While Red Rising took a minute to get started, Golden Son does not. Immediate carnage with no chance to breathe between pages. In a 1-2 sucker punch Darrow/Reaper is confronted with a loss of magnitude for those under his command. All at the hands of the revenge-seeking Bellonas. (Mama Bellona giving off those strong narc vibes with that whole heart on a platter thing. Therapy, my dudes, it’s a thing. I beg you.)

And the hits keep on coming. Mustang is now on the arm of Cassius (that bitch, how could you). Our poor Reaper who can’t quite pull off the win in successive attempts to win his master’s favor, now lives on the edge of obliteration by the Sovereign, highest noble of the Society. What to do, what to do? Only the craziest harebrained idea, of course! Start a civil war. 

Where Red Rising was chaotic energy and action, the temperament of youth and brashness; Golden Son is the intelligence of plotting and masterful double backs that is political maneuvering for power. It’s elegant, brutally violent and beautiful in its craft. Once again, Pierce Brown rips everything you thought you knew out and stomps on it in the last 100 pages. Damn. I did not see that coming.