Golden Son

Book II of the Red Rising Trilogy

By: Pierce Brown

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender's Game, and Game of Thrones, debut author Pierce Brown's genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation. Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded among the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his work to bring down Society from within.

A life-or-death tale of vengeance with an unforgettable hero at its heart, Golden Son guarantees Pierce Brown's continuing status as one of fiction's most exciting new voices.

©2015 Pierce Brown (P)2015 Recorded Books

IS THIS A JOKE? DO YOU SEE US LAUGHING?

PRIDE IS JUST A SHOUT IN THE WIND
At times I thought of The Gladiator, Outlander, Dune, Game of Thrones, and several fantasy epics. The book has a lot of good sparks to it and Brown is a very smart guy. The book has about everything, space battles, sword fights and lots of politics.

EVERYTHING IS POLITICS
The first two hours are excellent and did remind me of The Gladiator. Brown humiliates his main character, in what seems beyond repair. That was followed by two hours of inner strife. Than there is a really good sword fight. The next seven hours was mostly politics and conversations. Like most fantasy epics, there is a lot of talk about this family, that family, the histories of these families and the violence they did to each other and why they hate each other. I don't mind a little inner strife or even the history on certain houses, but not seven hours of it. If you stick with this occasionally something exciting will happen, you just might have to wait several hours. The politics got confusing and I had trouble figuring out who I was suppose to be for and who were the bad guys or why I should care. After twelve hours I lost patience and moved on to another book.


HORIZONTAL DIPLOMACY
The narrator is very good, he does a great Scottish accent. He did not have a huge range of voices and at times I was confused on who was speaking.

A Modern Classic Which Will Endure

Where does Golden Son rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Golden Son is among the finest audiobooks I have ever read. My reading habits tend somewhat towards classics, and I am frequently disappointed by modern fare. I took a chance on Red RIsing, and couldn't get the characters out of my head when I finished. Golden Son is a greater achievement in every way when compared to its predecessor. The plot pulls the reader frantically from set piece to set piece as Darrow struggles with failure, guilt, disillusionment, and hope. The characters, introduced well in the first novel, become organic in this novel in a way I have not experienced in a novel since reading The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.While I was reading, I briefly forgot about the world outside as I was so invested.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Roque, the warrior poet of the first novel, returns to this world in grand fashion. His continually deepening alienation with Darrow makes the reader compulsively question the state of that friendship even when reading about other characters. While the love story between Virginia and Darrow was compelling, it was practically an obligatory aspect of the novel. Roque's growth as a character was highly original. I had no idea what he would do until he acted. At the same time, I fully empathized with his situation and understood his motivations for his actions once he acted. He is a masterfully executed character.

Which character – as performed by Tim Gerard Reynolds – was your favorite?

Ragnar was voiced wonderfully. While the character was essentially a replacement for Pax, the voice acting imbued his journey with dignity, grace, and magnificent resonance. However, each character was read well. I could not imagine simply reading a book like this. It must be experienced through audio.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The ending. All I will say.

Any additional comments?

This is my first review on audible.com, as this is the first time I have felt so strongly about a book that I needed to share my opinion. It is a work that takes the best of current trends from novels like The Hunger Games and adds the power and philosophical complexity more commonly found in classical literature. Pierce Brown, if you are reading this, please take your time in completing the third book. This trilogy has the potential to truly endure once it comes to the public at large's attention, but a slapped together finale could easily destroy the world you have so carefully built.

Extraordinary work

Exceeds the first in its brilliance--well worth the credit. It is books like this that create a void in their wake as I try to find something half as good (an experience that I love as I'm listening and hate as the book ends and i scrabble around for something else). I can count on one hand out of hundreds of series the times I have felt this way--and this is one of them. Other fingers listed below.

Four other audible series I've had the same reaction to:
The Kingkiller Chronicles by Rothfuss: the Name of the Wind and the Wise Man's Fear
The Stormlight Archives by Sanderson: The way of Kings and words of radiance
Raven's Shadow novels by Anthony Ryan: Blood song/tower lord
The Outlander Series, some better than others but in the end an amazing 300 hours of listening bliss

I'm glad to add another series to my "I really can't stand the wait" list. Now if only someone could give me a list--like this--of books I've never read and they'd work for me as well as these!

The Second Book Is Better than the First

Don’t get me wrong. I am RAVING about Red Rising to everyone I possibly can around the office. And if you haven’t picked up this series yet, you need to start at the beginning. But Golden Son is even better than the first book – which is such an unheard of rarity and a delightful surprise that I had to review this book first. I don’t want to give away any spoilers here, and it’s hard to say much without doing so, but I can say that this series is a total genre-bender: I’d call this “Post-apocalyptic-dystopian-YA-crossover-military-sci-fi-with-history-and-general-awesome-geniusness”. All these elements shimmer here and meld together into one whip-smart saga that stays with you for months after finishing it. Needless to say January (when the third and final book in Brown’s trilogy releases) can’t get here soon enough.

You liked the first one? You'll like this one.

If you could sum up Golden Son in three words, what would they be?

gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, action

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ragnar. His monologue near the end.

What does Tim Gerard Reynolds bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Reynolds is well-known, his reading is gripping and his voice exceptional.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"BRING SOME TISSUES"

Any additional comments?

It's worth the bloody damn credit.

Amazing 2nd Book

The notion that this series remains unknown is a travesty. These are some of the best books, the best story, of any genre. The young adult classification simply means these are books for anyone. I recommend them to everyone.

A Decline in Quality

The intelligent story of Red Rising continues with Golden Son, which moves off of Mars and details a painfully boring war across planets. Yes, it's difficult imagining that would be boring, but this story manages it. Having enjoyed Red Rising, I never would have expected to reach the last hour of Golden Sun with absolute apathy in my heart for whatever was going to happen next. Not caring whether one character lives or died. Without the spine of Red Rising's war games, Golden Suns degenerates into one spat of violence after another, with every character in the galaxy hopelessly incompetent save for the story's hero--who is mind numbingly good at breaking every record ever all the time without even knowing it. Golden Son is not like its predessecor, a smart grounded scifi, but merely the story of a god crushing two-dimensional plywood cutout characters.

Save your money and remember Red Rising fondly.

i love this story

I love the way this book flows and ends. My heart aches, my blood pumps, and the hair on my arms stands tall.

A bit disappointed

I found this sequel to be a bit disappointing. I'm not sure if it was the length or the lack of depth, but I just didn't connect with it nearly as much as I did with Red Rising. Also, contrary to what The Empire Strikes Back would have us believe, middle stories need an ending, too. The book should stand on its own rather than relying on the knowledge that there will be a continuation of the series, and should have some sort of conflict resolution, rather than starting an entirely new conflict in the last ten pages of the book. But what do I know? Clearly I'm not an author.

All I can say is, I enjoyed Red Rising much more than this book, and I hope that Morning Star is a vast improvement over it.

3 stars.

never trust anyone

The theme of this book is "betrayal." Everyone is backstabbing everyone else. After the 3rd time, you'd think that it'd be over, but no. It just continues on the entire book. It becomes a game of "Who is going to backstab Darrow now?" You start to get numb to it by the end. Ulg. I don't want to go on to the next book because it's all so depressing.

Dune on amphetamines

It's a sci-fi super blockbuster. More grown up than the Hunger Games but with the same pace and Jack Reacher as the principal character instead of a teenage girl. Don't read this until you have read Red Rising as it's quite a complicated scenario already and Golden Son moves at such a pace, you'll never catch up.

The plot picks up with Darrow a couple of years after the events of Red Rising. He's doing pretty well for himself but it turns out he should have heeded the old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, so before too long, he is right back in the action which does not let up for a full 19 hours!

Yes, some of the plot twists are a bit predictable and the characters are ludicrous but I can honestly say I've found this story absolutely irresistible, listening at almost any opportunity. It's good, clean fun and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys an all-action sci-fi fantasy story. Possibly some who don't too.

Getting better and better 

Much less derivative than the first in the series and so a more interesting story. There's a lot of signposting of the way characters are going to develop but there are one or nice surprises. Being critical, there's a lot of a) plan for a fight, b) fight doesn't go to plan, c) miraculous event happens d) rinse and repeat which began to test my patience by the end. That said, I did marathon listen to this book and I will definitely get the third in the instalment.

The narrator has eased off on the anti-British with bad guys having slightly less pronounced English accents in contrast to the humble underdogs' Irish brogue. Sadly, there's some butchering of some new accents here: the Scandinavian is painful to listen to.

Wonderful follow up from the 1st book

The plot twists are sublime, superb, memorising. Makes you cannot and will not want to stop the story. I listened the first book in two days and this one in another two days. Now straight onto the third book.

Good

I loved the first book, but just feel like this was a bit rushed/less immersive

Too much adversity

I really liked the first book. In this, towards the end, I just couldn’t stomach any more suffering, so I skipped over some if it.
The first had some greater triumphs. Something that made you go “yes!”. In this one, not so much. Also, even more politics.

Remarkable

i started with Red Rising on a recommendation. Complex, engaging and enormous fun. Brown, you have a reader for life.

As gripping as the first book

Having found Red Rising a wonderfully written and totally gripping read, I couldn’t wait to dive straight in to the sequel and second book in the trilogy. I was not disappointed... Pierce Brown really knows how to create a character and tell a story. Brilliant storytelling. Bring on the third book

Golden Son, Not Exactly Sunny!

Where does Golden Son rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

As I've probably listened to thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of audiobooks in my life, that's a hard question. I was expecting a lot from this book. I ranked Red Rising as one of the best books I've read in a very very long time. Having to put all the ingredients in the pot again, stir them and make the same kind of cake, or even better, is a hard ask. I do think Pierce Brown pulls it off, but there are some reasons, which are purely a matter of taste, which meant I couldn't give it a 5.
The story is as well written, but very much darker. I think for me if I'm going to read a lot of dark I have to have light strokes, either from humour or more happy, hopeful or at least slightly lighter notes. Maybe I'm a wimp but unalloyed bleakness just makes me shut down. The story, particularly in the second half, became difficult for me to read.

If there's one thing I really do object to it's following a character for hours and hours and hours of book only to find a sad, shocking, gruesome end. It just makes the whole exercise feel pointless. Having said all this, Pierce Brown makes you care right from the get go, or he makes me care. This book is beautifully written, wonderfully narrated and is a great sequel which leaves you wanting more.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Daro has to be my favourite character. He is everything a real, true hero needs to be. He is a great leader, clever and resourceful with the ability to make people follow him through thick and thin, but he is flawed. He is vulnerable. He doesn't get it right all the time, but neither does he do anything petty or cruel.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

A hard one to answer without giving a spoiler. Let's just say there's one place in the book where I thought: "Oh finally! Finally!" When you read it you'll know where I mean. It's beautifully written and nicely understated.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Oh that's a cynch! Break The Chains!

Any additional comments?

Just one. I want more! When can I have more?

Bloodydamn brilliant!!!

What a book! Really enjoyed it. Look forward to Morning Star.

Narration was first class.

I have sent my kid the print versions.

Fantastic

Technically brilliant, entertaining, such a vast world of depth to the characters and world. Sci fi doesn't get much better.