Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Morning Star

Pierce Brown
Book 3 of the Red Rising Trilogy

Darrow is imprisoned. Held and tortured for a year. The Rising is alive, but fractured. Darrow is sprung free while preparing to transit to Luna and the Rising is re-energized with the return of their leader. I will leave the details of the plot to you as a reader. What is particularly interesting is the struggle that the characters voice with revolution. Is there an alternate way? Is violence necessary? Or does "death beget death beget death..." as Sevro says? Brown takes some risks here in showing some thinking about the role of violence in any society and how to begin thinking about a new way. This is a serious struggle for the characters, and it is simultaneously subtle. I can imagine many readers not really interested in the motivations of the characters. But these motivations, and the ability of the characters to fundamentally change their world view, makes these strong characters, and gives serious weight to their struggles.

The second, less central but still telling theme, is the purported ideal foundation for society and government. Quicksilver makes a speech in the first third that suggests the only way to govern without defaulting to tyranny is to hold to pure capitalism. End of story. Nothing else is said and not discussion or alternative is laid out. And we (in the real world) know that pure capitalism and tyranny/empire by no means exclusive. So maybe a completely boring, action free fourth book in the series is needed in order to demonstrate how this pure capitalism/tyranny free society develops. What are the pre-requisites to create this sort of system? Free energy? Social safety net? Even making those suggestions are already outside the realm of pure capitalism.

Overall, this is a fabulous series, raising lines of thinking that make it fun to read science fiction.

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