Golden Son - Review

Part 1: Bow: 1-6

Now is this "bow" as in bowing to a monarch, or a bow and arrow?

There is a 2 year time skip from the end of Red Rising to the beginning of Golden Son. I wasn't expecting a time skip, honestly I thought we'd pick up days or weeks following his victory. It seems the Golds are fond of games as he's still playing them, just now in the stars.

Our first view of other colors! The introduction to Blies scare me just a bit. Every other color has a purpose to serve for the good of Golds. It is not Society per say they serve, but the Society that Golds have created for themselves.

Here be lions. I love a book that has a repeated phrase. I feel this will be around a few more times.

I like that this series has titles to each chapter. Chapter 3, particularly, is spectacular. Blood and Piss.

Darrow is exhibiting extraordinary self control while listening to the ArchGovernor and his advisors discuss the terrorist situation. He won't speak until he is spoken to, like a proper broken man. The Golds speak about the society and colors they created like they are the hand of God. ArchGovernor even mentions his long dead wife, Eo. Has his apprenticeship, lack of communication with the Sons of Ares, and humiliation by the Bellonas defeated him? His friendship with Rogue is hanging on a string it seems.

I cannot place the Gold advisors or the ArchGovernor. They talk of killing however many of whichever color they have to to make their point, but then Nero speaks of his rule as benefitting all colors, "low and high." So, he cares for the lower colors as long as they benefit the rest of the planet, which is their sole purpose.

Maybe it's the writing, maybe it's because I'm listening to The Way That You Were by Sleep Token while reading chapter 5, but I can feel the emotion at the start of the chapter. Not only is he being abandoned by his master, but the friends he thought he made. Possibly even the ideal he had after leaving the mines of Mars. He is alone, a fake and a fool.

The Bellona family vendetta is a bit overplayed; I'm over it. It happened years ago. It was kill or be killed. Nothing personal. Darrow cried and has carried that guilt with him.

Mustang and Sevro being brought up a few times already must mean that we haven't seen the last of them. I don't think Brown would spend so much time in Red Rising building either of those relationships to abandon them in Golden Son and on.

This is not a love story. Or is it? Is it not his love for Eo that has driven him off his home planet? He has been driven forward because of her.