After much deliberation, I decided to base today's LitSty look on the two books of the Red Rising Trilogy,
Red Rising and
Golden Son:
As I said before, I wasn't actually familiar with these books prior to reading them. I was just looking for something for my nephew and he's only 15 so I still like to pre-read any books I get for him.
And, as I also said before, I was very pleasantly surprised at how good these books are. I won't say that Brown is the best writer, but the story is very, very good and he writes well enough to keep the reader engaged.
One thing I appreciate is how much though Brown put into the world he created. In his version of the future, people are split into color-coded groups. Each group has been genetically modified to do the work their group does. Golds lead, Pinks were created for pleasure, Whites are the law, Grays are the military, Reds are the miners and Obsidians are the fighters.
Here is a hierarchy I found on Pinterest:
As you can see, Gold is at the very top and Red is at the very bottom.
The main character of the trilogy, Darrow, is a Red who finds out that although he and his people have been living underground in the mines, killing themselves to mine material so Mars can be terra-formed, it was already terra-formed hundreds of years ago and they're just slaves.
In his fight against the ruling Golds, Darrow is assisted by an Obsidian and for me, the story of the Obsidian group is one of the most fascinating of the book. They also fought against the Golds once and as a result, the Golds took their technology, sending them back to the Middle Ages at best, and then set themselves up as Gods to the Obsidians. They also did a bunch of other horrible stuff to them, effectually making them into killing machines to be used by the Golds to maintain their power.
Most of the groups have hair and eyes the color of their group; Reds have red hair and eyes. Golds have golden hair and eyes and golden skin. Obsidians, have paper-white skin and obsidian-black hair and eyes (and tattoos).
My outfit represents my fascination with the Obsidian story:
The black and white represents the Obsidians. The bit of red represents the alliance with Darrow and his Obsidian. And the leopard booties represent my belief that leopard is a neutral.
Sorry for the long post, but I really do appreciate the thought that Brown put into his books and wanted to share some of that with you.
But, enough about me; it's your turn!
Happy Tuesday, All!
Gracey
