protagonists at all levels. Darrow wants nothing more than to stop fighting and retire with his family, but the devils he must face on mercury and those in his own head will never let him rest, no matter how hard he fights or how much he loses. Mustang is trying her damnedest to hold a republic together by following the rules it was built upon while her enemies can use every cheap and underhanded trick in their human-leather-bound book to thwart her. Lysander is struggling to find his place as a prodigal son, returning to the Society with hopes of reform but immediately being swallowed up by the petty infighting and squabbling that led to the rising in the in first place. Lyria has been betrayed and left forgotten after being duped into a betrayal of people who had offered her a chance to finally crawl out of the horror that was her life. And Ephraim… well, there’s so much shit going on in Ephraim’s head that laying it all out would take too long. He, by the way, is may favourite character in this one. The man is a tortured badass and I love him. We are granted truly deep insights into each of these characters, their inner struggles, and the horrors they are forced to go through, all to the backdrop of an action-packed storyline. It finds that balance, and it is magnificent.

Now onto my only real quibble with the book, but it is a fairly big one. In short, so many bad times are heaped upon our poor protagonists that the constant beating that my emotions were taking actually made me not want to keep listening. I know. I know. It’s the sign of brilliant writing if it can hit you right in the guts and leave you gasping, but to do so over, and over, and over, and over, and over again has a tendency to leave you as broken and exhausted as the characters themselves. And I don’t have that same iron will as Darrow. He’s fighting for his life, but I’m fighting for a bit of entertainment. It took me a long time to finish this book because things just kept going from bad to worse for our heroes, and because of the brutal nature of this book, I knew that holding out for a dramatic rescue at the last minute or an all-encompassing moment of vindication and satisfaction was just as likely to not happen. Don’t get me wrong. The brutal nature of the book keeps you on your toes constantly. Characters you’ve come to know and love through this series are at real risk. They can and will die. It keeps you at a level of committed panic through the entire novel. But the fact is that I don’t want to be hanging on the edge of my seat for the entire novel. It gives me a sore arse. That is the only bad thing I have to say about this book, but it is a big one. It genuinely takes a toll.

Now to narration. A mixed bag here. For each of our five characters, we a gifted with a different narrator. Some are brilliant. Others don’t quite match up to that same level. There were disparities between the narrators in some of their pronunciations. Character names and things like that which altered between narrators which really shouldn’t have, even with the wild shifts in accents. There was also one narrator who kept just straight up mispronouncing words. They were word that, if you have a decent sci-fi or military knowledge, you would know like the back of your hand, and hearing them being butchered time and time again was a little off-putting. Giving each of the characters their own narrator was a brilliant method of truly giving each of them their own voice, but it was also extremely jarring to hear different narrators voice the same characters and have those voices be wildly different. And in some cases, I mean WILDLY. You’d have thought they would have gotten all the narrators together beforehand to run lines with each other and make sure that when there was crossover, that they settled on at least some similar tones and accents. It really took you out of what is otherwise some of the most immersive fiction I have ever come across.

Personal Score: 4 stars

Professional Score: 4.5 stars

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