Morning Star

Book III of the Red Rising Trilogy

De: Pierce Brown

Narrado por: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society's mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Finally, the time has come.

But devotion to honor and hunger for vengeance run deep on both sides. Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness to break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied - and too glorious to surrender.

©2016 Pierce Brown (P)2016 Recorded Books

I'm actually depressed the story ended.

I have NEVER immediately restarted a trilogy after finishing until now. This book can compete with Tolkien. unbelievable story telling. Never a dull moment, I laughed, cried, yelled out loud in anger, and cheered! My new favorite.

Amazing books, super talented author!

Have re read them many times love them even more. Have given lots of copies to friends who all loved them. Fantastic story and narration nails it

grandiose and moving

In red rising we are introduced to the Reaper.. Darrow the Reaper of Mars, the helldiver of lycos, a red reborn as a gold, a Daredevil maniac that threatens to shake the very foundations of the Gold's power hierarchy and still... just a man.
In Golden son, he rises as the iron gold with the power to match the ancients but still stumbles and falls due to the politics of the elite and the powerful. He becomes a martyr. a myth.
In morning star, Darrow of lycos- with the red rising behind him, with the sons of ares with him and the power of vengeance to drive him comes back from the dungeons to become Darrow the morning star. The Reaper, the helldiver and the morning star all in one.. the Breaker of chains .. the red gold.

and the bloody damn, err gory damn song.. Persephone's song. it still sends chills through my spine..

what a gory damn story.

An amazing end to an amazing tale

This is perhaps the best audio book production I have ever heard. It is in fact so great I have listened to all three books twice.

One of the most consistent trilogies I have read

When I first started this series I was skeptical. As I have said before I am not generally a devourer of science fiction novels, but the praise was so high I had to give it a shot. I was not disappointed, the first was one continuous thrill ride, and probably the best book I read last year. The second was good but not quite as good as the first novel, which I somewhat expected. However, it was still an excellent book, and finally the third was still not as good as the first but it was better than the second.

People say that the action drives this novel, and to an extent they are right, but I feel this book is really defined by its characters. I really appreciated Brown's careful creation of each character, and the different nuances each had. I was also really impressed with his character evolutions throughout the series. Each transformation changes the readers perspective, but doesn't make the reader feel like it is to much of a stretch. The one complaint I have about the characters is the lack of color diversity. This is supposed to be a red rebellion, and I just felt the regular reds and other low colors didn't have much representation in the story. I am not going to spoil anything, but it just seemed a bit odd to me.

Now I must talk about the action and plot. Brown's action scenes, different kind of unique weapons, and brutal descriptions of the fighting really gave this story a spark and made it a cut above other books. Also, the plot is back to its convoluted mixture of different strains again. I felt the plot was what was lacking from book 2, it just was too predictable, but I really appreciated how Brown turned it up a notch again for the finale of the series.

Finally, I must talk about the narration, which was absolutely perfect. I have listened to many books by Mr. Reynolds in the past, and his voice never gets old. I usually have trouble listening to other books which are by the same narrator, but different authors. I just get thrown into one story, when I am really in another. This is probably my fourth or fifth series, which Mr. Reynolds has narrated, and he gets better with every one. he always has a different accent, voice, or unique twist of voice in each of his books. I must conclude by saying how disappointed I am to have finished this series. I kind of wish their were more books, but I understand that cannot happen. I am very curious to read what Mr. Brown comes out with next. He is truly a rising star in the science fiction genre.

Brilliant

Pierce never disappoints,
I literally laugh, cry, and feel moved with each of these books. I feel as though I am also one of the characters, and love and hate the enemy as Darrow does. I'm so glad to hear a second series will be written!

Speed it up!

Great book, great narration. The only advice I have is to listen to it at 1.4x speed. The narrator reads pretty slowly.

Great Trilogy, Big Plot Holes for the Grand Finale

I enjoyed this trilogy, but I have to include a large caveat in that you really MUST NOT THINK TOO MUCH or the whole thing will fall apart. There are plot holes a-plenty, especially in the "grand finale" in book three, which has several holes big enough to drive a bloodydamn Mack truck through.

BUT.

If you are a reader that is fine shrugging your shoulders and just “going with it”, then these books are an action packed good time.

THE GOOD

Characters: The nuanced characters – mostly the supporting and minor characters – are actually quite good. Everyone gets surprisingly nuanced motivations, even for characters that last less than a full book. In fact, the supporting character are far more interesting than the main character himself. More on that later.

Pacing: Other than the really depressing begging of the first book, which nearly put me off the whole series, the pacing in excellent. There is literally something happening in every chapter, which makes the books fly by. Once you get past the bleak beginning of book 1, you’re in for a roller-coaster ride thereafter.

THE NOT SO GOOD

Mary Sue: Darrow is a Mary Sue. I mean, there’s no denying it, he just is. When he’s not just better/smarter/stronger/cleverer than everyone else, he’s also luckier. If that’s something you can’t deal with, you’ll want to skip this series.

Death/Betrayal is EVERY Plot Twist: The plot twists are rapid fire in this series, but they nearly always follow the same pattern: a betrayal of a friend that results in the death of a different friend. It’s actually pretty impressive how dumb Darrow’s friends are. He’s nearly as deadly to hang around as Jessica Flethcer, you’d think they’d run like hell to stay away from the guy.

No Space Warfare: In a SciFi series with spaceships aplently, somehow all of the battles are hand-to-hand. Seriously, without fail all of the battles end up hand-to-hand. I love me some Ender’s Games style tactical space combat, and it was disappointing to have the few space battles that do happen end up being described in a few sentences like “my fleet destroyed his fleet” or “my ships outmaneuvered his ships and we destroyed his ships”. It left something to be desired.

THE BAD:

The Names: good god, there are SO MANY bloodydamn names to keep track of!

THE UGLY:

Plot Holes: As I mentioned, if you can just roll with it and not think about things too deeply, you’ll be fine. But even so, the grand finale of the series has some really big, obvious plot holes, even if you aren’t trying particularly hard to pick the plot apart.

THE VERDICT:

This is a fun, mostly well written, dark but exciting series with a Mary Sue main character, great character work, and giant plot holes. If you feel like you can roll with that, you’ll have a lot of fun.

I'd give the trilogy 4 1/2 stars overall, just for being good at what it is, but I had to give this particular book 4 stars because of the really glaring plot holes in the "grand finale" ending.

Why does it have to end??

This is one of those series that will change life as you know it. I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself now... mega book hangover here!

Love this book!

10/10 great story and narration! Will continue the series. Sci-fi doesn’t get better then this.