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52-708: Red Rising is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown . It is the first book and eponym of the series. The novel, set in the future on Mars , follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Golds. Red Rising has received generally positive reviews. 700 years before the story's start, humankind colonized Luna , where the Society—a rigid social hierarchy of 14 Colors with specialized roles—was developed for efficiency and order. The Society, harshly ruled by certain families of mentally and physically superior Golds, conquered Earth and colonized moons and small planets. Reds are

104-484: A scythe ; he is nicknamed "Reaper". SchoolHouse Mars fractures into factions: Darrow and Cassius's, Antonia's, Titus's, and Sevro alone. Quinn saves Darrow from Titus's faction. The bloodthirsty Titus rapes enslaved peers and captures Quinn; Cassius challenges Titus but Titus's group assaults Cassius. Darrow manipulates SchoolHouse Minerva, led by "Mustang" (Virginia), into defeating Titus and retreating. Sevro saves Darrow and Cassius from SchoolHouse Minerva. Darrow speaks to

156-467: A Hollywood-ready story with plenty of action and thrills but painfully little originality or plausibility." Brown's Red Rising fans have dubbed themselves "Howlers" after characters in the novels, and the author has also noted the popularity of his novels among queer readers, saying "One of my favourite things about this tour has been seeing how popular these books have been with the lesbian, gay and transgender community. It's amazing that they have found

208-448: A captive Titus and realizes he is a Red. To maintain his cover, Darrow sentences Titus to death. Cassius duels and kills Titus, thinking Titus killed Julian. Darrow outwits and enslaves SchoolHouse Diana and most of SchoolHouse Minerva but lets Virginia escape the sadistic Vixus with her flag. Adrius's subordinate, Lilath, declares a bounty on Darrow and passes Cassius a pouch that Darrow asks Sevro to steal; Cassius thwarts this and watches

260-546: A coercively persuaded population divided into five castes. Karin Boye 's 1940 novel Kallocain is set in a totalitarian world state where a drug is used to control the individual's thoughts. Anthony Burgess ' 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange is set in a future England that has a subculture of extreme youth violence, and details the protagonist's experiences with the state intent on changing his character at their whim. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) describes

312-590: A future United States governed by a totalitarian theocracy , where women have no rights, and Stephen King 's The Long Walk (1979) describes a similar totalitarian scenario, but depicting the participation of teenage boys in a deadly contest. Examples of young-adult dystopian fiction include (notably all published after 2000) The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins , the Divergent series by Veronica Roth , The Power of Five series by Anthony Horowitz , The Maze Runner series by James Dashner , and

364-448: A government that is overprotective of nature or a society that has lost most modern technology and struggles for survival. A fine example of this is the novel Riddley Walker . Another subgenre is feminist utopias and the overlapping category of feminist science fiction . According to the author Sally Miller Gearhart , "A feminist utopian novel is one which a. contrasts the present with an envisioned idealized society (separated from

416-653: A group of followers, the Icarians , to leave France in 1848, and travel to the United States to start a series of utopian settlements in Texas, Illinois, Iowa, California, and elsewhere. These groups lived in communal settings and lasted until 1898. Among the first decades of the 20th century in Russia, utopian science fiction literature popularity rose extremely due to the fact that the citizens wanted to fantasize about

468-449: A heart attack: a no-holds-barred bastard of a finale in which the author gathers a spread of elements together in much the same way George R. R. Martin ’s does in the best and most brutal bits of his bestselling saga ... For once I would have loved more in the way of worldbuilding, and Brown could have made the most of a longer novel by exploring a few of his fiction’s most interesting figures further, but it bears remembering that Red Rising

520-523: A home in these books. One reader almost made me cry. He's transgender and identifies as male and he told me that he found a home in Sevro and feels like Sevro was the friend he never had." A six-issue prequel comic book series exploring the origins of the rebel group "Sons of Ares" called Red Rising: Sons of Ares was published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2017. The series was continued with six more issues published in 2020. An audiobook of Red Rising ,

572-555: A low test scorer) to fight to the death barehanded. Darrow kills Cassius's brother, Julian, and lies about it. Sevro kills high-status Priam. Next, in the Valles Marineris , each SchoolHouse is assigned a castle and told to conquer the other SchoolHouses. Each SchoolHouse's flag can enslave other SchoolHouses' students. SchoolHouse Pluto, led by Nero's son Adrius ("the Jackal"), resorts to cannibalism to survive. Darrow wields

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624-414: A modern utopian society built on equality. Other examples include Samuel Johnson 's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) and Samuel Butler 's Erewhon (1872), which uses an anagram of "nowhere" as its title. This, like much of utopian literature, can be seen as satire ; Butler inverts illness and crime, with punishment for the former and treatment for the latter. One example of

676-487: A small number of works depicting what might be called eco-utopia, or eco-utopian trends, have also been influential. These include Ernest Callenbach 's Ecotopia , an important 20th century example of this genre. Kim Stanley Robinson has written several books dealing with environmental themes, including the Mars trilogy . Most notably, however, his Three Californias Trilogy contrasted an eco-dystopia with an eco-utopia and

728-430: A sort of middling-future. Robinson has also edited an anthology of short ecotopian fiction, called Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias . Another impactful piece of Robinson's is New York 2140 which focuses on the aftermath of society after a major flooding event, and can be seen through both a utopian and dystopian lens. There are a few dystopias that have an "anti-ecological" theme. These are often characterized by

780-527: A thousand others appearing during the 20th century. This increase is partially associated with the rise in popularity of science fiction and young adult fiction more generally, but also larger scale social change that brought awareness of larger societal or global issues , such as technology, climate change, and growing human population. Some of these trends have created distinct subgenres such as ecotopian fiction, climate fiction , young adult dystopian novels, and feminist dystopian novels. The word utopia

832-523: A utopia; the others have significant dystopian aspects. In ecotopian fiction , the author posits either a utopian or dystopian world revolving around environmental conservation or destruction. Danny Bloom coined the term "cli-fi" in 2006, with a Twitter boost from Margaret Atwood in 2011, to cover climate change-related fiction , but the theme has existed for decades. Novels dealing with overpopulation , such as Harry Harrison 's Make Room! Make Room! (made into movie Soylent Green ), were popular in

884-456: A whole. This book is truly a powerful lesson in leadership." Niall Alexander wrote for Tor.com : On the surface, Red Rising resembles any number of other genre novels of note, but dig a little deeper ... to reveal real uniqueness: in Brown’s nearly seamless assemblage of several time-tested traditions, if not in a great many of his debut’s myriad threads independently ... Its final act ... is like

936-518: Is not chosen until maturity, and gender has no bearing on social roles. In contrast, Doris Lessing 's The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980) suggests that men's and women's values are inherent to the sexes and cannot be changed, making a compromise between them essential. In My Own Utopia (1961) by Elisabeth Mann Borgese , gender exists but is dependent upon age rather than sex — genderless children mature into women, some of whom eventually become men. Marge Piercy 's novel Woman on

988-400: Is only the beginning of a trilogy—which is to say there’s space and time for this impressive young author to work out its biggest kinks. Kirkus Reviews described the novel as "reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones " , calling it "a fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds". However, Publishers Weekly said of the novel, "Pierce offers

1040-544: Is to remove men, either showing isolated all-female societies as in Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's Herland , or societies where men have died out or been replaced, as in Joanna Russ 's A Few Things I Know About Whileaway , where "the poisonous binary gender" has died off. In speculative fiction, female-only worlds have been imagined to come about by the action of disease that wipes out men, along with

1092-632: The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld . Video games often include dystopias as well; notable examples include the Fallout series, BioShock , and the later games of the Half-Life series. The history of dystopian literature can be traced back to the reaction to the French Revolution of 1789 and the prospect that mob rule would produce dictatorship . Until the late 20th century, it

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1144-403: The "Unwanteds" series by Lisa McMann, a paradox occurs where the outcasts from a complete dystopia are treated to absolute utopia. They believe that those who were privileged in said dystopia were the unlucky ones. In another literary model, the imagined society journeys between elements of utopia and dystopia over the course of the novel or film. At the beginning of The Giver by Lois Lowry ,

1196-470: The 1970s, reflecting the widespread concern with the effects of overpopulation on the environment. The novel Nature's End by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka (1986) posits a future in which overpopulation, pollution, climate change, and resulting superstorms, have led to a popular mass-suicide political movement. Some other examples of ecological dystopias are depictions of Earth in the films Wall-E and Avatar . While eco-dystopias are more common,

1248-535: The 19th century, providing a critique of the British class structure at the time. Post World War II , even more dystopian fiction was produced. These works of fiction were interwoven with political commentary: the end of World War II brought about fears of an impending Third World War and a consequent apocalypse. Modern dystopian fiction draws not only on topics such as totalitarian governments and anarchism, but also pollution, global warming, climate change, health,

1300-519: The Edge of Time keeps human biology, but removes pregnancy and childbirth from the gender equation by resorting to assisted reproductive technology while allowing both women and men the nurturing experience of breastfeeding . Utopic single-gender worlds or single-sex societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender-differences. One solution to gender oppression or social issues in feminist utopian fiction

1352-441: The Edge of Time . In Starhawk 's The Fifth Sacred Thing there is no time-travelling observer. However, her ideal society is invaded by a neighbouring power embodying evil repression. In Aldous Huxley 's Island , in many ways a counterpoint to his better-known Brave New World , the fusion of the best parts of Buddhist philosophy and Western technology is threatened by the "invasion" of oil companies. As another example, in

1404-680: The Proctors to help Adrius. Darrow obtains medicine from Fitchner to cure Virginia. Darrow and Virginia amass an army by freeing slaves using SchoolHouse Minerva's flag. When Tactus tries to rape Nyla, Darrow has both Tactus and himself whipped, earning his army’s loyalty. Darrow conquers SchoolHouses Ceres and Apollo. Sevro rejoins Darrow, who incapacitates Fitchner for his flying boots. Darrow traps Adrius, who amputates his own hand to free himself. The Proctors help Adrius counterattack and escape; Pax protects Darrow; Adrius kills Pax. The Proctors kidnap Virginia. Enraged, Darrow slays Proctor Apollo. With

1456-484: The Proctors' flying boots, Darrow's army storms Olympus, the Proctors' base, freeing Virginia and capturing the Proctors. Sevro deletes evidence that Darrow is a Red. Darrow usurps Cassius, who declares a blood feud. Learning that Virginia is Adrius's sister, Darrow fears her betrayal, but Virginia dutifully delivers Adrius, and Darrow wins the Institute's title. Many Golds covet Darrow. Nero proposes to help Darrow join

1508-586: The Society as a Gold. Darrow is physically transformed by Mickey (a Violet), physically trained by Harmony (a Red), and taught Gold customs by Matteo (a Pink). Using a fabricated Gold identity, Darrow excels in testing and is accepted into Mars's Institute. Lorn drafts Darrow into SchoolHouse Mars. Darrow befriends Cassius. The Institute begins with the Passage: Within each of the 12 SchoolHouses, students are beaten, then paired off (a high test scorer with

1560-413: The Society's lowest-status laborers. Mars 's underground Red mining colonies compete in rigged contests that sow discord and are lied to that Mars is not yet terraformed . At the story's outset, 16-year-old Darrow is a rash, intelligent, dexterous, newly-wed Red helium-3 miner. Darrow and his wife Eo are publicly whipped for visiting a restricted underground forest. With Mars ArchGovernor Nero present and

1612-475: The book 3.5 out of 4 stars, proclaiming, " Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field." Writing for The Huffington Post , Britt Michaelian explained, "The morals and values that are explored through the characters in Red Rising have the potential to inspire a generation of readers to think intelligently about the impact of their decisions on themselves, their family and friends and on their world as

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1664-497: The development of a technological or mystical method that allows female parthenogenetic reproduction . The resulting society is often shown to be utopian by feminist writers. Many influential feminist utopias of this sort were written in the 1970s; the most often studied examples include Joanna Russ's The Female Man and Suzy McKee Charnas 's The Holdfast Chronicles . Such worlds have been portrayed most often by lesbian or feminist authors; their use of female-only worlds allows

1716-541: The economy and technology. Modern dystopian themes are common in the young adult (YA) genre of literature. Many works combine elements of both utopias and dystopias. Typically, an observer from our world will journey to another place or time and see one society the author considers ideal and another representing the worst possible outcome. Usually, the point is that our choices may lead to a better or worse potential future world. Ursula K. Le Guin 's Always Coming Home fulfills this model, as does Marge Piercy 's Woman on

1768-511: The event being filmed, Eo sings a song protesting the Reds' enslavement. Nero has Eo publicly hanged. A grieving Darrow illegally buries Eo and is hanged too, but survives as his uncle, Narol, drugged him. Narol helps deliver Darrow to the Sons of Ares , who aim to overturn the Society's hierarchy. The Sons used footage of Eo's song and execution as propaganda. Dancer, a Red, wants Darrow to infiltrate

1820-730: The exploration of female independence and freedom from patriarchy . The societies may not necessarily be lesbian, or sexual at all — Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a famous early example of a sexless society. Charlene Ball writes in Women's Studies Encyclopedia that use of speculative fiction to explore gender roles has been more common in the United States than in Europe and elsewhere. Utopias imagined by male authors have generally included equality between sexes rather than separation. Étienne Cabet 's work Travels in Icaria caused

1872-555: The first book in the series, was released on January 28, 2014 by Recorded Books . GraphicAudio produced an audiobook of book one in two parts that include full cast, cinematic music and sound effects. Part one was released on March 22, 2023, and part two was released on May 15. In February 2021, Stonemaier Games announced their Red Rising board game. The game got a Recommendation by the International Gamers Awards 2021. In 2014, Universal Pictures secured

1924-445: The fleet-commanding Academy and rise to power if Darrow hides Nero's game-rigging and becomes his Lancer ( aide-de-camp ). Darrow agrees, publicly joining House Augustus. Brown said of writing Red Rising , "I started with the main character [Darrow] and shaped my world around him. I was inspired by the plight of Irish immigrants in the 19th century and by the disenfranchisement of working classes." Brown also explained: Pax's death

1976-578: The future instead of just the fact that it was a new, up and coming genre of literature. During the Cold War , however, utopian science fiction became exceptionally prominent among Soviet leaders. Many citizens of the Soviet Russia became dependent on this type of literature because it represented an escape from the real world which was not ideal at the time. Utopian science fiction allowed them to fantasize about how satisfactory it would be to live in

2028-408: The genre of dystopian fiction, both in [the] vividness of their engagement with real-world social and political issues and in the scope of their critique of the societies on which they focus." Another important figure in dystopian literature is H.G. Wells , whose work The Time Machine (1895) is also widely seen as a prototype of dystopian literature. Wells' work draws on the social structure of

2080-505: The inhabitants of Erewhon see as natural and right, i.e., utopian (as mocked in Voltaire 's Candide ). Dystopias usually extrapolate elements of contemporary society, and thus can be read as political warnings. Eschatological literature may portray dystopias. The 1921 novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin portrays a post-apocalyptic future in which society is entirely based on logic and modeled after mechanical systems. George Orwell

2132-477: The narrator of Utopia' s second book, Raphael Hythloday. The Greek root of the name "Hythloday" suggests an 'expert in nonsense'. An earlier example of a Utopian work from classical antiquity is Plato 's The Republic , in which he outlines what he sees as the ideal society and its political system . Later, Tommaso Campanella was influenced by Plato's work and wrote The City of the Sun (1623), which describes

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2184-415: The pouch's video of Darrow killing Julian. Antonia, Vixus, and Cassandra use Lea to ambush Darrow. He hides; they execute Lea and flee. Cassius stabs Darrow in a duel and leaves him for dead, usurping SchoolHouse Mars, but Virginia rescues Darrow. As he recovers, they develop romantic feelings. Virginia falls gravely ill. Fitchner, SchoolHouse Mars's Proctor and Sevro's father tells Darrow that Nero manipulated

2236-465: The present by time or space), b. offers a comprehensive critique of present values/conditions, c. sees men or male institutions as a major cause of present social ills, d. presents women as not only at least the equals of men but also as the sole arbiters of their reproductive functions ." Utopias have explored the ramification of gender being either a societal construct or a hard-wired imperative. In Mary Gentle 's Golden Witchbreed , gender

2288-399: The real world. Dystopian literature serves to "provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable". Some dystopias claim to be utopias . Samuel Butler 's Erewhon can be seen as a dystopia because of the way sick people are punished as criminals while thieves are "cured" in hospitals, which

2340-457: The rights for a film adaptation, but the project was eventually scrapped. Brown began developing Red Rising as a television series in 2018, and insinuated that the potential series had one of the major streaming services interested in adapting the series in 2021. Dystopian fiction More than 400 utopian works in the English language were published prior to the year 1900, with more than

2392-627: The utopian genre's meaning and purpose is described in Fredric Jameson 's Archeologies of the Future (2005) , which addresses many utopian varieties defined by their program or impulse. A dystopia is a society characterized by a focus on that which is contrary to the author's ethos , such as mass poverty, public mistrust and suspicion, a police state or oppression. Most authors of dystopian fiction explore at least one reason why things are that way, often as an analogy for similar issues in

2444-464: The world is described as a utopia. However, as the book progresses, the world's dystopian aspects are revealed. Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels is also sometimes linked with both utopian and dystopian literatures, because it shares the general preoccupation with ideas of good and bad societies. Of the countries Lemuel Gulliver visits, Brobdingnag and Country of the Houyhnhnms approach

2496-640: Was capricious and bothered me. I needed the Jackal to demonstrate his nature in Book 1 so I put all the names in the hat except Darrow and Mustang. When I pulled out Pax's name I stood there thinking, "I could just put it back in, no-one would ever know." I had a huge story arc planned with Darrow being with the Telemanuses against the Bellonas and that changed everything. But it was better, ultimately, that Darrow didn't have that shelter to hide behind. Red Rising

2548-508: Was first used in direct context by Thomas More in his 1516 work Utopia . The word utopia resembles both the Greek words outopos ("no place"), and eutopos ("good place"). More's book, written in Latin , sets out a vision of an ideal society . As the title suggests, the work presents an ambiguous and ironic projection of the ideal state. The whimsical nature of the text can be confirmed by

2600-487: Was influenced by We when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), a novel about Oceania , a state at perpetual war, its population controlled through propaganda . Big Brother and the daily Two Minutes Hate set the tone for an all-pervasive self-censorship. Aldous Huxley 's 1932 novel Brave New World started as a parody of utopian fiction, and projected into the year 2540 industrial and social changes he perceived in 1931, leading to industrial success by

2652-501: Was usually anti-collectivist. Dystopian fiction emerged as a response to the utopian. Its early history is traced in Gregory Claeys' Dystopia: A Natural History (Oxford University Press, 2017). The beginning of technological dystopian fiction can be traced back to E. M. Forster 's (1879–1970) " The Machine Stops ." M Keith Booker states that "The Machine Stops," We and Brave New World are "the great defining texts of

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2704-461: Was well received by both readers and critics, and hit #20 on The New York Times Best Seller list in February 2014. Marc Snetiker of Entertainment Weekly gave the book an A−, writing, "Brown writes with cinematic grandeur, cleverly fusing Roman mythology with science fiction and pacing his action scenes for a slow-burn build to a hold-your-breath final act." Brian Truitt of USA Today gave

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