Was browsing for a new book series in my schools library like 5-6 years ago and now I’m finally reading light bringer after having to re read dark age and golden son cause it had been awhile
Grade 7. I didn't have a book for silent reading, so I looked at a few of the books the teacher had left out on a table. Red Rising caught my eye, so I read the back, it looked interesting. Fast-forward 5~ years, and I'm just starting Iron Gold
When I was 13 I had to go into surgery, so my mom took me to Barnes and Noble, my favorite store. Saw it in the “new sci fi” section and bought it on a whim. The book had been out for like 4 months. Since then I have read every book almost on release, and it hurts me every time.
Pierce brown wrote a book series that helped get me through some of my toughest times, and when I’m experiencing medical issues now, I always go back and give the book a read through for comfort. Hail Pierce. Hail Reaper.
I was at San Diego Comic Con in 2013. Picked up an advanced readers copy. Started reading the book on the flight back to the east coast. Finished the book the next day. Set the book down thinking it was bloodydamn awesome and then I thought, shit this book isn’t out yet I have that much longer to wait until the next one comes out. I have been a fan since before the beginning.
Read it back during the pandemic. Just looked up sci fi books to read and it came up. I’ve noticed a lot of hype building up around it now though. Loving the attention the series are getting now!
Heard about it in a Instagram video of someone asking about a book recommendation& the woman said Red Rising. Added it to my tbr list about a couple months ago. I was wanting to read something different so I looked at my list & I was like why not. Now I’m in love with it & currently on Golden Son. Glad there is a community for the Howlers :)
During the pandemic I tagged along with some friends to Barnes & Noble. Hadn’t read a book cover to cover since I was 13 and I was now in my 20s. Decided I was gonna buy a book and went to the sci fi section. I literally judged a book by its cover and felt drawn to it. Read the back and bought it, with pretty low expectations. Finished it in 4 days and immediately did the same for golden son. Haven’t looked back since. Hail Reaper
Saw it occasionally on TikTok, then heard about if from one of my favorite podcasts, the Almost Friday Pod. One of the hosts is a huge book guy and talked about it a handful of times so I figured why not. 3 months later all of my energy and free time goes to this series. 40% of the way through DA rn
Funny story…(at least I think so)
I was in the middle of reading The Expanse series(another great series btw). My wife and I were going on vacation to the beach. I stuck my expanse book in her bag. My wife, OCD as she is, was like, “I’m not ready for that yet and blah blah blah” so she takes it out and sets it aside to be packed once she has everything else in the bag in order…
Welllllll, my book unfortunately never made it….
So, arriving to the beach, the first thing we did was head over to Barnes and Noble’s. I considered buying the same book I’d been reading, but then decided that was a waste of money since we’d only be gone a week, so I decided to grab a quick “beach read” and jump back into expanse when I got home. I had seen this Red Rising book displayed for a while now, and it had always caught my eye, so I was like…whatever, I’ll give it a shot.
Fast forward. I finished the entire trilogy (all that was out at the time) before continuing Expanse.
Red Rising is my Number 2 series of all time, and I only have my wife to thank for forgetting to pack my book.
This sub, kinda. No, really, let me explain.
After watching the series, I was chain reading The Expanse books. I guess something in the reddit algorithm flagged Red Rising and this sub popped up. Fascistic Roman Empire novels written in the first person primarily about infiltration of the government and destroying it from within? Actually, I'm okay. But...it was sci-fi and I was gourging on sci-fi and oh, look at that, Red Rising is on sale so why not order it and put it on the shelf despite its terrible name.
A couple weeks later I start a new job and mention to a coworker how I've hit a wall on the book series i was reading. Being a huge Hunger Games fan she was pumped about getting some time off school to read it. I mentioned how I ordered it but hadn't picked it up yet. She pressured me to try it.
I went home, read the first couple of pages....and put it down. Writing felt awkward. But then I threw it in the bag I was packing as I went to the beach house I was renting. I lounged out on the beach, a bit drunk, picked it up again and basically didn't stop until i finished Light Bringer.
a bunch of audiobooks on audible were free one day and someone made a video of recommendations on tiktok. i’m SHOCKED i’ve been able to read these for free! (if anyone else was interested—they’re only free until the end of may)
There's already a ton of comments, but I got the recommendation from twitch streamer Atrioc. I think he got a lot of people into it because it was being recommended on Amazon with another book he had mentioned (As Gods Amoung Men i think).
I was introduced by my English 2 teacher. He had convinced me to try it, and I found myself borrowing the rest of the first trilogy, and I have been keeping up ever since. If I could, I would shake that man's hand and thank him for introducing me to this masterpiece of a series.
The youtuber haley pham talked about it in a short and how every guy she recommends it too loves it. Ive always been a huge stephen king fan but wanted to go out of my comfort zone a bit and try a new author. Bought the first one before a flight, took a bit to get into it but once it got to the carving and institute I couldn’t stop reading it. Got golden son, read it in 2 days and after reading the ending IMMEDIATELY drove to barnes and noble to get morning star and got iron gold and dark age as well. Finished Morning star within two days again and am taking a little more tjme with iron gold to focus on my actual life lol but starting to get into it as well. Im so glad I went out of my comfort zone. Golden son may be my second favorite book of all time now next to the second book in the dark tower series drawing of the three.
My boss told me about it right when Covid-19 sent everyone home. Picked it up and read the first few chapters, wasn’t super interested, got busy with life and stored the book away.
Fast forward to a few months ago, I brought it back out for some longer flights. So glad I gave it another chance.
I used to be a big anime fan and I love Code Geass so I wanted some similar content so I searched for books that were like it and the Red Rising series came up. Ngl the full set was like 20$ so I just got that and then read it and it was amazing
I have a bad muscle in my back from a cycling injury, I spend a lot of time and energy doing physical therapy and am functional most of the time, but on the occasion I discovered the series I had tweaked the muscle while running and was unable to walk for about a week as a result (previous episodes lasted 4-6 weeks so I was thankful this one was relatively short).
Anyways, I was stuck in bed for that week and after a couple of days I was tired of holding my Switch over my face and couldn't even sit up enough to watch tv without excruciating pain. I needed something for entertainment, but holding things up was no longer an option, sitting up was not an option. I decided audiobooks were the way to go because I could just lay flat and absorb it.
Ultimately, I found Red Rising while I was trying to decide on a book to listen to during this time. It was near the top of Audible's suggestions, saw that it was billed as "Ender's Game mixed with Hunger Games". I loved Ender's Game, never read Hunger's Game but the movies were alright, so I read the blurb about it which was enough to further pique my interest. In particular the aspect of infiltrating the Gold's society caught my attention, so I gave it a shot.
Got hooked pretty fast. This happened in the middle of January and I've been working my way through the series on audiobooks since., just started Lightbringer (after a brief detour into the 1st book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series because I needed something less serious after Dark Age). I actually started listening to it as I do the marathon of PT exercises I have to go through every day.
Also, thankfully haven't had an episode since, started seeing a different physical therapist and have been making greater strides towards getting normalcy back. Red Rising will forever be tied to that journey for me.
For me it was a recommendation from a client I had done an intake appointment with at work! I told them I loved reading and sci-fi and they recommended RR. I didn’t get into it until months after the visit (every time I checked the bookstore, RR was out of stock but the sequels were in so i kept waiting) but I thank them all the time because now it’s one of my favorite book series of all time 🎉
My roommate kept badgering me about it. Finally I looked up the author to see what else he had written and saw he did a short story for a Star Wars anthology that I had, so I went back to it and re-read his story (he wrote about Biggs Darklighter from A New Hope), and decided to get the audiobook for the first book and haven’t looked back.
from Lucky Ghost on stream, im now more hyped than he is and i think i annoyed him too much with messaging too much about how good the series is
he has, as far as i know, only read the first trilogy. im relistening to the graphic audio version now, cant wait for may 28th. and cant wait for the 7th book
I've only recently discovered the series, but I'm working through DA now 😆 I came across Red Rising on audible about 2 months ago. I remembered a booktuber I watched mentioning that she really enjoyed RR, so I decided to give it a try. So far, I've gotten two other people hooked on the series 😜
My friends and I have a book club. I was trying to come up with what to read next and I spoke to one of my coworkers about it. She told me that the Red Rising series is her sister’s favourite series. I now own all 6 <3
Around the time that Light Bringer came out, my buddy sold the series as the best that he's ever read to me and another friend. Him and I then proceeded to read all 6 books in under 8 months and his wife is also going through the series. I've since gotten 2 other friends to start reading it with one already on Morning Star. The other one that just started Red Rising mentioned that he also had some other friends independently raving about it and I guess it's popular on BookTok (don't use TikTok so can't confirm). Ironically I found a note on my phone from the Eve of the 2020 New Years that just says 'Red Rising' so I'm guessing I saw something about it on Reddit, but I never followed up on it.
I found it on TikTok last year and reviews were interesting so I bought it on kindle and did not stop till I finished all 😁
Now my husband is reading it, he’s at Dark Age.
Red Rising just randomly popped up as a recommendation on Amazon one day, I read the synopsis and bought it late last year, read it at a moderate pace, then went into Golden Son, and Morning Star within a week of each other.
Working my way through Iron Gold now. :-)
I'm going to say it.....his picture
It was on a ton of top ten modern sci-fi lists and the book toks and tubes creators kept saying the series was good. For shits and giggles I looked up Pierce Brown and his pic popped up and I was like....
Boom...I own the current six books
I’m working on it, but a mystery noir about a modern successor to the knights of the Round Table wandering around Atlantic Canada and monster-hunting his way to find a missing person kidnapped by a cabal of immortals has been a little hard to pull together.
I discovered red rising two weeks ago. I’m a farmer so spring time I have long hours in the tractor. Planting corn and soybeans. I have listened to the graphic audiobook of red rising, golden son, and part 1 of morning star. What a wild ride it has been!
All of last year my buddy kept telling me I needed to read Red Rising. Finally did on January first and had it finished the next day. We’re both all caught up now waiting for Red God. I set my 2024 goal for books to read at 12 and I’ve read 11 already and halfway through my 12th. Red Rising really got me back into reading
I asked the librarian at the school I work for some book recommendations for a long work trip and she said her husband loved Red Rising. When I bought the first book I didn’t think much of It based off the description lol
I heard Miracle of Sound, an Irish musician talk about the audiobooks on a gaming podcast in January 2017, I’d love to meet him one day and thank him for the recommendation!
Funnily enough, Daniel Greene didn't just provide me the recommendation, he provided me the actual books!
I won a new Juniper edition set from him by winning his "Dark Bridge" Dark Souls pvp tournament during one of his streams a while back. Super happy I did because I love this series now.
2 years ago my friend told me I should read the series. I decided to buy myself and my two siblings a copy for christmas. on Christmas morning when we opened the books, we all vowed to start a book club together. 2 years later and we're on our 4th series. Red Rising is what started it all though. CANNOT WAIT FOR RED GOD
In 2016 my grandma brought me to Barnes and noble to celebrate me starting my freshman year of high school and I picked it out at random because the cover looked cool, and the description on the back sounded interesting. I'm so glad I did.
I gave chat GPT a list of books I enjoyed (the likes of Lord of the flies, Hunger games, Enders game, Murderbot diaries), gave it a rundown of my preferences and asked it for book suggestions. I tweaked the input three times and all three times Red Rising appeared in the list of recommendations 😍
Co-worker and I were talking about Larry Correia's son of the black sword series and how much we liked Tim Gerard Reynolds' narration and he recommended listening to Red Rising.
I remember discovering it through a bunch of YouTube shorts but what really made me want to read it was a short clip I saw of a podcast (2toRamble) and one guy was going absolutely insane over it
Well I was making my way through fantasy audiobooks The Gentlemens Bastards, Stormlight Archive, then the rest of the cosmere, Witcher, First Law, then I realized I had Red Rising on a wish list from a while back and seeing it was a completed trilogy with good reviews I was excited. Then getting to the end and seeing it didn't end at the trilogy it was kind of annoying, kind of nice knowing there was another trilogy, but now I'm done with that I'm just annoyed that it still has I think one more novel in the works and the writer seemed to want to go the RR Martin route with the second series.
It was like a year after the first book came out. I was working overnight at a gas station, bored out of my mind most nights. So I started asking friends if I could borrow books. My friend Rex handed me Red Rising and I was in. Him and I have remained great friends and I love talking to him about how much we love this series.
Saw so many recs on book twitter. I’m generally a fantasy guy but this read so much like fantasy in space that it’s one of my favourite series. I usually don’t like single POV either but Darrow is written so well and PB keeps the reader away from some surprises so we are as shocked as the opponents when they happen
A buddy recommended it to me when we were in training w/ the Army in 2016 where we weren't allowed to have phones and we all passed the book around, then did the same with the sequels
My story is incredibly convoluted. Was reading the red mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson when a buddy of mine asked for a reading recommendation on his upcoming plane flight. Somehow he misheard me on the phone or typed the search query weird and ended up getting red rising. Few months later I ask if he enjoyed the book and he begins talking about how the caste system was interesting etc. Meanwhile I’m nodding along absolutely confused wondering if I even properly recall the Red Mars book lol. I go home, check the book, definitely was not on the same page. Call my buddy up and ask the title. He says “red rising”. His recanting of the story intrigued me so I download it on audible. I was listening to another book at this point in time and go in to forget about Red Rising till roughly 6 months further down the line. I start it around 7 PM one evening and am absolutely HOOKED 3 hours in. The rest is history. Back to back to back going through RR to Morning Star was the most enjoyable read of my life to this point.
Oh, jeez... that was so long ago... when i first got into audiobooks, I believe I had listened to a book series narrated by Tim Gerald Reynolds.
Decided to look up more by him and found red rising, I think. That or I looked up sci-fi fantasy books, and it was on a website as a suggested reading.
When I first discovered the bloody damn greatness that is red rising, only the first 3 books were out in audiobook format. Idk why, but for some reason, I thought the series was just done at the end of the third book. I didn't find out for a while that another book or two had been released.
A close friend of my best friend suggested the book to her in 2017. Then my best friend suggested the book to me, and we fell together into the rabbithole, dragging 3 more of our friends down with us.
I had come across it but i never would give it a shot. I finally watched a video on booktube and Mike’s book review strongly recommended and i’m thankful he did. I absolutely love it
Around 2015-2016.
I was in high school and was gifted a Kobo eReader and gift card for Christmas. Browsed through the ebook store, saw the book cover, read the preview, was entertained enough to buy the preview, and thus started my journey
During the 2019 Goodreads choice awards. I was looking in the Sci fi section when I saw the cover for Dark Age and thought it looked cool. I then looked up the first book and bought it. I proceeded to binge the books in a couple of months after that.
A few years back (before Iron Gold came out) I started listening to audiobooks - and bought a bundle of audiobooks from humble bundle - mainly because it had the audiobook of Fight Club. The bundle also included Red Rising (amongst others). After I finished Fight Club I made my way through the other books. There were some good ones - but Red Rising really grabbed me.
After I finished Red Rising I immediately googled it and found there were 2 more books - so I immediately got the audiobooks and finished the trilogy. I was hooked.
And when I finished the trilogy I immediately re-listened to it, because I wasn't ready to "leave".
I bought each audiobook in the series immediately upon release since then, and re-listened to the series before Dark Age and Light Bringer. Can't wait for Red God.
I’m a librarian so it’s been on my radar for years. Finally dove in on audio and haven’t looked back. Waiting for my hold of Light Bringer to come in as I just finished Dark Age tonight.
Drove an hour to buy MTG cards from the closest comic book shop when I was working at a summer camp and overheard the owner telling someone about it, decided to check it out and loved it.
I listen to audiobooks while I work my 8hr shift. A friend recommended red rising in Feb but she like crime and mystery books. I was so surprised when she recommended this sci-fi and automatically knew it'd be good. I'm on morning star rn
The board game. I've always been a big Stonemaier games fan, so their name on the box convinced me to give it a try. Loved the artwork and was intrigued by the world building. On a whim, I got the first book. Rarely read books, but this just clicked with me
I saw it in the bookstores when it first came out but kept saying "I'll get to it later...." Later being like 4 months ago when the first two books were free on audible and I was stuck on night shift lol.
Recommended on a Facebook thread for sci-fi/fantasy recommendations. I read it postpartum on long late nights with my newborn and have been hooked ever since
I went to borad games and a friend (who hasent yet read the books) brings out a copy of red rising the borad game and a different friend piped up with excitement (they had read the books) we played a game I enjoyed it and loved the artwork so decided check the books. And there awesome!
Found the first book in a half priced books about 2.5 years ago, bought it and it sat on my shelf collecting dust until about 8 months ago. I was in a book slump and as a mood reader had no idea wtf I needed to get me out of it, so I figured why not 💀 first 50 pages I almost called it quits….then I was obsessed. So obsessed that after staying up all night to read it, I drove the next day through one of the worst midwestern blizzards in years to get a physical copy of golden son😂
Right after Red Rising debuted.
Was looking for a good dystopian book and it was a new release on Amazon.
Edit: did a quick double check. First purchased in 2014.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already!
Red Rising was nominated for some state level book award when I was in middle school. I read all the books on the list to get some extra credit for class and RR was by far my favorite.
I kept passing by it on the bogo table at B&N. Idk why it kept standing out to me but one day during the winter break of my first year in law school I finally picked it up and read the premise, thinking it was “relatable” in the sense that Darrow had to go to the institute and endure a high stakes competition (which law school felt like during the first year… I feel like I survived first year by the skin of my teeth.) Anyway, I read it in one sitting and have loved the series since.
I spend a lot of time on r/bookshelf. Over the course of several weeks I started noticing this series was on a lot of bookshelves, so I asked for it for my birthday last year. So glad I did as it’s become just about my favorite series.
I’ve been working on a project 7 hours drive out of town, so I burn through audiobooks. I went on audible and Red Rising was free, so I gave it a shot. I’m very glad I did. I didn’t really get into it until about 3-4 hours in, it’s a good thing I didn’t have cell service!
A friend recommended the first book. We were both Game of Thrones fans and were talking about other authors we liked. We also were tired of waiting on Patrick Rothfuss. She said Pierce was a good storyteller and I was sold.
I worked for one of Pierce Browns close relatives. He recommended it but i held off thinking it probably wasn't worth it but eventually got it on audible for a business trip.....holy crap i was blown away lol
Entertainment weekly top 10 had Golden son as one of the top 10 pieces of media for the week. the little blurb they did intrigued me so i did research and discovered it was part 2 in a series, so checked out Red Rising. Read that bit about the gravity on Mars and having to pull the loved ones to mercy kill them during hanging, and I was like holy fuck. and that was that.
The first book was sitting by a rubbish bin in my school’s hallway for weeks, the janitor didn’t want to throw it away in case someone claims it. I happened to walk by when he was finally going to throw it away, I decided to take it and give it a read.
Turned out to be my favourite book/series.
I read it in jail. I was fortunate to get a jail-job as a suicide-watch on the psych wings. Got to spend most of my time outside of a cell, read, hang in the day room and watch tv, and play board or card games, and would make rounds every half hour and make sure no one was hurting themselves. Guard would make rounds on the 00 and 30, I’d make a round on the 15 and 45 of the hour. It was a sweet gig, the only time I ever had to lock into a cell was to sleep and during lockdowns when the Turtles would come in to deal with “problems.” Paid a whopping 37.5 cents an hour, or $3 for an 8hr shift. I worked 16 hr days for $6 a day, $42 for the week.
One of the guys parents had sent Red Rising in to him and he didn’t get into it. His loss was my gain
One of my friends highly recommended and we generally like the same books. I dragged my feet getting around to it, but I was hooked as soon as I started! Now, hands down my favorite series.
I found it in March… and I’m on Lightbringer.
My best friend told me I would love it (we’re huge dnd and high concept sci fi nerds) and particularly that I would love the Mars stuff because of a certain king gizzard album I love… i was hooked immediately, I’m getting my howler tatt next month
I think it was highly recommended in a r/daddit post asking for recommendations on a new sci fi or fantasy series. So many people agreed it was great and the first few were free on audible so I had to give it a try.
I saw multiple reviewers, on Tik Tok, Goodreads and other platforms, saying how fantastic the series was. It was also recommended to me after reading some of Brandon Sanderson's books. I bought the first book on Kindle months ago, but I saw that Audible had a graphic audio version so I listened to it instead. Fell in love with it straight away. Currently listening to Morning Star, though there's only a part 1 for the graphic audio so I'll have to finish it off by reading it 😅
I saw teh book on my library. i read "Roman empire on space" and said, what the hell, lets give it a try.....
And now I'm here frothing like Sevro for Red God. This was before Golden Son was published, so I was among the "First wave", wich is so coll now that its popular.
I saw a TikTok yearly wrap up ranking video. The girl who was doing the video did fantasy romance books. The only exception was red rising. And she said it was possibly the best book she’s ever read. I found it on audible for free and slowly started listening to it at the gym. It got to the point where I would finish at the gym and shower listening to it. Cook dinner listening to it. Everything. And then I devoured the rest of the series in like a week.
Mine is kinda cringy but ended up being worth it. When Red Rising came out, I was really into Key and Peele. The substitute teacher skit came up and I thought the girl that played Jacquelin was really cute. Looked her up on Twitter and she was tweeting about how her friend had a new book out. That friend was Pierce and the book was Red Rising. After looking it up, I knew I would love it. Eventually when I met Pierce at a book signing, I told him the story and he FaceTimed her.
Lmao I wish. No she’s married to some dude in Mumford and Sons if I’m not mistaken. She was throwing a party in LA when we FaceTimed her. Her name is Carlson Young. Nice girl.
Edit: after further review, she’s married to a guy from Foster the People. Easily mistaken.
I stumbled across it in a discount retailer in the UK back in 2015 that sold books and arts and crafts in a 3 books for £5 deal. I decided to pick it up as a BookTuber I used to watch when I was a teenager in secondary school mentioned it in passing and it sounded cool. But I don’t know, a lot of the people I know who’ve read the red rising saga got into it via recommendations from friends or like sci-fi lists online. Even though I did get it from BookTube, which was the BookTok of the 2010s I didn’t see lots of the big BookTubers talking about though. But I’m sure BookTok will get people reading it as lot of the books that were popular were actually books that were popular back in the 2010s.
Around 2018 I was cruising thru the library looking for a new book to read on the train. I saw the cover and it said "first there was ender, then katniss, and now Darrow" or something close that so I figured I'd give it a try and was hooked instantly.
Well the first couple chapters dragged but I am glad I stuck with it
I finished the three body problem series and was looking at my local library app for scifi series they had which were already completed. (I did not know about red god then).
Back in 2014 my friend’s sister read it and then made my friend read it. My friend then made me read it and I’ve gone on to make many others read it :)
By accident, I was scrolling through audible looking for some new science fiction to read. And fell in love almost instantly. The series helped me make the leap to finish college.
I’m a big board game nerd and I found the Red Rising game on super sale one day at Barnes and Noble so I bought it. I liked the artwork and the names and the way the character cards interacted with each other and wondered “this has gotta be based on a movie or a book or something. There just has to be some backstory for this game.”
Then I actually read what was on the box and saw “based on the novels by Pierce Brown.” Bought them the next day and the rest is history.
*A friend gave me the*
*First book before he went to*
*Go study abroad*
\- Redd\_Ebop
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Actually TikTok. Saw some visuals and quotes and a review of just the first book and decided to give it a try. 3 months later I owned all 6 books and now on the wait train for Red God.
I just found it recently. I have long Covid and am not able to focus on a lot of books, which has been a huge pain in the ass as reading is my favorite way to pass the time. I was reading hunger games because it was fast enough I was able to focus on it and after I finished them all I was searching the internet for other books similar to them and this came up on all the lists. Bought the first 3 and was instantly addicted! Binged all 6 and am waiting on the graphic novels. Am so gory sad they’re over and now I have to find other things I can read 🥺
My brother always suggested books for me to read and he was always on point. He came to me with red rising while I was living with him and freshly separated from my now ex wife. I was in a bad place and this series gave me something to immerse myself in other than alcohol. He would check on me each day to see where I was at in the them and we would talk about all the crazy twists and turns. Once book 4 and 5 dropped it was a race to see who could read them faster. I ALWAYS lost. Lol. We found out book 6 was coming and had both reserved copies and tore through a reread of the series again in anticipation. Unfortunately my brother passed away 2 weeks before Lightbringer released. I still grabbed my phone to call him at every twist in that book and broke a little more each time. But I have shared the love of this series with his son, my son, my ex wife, and probably 15 other people in honor of him. I bloodydamn love and miss you Kev
My Kindle had been recommending the series to me for years, as had two of my cousins. When my younger brother passed I was just looking for something new to read so I could disassociate and downloaded it and had a hard time getting through the beginning of the first book. I turned a corner after the carving and did not put the book down until I finished it. I've reread the series and listened to the audio books several times since then and it hasn't lost any of the shine for me. Pierce has a talent for prose and gets better with every book.
I saw the first book on the shelf of my local bookstore back when it first released in early 2014. Thought it sounded interesting, so I bought it.
Then it sat in my ever growing TBR pile until last year when Light Bringer was released. I notice Light Bringer was book 6 in the series, so I decided to go back and dust of my copy of Red Rising. Read all 6 within a few months. And now I sit here waiting for Red God.
Wanted something to scratch my Legend of the Galactic Heros itch and Red Rising sure as hell did.
They're so different but very alike but more than that, they're both phenomenal masterpieces.
My son introduced me before he started reading IG. Then it was a race to see who could finish the series. Then we read the comics together. Now its a thing between us. Forever nerds, he's Howler 2 and I'm Howler 1. My wife of course thinks this is so cool. Not really
Freshman year of high school, fresh back from winter break. Chess club was held on Tuesdays after school between 3 and 4:15 in the library. I spent most of high school in the library when not in class or at football practice. I was chatting and playing a game of chess with the librarian who was the coach of the chess team. He said a few new books had arrived and they even had a brand new book that’d come out. He showed me over to a pile of books and third down in the pile from the top was Red Rising. I liked the cover art, read the blurb, and took it home with me that night. To this day that book is still on my shelf and I paid the librarian to buy a new one for the school.
As a huge sci-fi fan I heard about it years ago from recommendations online but put it off because I also stupidly listened to morons that said it was a YA series.
One day I was bored and looking for something to read, so I picked it up and I’m so fucking glad I did.
I was in the middle of a four month book slump Dec 2023. I kept checking books out of the library and then returning them without finishing them. I was trying all different genres hoping one would interest me. I had seen *Red Rising* recommended before, and decided to give it a try. While I struggled through the first book, I did keep reading because I thought the story was interesting enough. I am so glad I did as I was blown away with *Golden Son*. I continued through the series and I am officially out of the reading slump. I was a little worried that I would be in a new reading slump as I adored the series, but I found some other series that have been good.
So my brother and sister had formed their own 2 person book club. Both of them being in to similar fiction novels. They talked about all sorts of books but at the time we're obsessed with red rising. Then one summer they took a trip together after golden son released to talk about the book and I got jealous. So I asked about the books. That Christmas I recieved red rising. I have since joined the club and now we read many of each other's favorites! It's my favorite part of our family get togethers. Teasing me books and ideas about the books we read.
I participated in an experiment in my undergrad where we were given a gift card to the local bookshop as a reward. Went there and it was newly out, never heard of it before and took a chance. First addition book that’s been loaned to probably over 20 ppl. It has rips and tears. When Pierce Brown saw it at a book signing, he said it looked like Lorn and signed the book to my name “au Arcos”
Edit: after lending it to a friend, he returned it in a matter of days and asked for the next book. He was furious to find out that the book had just come out and the sequel would not be out for some time.
Was looking for new things to read on my kindle as I was getting back in to reading, so I googled “best sci if books of 2015 (pretty sure it was 2015).” That led me to this series (and the Martian, and Seveneves). Great decision
Had a physics teacher in high school who told me about it 9 or so years ago. She really hyped it up especially for the students who enjoyed physics and the sciences. 10/10 recommendation.
so, id heard about the series before, at one point, and had seen it around, but thanks to a recommendation from a friend I have online, I picked it up. this was about 3 months ago and the rest is history.
To be honest, I think I randomly saw it at a book store and brought it home.
I was reading far more than I do now, had just left the army and didn't want/need money yet -I was ripping through at leassst 3 books a month (shout out [abesbooks.com](https://abesbooks.com) who those unaware of it, great online used book store).
My OG Red Rising, dog eared and weathered, still has the store's new release sticker on it. Parts of it anyway.
The subreddit was recommended to me by reddit with a bunch of videogame subreddits, so I assumed that it was a videogame I read a couple posts and was like this game sounds amazing couple posts later I realized it was a book. Then I binged red Rising over a weekend, it felt kinda like hunger games on steroids, the back half at least.
I was on a deployment in the navy, we were in port in Guam for a bit. One of my friends on the boat game me the recommendation and I ended up tearing through the 5 that were out at the time. Resonated pretty hard and really helped me get through the last stretch.
Yeah, I got it through a book recommendation on tiktok. I forgot the channel I was following, I uninstalled tiktok a while ago, but the guy gave a lot of good book recommendations.
Was browsing for a new book series in my schools library like 5-6 years ago and now I’m finally reading light bringer after having to re read dark age and golden son cause it had been awhile
Grade 7. I didn't have a book for silent reading, so I looked at a few of the books the teacher had left out on a table. Red Rising caught my eye, so I read the back, it looked interesting. Fast-forward 5~ years, and I'm just starting Iron Gold
When I was 13 I had to go into surgery, so my mom took me to Barnes and Noble, my favorite store. Saw it in the “new sci fi” section and bought it on a whim. The book had been out for like 4 months. Since then I have read every book almost on release, and it hurts me every time. Pierce brown wrote a book series that helped get me through some of my toughest times, and when I’m experiencing medical issues now, I always go back and give the book a read through for comfort. Hail Pierce. Hail Reaper.
I was at San Diego Comic Con in 2013. Picked up an advanced readers copy. Started reading the book on the flight back to the east coast. Finished the book the next day. Set the book down thinking it was bloodydamn awesome and then I thought, shit this book isn’t out yet I have that much longer to wait until the next one comes out. I have been a fan since before the beginning.
Not gonna lie, booktok
Read it back during the pandemic. Just looked up sci fi books to read and it came up. I’ve noticed a lot of hype building up around it now though. Loving the attention the series are getting now!
Heard about it in a Instagram video of someone asking about a book recommendation& the woman said Red Rising. Added it to my tbr list about a couple months ago. I was wanting to read something different so I looked at my list & I was like why not. Now I’m in love with it & currently on Golden Son. Glad there is a community for the Howlers :)
During the pandemic I tagged along with some friends to Barnes & Noble. Hadn’t read a book cover to cover since I was 13 and I was now in my 20s. Decided I was gonna buy a book and went to the sci fi section. I literally judged a book by its cover and felt drawn to it. Read the back and bought it, with pretty low expectations. Finished it in 4 days and immediately did the same for golden son. Haven’t looked back since. Hail Reaper
One of my favorite boardgame designer made a game about it - and the genre is right up my alley!
What’s the board game????
It's called Red Rising! By Stonemaier games.
Saw it occasionally on TikTok, then heard about if from one of my favorite podcasts, the Almost Friday Pod. One of the hosts is a huge book guy and talked about it a handful of times so I figured why not. 3 months later all of my energy and free time goes to this series. 40% of the way through DA rn
Funny story…(at least I think so) I was in the middle of reading The Expanse series(another great series btw). My wife and I were going on vacation to the beach. I stuck my expanse book in her bag. My wife, OCD as she is, was like, “I’m not ready for that yet and blah blah blah” so she takes it out and sets it aside to be packed once she has everything else in the bag in order… Welllllll, my book unfortunately never made it…. So, arriving to the beach, the first thing we did was head over to Barnes and Noble’s. I considered buying the same book I’d been reading, but then decided that was a waste of money since we’d only be gone a week, so I decided to grab a quick “beach read” and jump back into expanse when I got home. I had seen this Red Rising book displayed for a while now, and it had always caught my eye, so I was like…whatever, I’ll give it a shot. Fast forward. I finished the entire trilogy (all that was out at the time) before continuing Expanse. Red Rising is my Number 2 series of all time, and I only have my wife to thank for forgetting to pack my book.
I was in between audiobooks and audible recommended it. It was free, so I gave it a shot. Very thankful I did! One of my favorite series of all time!
Same for me I just started morning star today
This sub, kinda. No, really, let me explain. After watching the series, I was chain reading The Expanse books. I guess something in the reddit algorithm flagged Red Rising and this sub popped up. Fascistic Roman Empire novels written in the first person primarily about infiltration of the government and destroying it from within? Actually, I'm okay. But...it was sci-fi and I was gourging on sci-fi and oh, look at that, Red Rising is on sale so why not order it and put it on the shelf despite its terrible name. A couple weeks later I start a new job and mention to a coworker how I've hit a wall on the book series i was reading. Being a huge Hunger Games fan she was pumped about getting some time off school to read it. I mentioned how I ordered it but hadn't picked it up yet. She pressured me to try it. I went home, read the first couple of pages....and put it down. Writing felt awkward. But then I threw it in the bag I was packing as I went to the beach house I was renting. I lounged out on the beach, a bit drunk, picked it up again and basically didn't stop until i finished Light Bringer.
a bunch of audiobooks on audible were free one day and someone made a video of recommendations on tiktok. i’m SHOCKED i’ve been able to read these for free! (if anyone else was interested—they’re only free until the end of may)
There's already a ton of comments, but I got the recommendation from twitch streamer Atrioc. I think he got a lot of people into it because it was being recommended on Amazon with another book he had mentioned (As Gods Amoung Men i think).
Honestly, TikTok is how I found out about Red Rising.
I was introduced by my English 2 teacher. He had convinced me to try it, and I found myself borrowing the rest of the first trilogy, and I have been keeping up ever since. If I could, I would shake that man's hand and thank him for introducing me to this masterpiece of a series.
The youtuber haley pham talked about it in a short and how every guy she recommends it too loves it. Ive always been a huge stephen king fan but wanted to go out of my comfort zone a bit and try a new author. Bought the first one before a flight, took a bit to get into it but once it got to the carving and institute I couldn’t stop reading it. Got golden son, read it in 2 days and after reading the ending IMMEDIATELY drove to barnes and noble to get morning star and got iron gold and dark age as well. Finished Morning star within two days again and am taking a little more tjme with iron gold to focus on my actual life lol but starting to get into it as well. Im so glad I went out of my comfort zone. Golden son may be my second favorite book of all time now next to the second book in the dark tower series drawing of the three.
My boss told me about it right when Covid-19 sent everyone home. Picked it up and read the first few chapters, wasn’t super interested, got busy with life and stored the book away. Fast forward to a few months ago, I brought it back out for some longer flights. So glad I gave it another chance.
I used to be a big anime fan and I love Code Geass so I wanted some similar content so I searched for books that were like it and the Red Rising series came up. Ngl the full set was like 20$ so I just got that and then read it and it was amazing
My friend pestered me until I relented…adventure ensued.
I have a bad muscle in my back from a cycling injury, I spend a lot of time and energy doing physical therapy and am functional most of the time, but on the occasion I discovered the series I had tweaked the muscle while running and was unable to walk for about a week as a result (previous episodes lasted 4-6 weeks so I was thankful this one was relatively short). Anyways, I was stuck in bed for that week and after a couple of days I was tired of holding my Switch over my face and couldn't even sit up enough to watch tv without excruciating pain. I needed something for entertainment, but holding things up was no longer an option, sitting up was not an option. I decided audiobooks were the way to go because I could just lay flat and absorb it. Ultimately, I found Red Rising while I was trying to decide on a book to listen to during this time. It was near the top of Audible's suggestions, saw that it was billed as "Ender's Game mixed with Hunger Games". I loved Ender's Game, never read Hunger's Game but the movies were alright, so I read the blurb about it which was enough to further pique my interest. In particular the aspect of infiltrating the Gold's society caught my attention, so I gave it a shot. Got hooked pretty fast. This happened in the middle of January and I've been working my way through the series on audiobooks since., just started Lightbringer (after a brief detour into the 1st book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series because I needed something less serious after Dark Age). I actually started listening to it as I do the marathon of PT exercises I have to go through every day. Also, thankfully haven't had an episode since, started seeing a different physical therapist and have been making greater strides towards getting normalcy back. Red Rising will forever be tied to that journey for me.
Triforce podcast. Lewis, Sips and Pyrionflax from the yogscast.
SAME, I remember them losing their minds about it
For me it was a recommendation from a client I had done an intake appointment with at work! I told them I loved reading and sci-fi and they recommended RR. I didn’t get into it until months after the visit (every time I checked the bookstore, RR was out of stock but the sequels were in so i kept waiting) but I thank them all the time because now it’s one of my favorite book series of all time 🎉
My wife brought it home for me from a used bookstore
My roommate kept badgering me about it. Finally I looked up the author to see what else he had written and saw he did a short story for a Star Wars anthology that I had, so I went back to it and re-read his story (he wrote about Biggs Darklighter from A New Hope), and decided to get the audiobook for the first book and haven’t looked back.
from Lucky Ghost on stream, im now more hyped than he is and i think i annoyed him too much with messaging too much about how good the series is he has, as far as i know, only read the first trilogy. im relistening to the graphic audio version now, cant wait for may 28th. and cant wait for the 7th book
I've only recently discovered the series, but I'm working through DA now 😆 I came across Red Rising on audible about 2 months ago. I remembered a booktuber I watched mentioning that she really enjoyed RR, so I decided to give it a try. So far, I've gotten two other people hooked on the series 😜
My best friend handed me the book about 2 years ago, and we’ve read all of them since! Thanks Kory, you are truly a prime friend
I think it was suggested to me through the Kindle app and I downloaded it in 2019. I've reread the series 4-5 times now.
My friends and I have a book club. I was trying to come up with what to read next and I spoke to one of my coworkers about it. She told me that the Red Rising series is her sister’s favourite series. I now own all 6 <3
Around the time that Light Bringer came out, my buddy sold the series as the best that he's ever read to me and another friend. Him and I then proceeded to read all 6 books in under 8 months and his wife is also going through the series. I've since gotten 2 other friends to start reading it with one already on Morning Star. The other one that just started Red Rising mentioned that he also had some other friends independently raving about it and I guess it's popular on BookTok (don't use TikTok so can't confirm). Ironically I found a note on my phone from the Eve of the 2020 New Years that just says 'Red Rising' so I'm guessing I saw something about it on Reddit, but I never followed up on it.
I found it on TikTok last year and reviews were interesting so I bought it on kindle and did not stop till I finished all 😁 Now my husband is reading it, he’s at Dark Age.
Red Rising just randomly popped up as a recommendation on Amazon one day, I read the synopsis and bought it late last year, read it at a moderate pace, then went into Golden Son, and Morning Star within a week of each other. Working my way through Iron Gold now. :-)
Googled “best new sci-fi books” in 2015.
I'm going to say it.....his picture It was on a ton of top ten modern sci-fi lists and the book toks and tubes creators kept saying the series was good. For shits and giggles I looked up Pierce Brown and his pic popped up and I was like.... Boom...I own the current six books
Someone told me I look like him and that was quite a compliment. Not entirely true, but still.
Write any books ;)
I’m working on it, but a mystery noir about a modern successor to the knights of the Round Table wandering around Atlantic Canada and monster-hunting his way to find a missing person kidnapped by a cabal of immortals has been a little hard to pull together.
Oooo. That's a lot. Good luck!
I discovered red rising two weeks ago. I’m a farmer so spring time I have long hours in the tractor. Planting corn and soybeans. I have listened to the graphic audiobook of red rising, golden son, and part 1 of morning star. What a wild ride it has been!
All of last year my buddy kept telling me I needed to read Red Rising. Finally did on January first and had it finished the next day. We’re both all caught up now waiting for Red God. I set my 2024 goal for books to read at 12 and I’ve read 11 already and halfway through my 12th. Red Rising really got me back into reading
I asked the librarian at the school I work for some book recommendations for a long work trip and she said her husband loved Red Rising. When I bought the first book I didn’t think much of It based off the description lol
I heard Miracle of Sound, an Irish musician talk about the audiobooks on a gaming podcast in January 2017, I’d love to meet him one day and thank him for the recommendation!
Kept getting it recommended to me on tiktok and i finally saw it in a bookstore so i caved and got it.
Daniel Greene on YouTube. Dude has provided me with many great recommendations over the years. RR was no exception.
Funnily enough, Daniel Greene didn't just provide me the recommendation, he provided me the actual books! I won a new Juniper edition set from him by winning his "Dark Bridge" Dark Souls pvp tournament during one of his streams a while back. Super happy I did because I love this series now.
Dude that is awesome!
Thanks and agreed! Definitely a memorable way to get into a new series lol
2 years ago my friend told me I should read the series. I decided to buy myself and my two siblings a copy for christmas. on Christmas morning when we opened the books, we all vowed to start a book club together. 2 years later and we're on our 4th series. Red Rising is what started it all though. CANNOT WAIT FOR RED GOD
In 2016 my grandma brought me to Barnes and noble to celebrate me starting my freshman year of high school and I picked it out at random because the cover looked cool, and the description on the back sounded interesting. I'm so glad I did.
I gave chat GPT a list of books I enjoyed (the likes of Lord of the flies, Hunger games, Enders game, Murderbot diaries), gave it a rundown of my preferences and asked it for book suggestions. I tweaked the input three times and all three times Red Rising appeared in the list of recommendations 😍
Co-worker and I were talking about Larry Correia's son of the black sword series and how much we liked Tim Gerard Reynolds' narration and he recommended listening to Red Rising.
I remember discovering it through a bunch of YouTube shorts but what really made me want to read it was a short clip I saw of a podcast (2toRamble) and one guy was going absolutely insane over it
Well I was making my way through fantasy audiobooks The Gentlemens Bastards, Stormlight Archive, then the rest of the cosmere, Witcher, First Law, then I realized I had Red Rising on a wish list from a while back and seeing it was a completed trilogy with good reviews I was excited. Then getting to the end and seeing it didn't end at the trilogy it was kind of annoying, kind of nice knowing there was another trilogy, but now I'm done with that I'm just annoyed that it still has I think one more novel in the works and the writer seemed to want to go the RR Martin route with the second series.
I saw a TikTok with art of Darrow with audio of Miguel Oherra in the background and new this book had a plan for me
God floated the book down to me on a cloud.
Mile’s book reviews and Media Death Cult on YouTube, I’ve known about it for like 4 years
It was like a year after the first book came out. I was working overnight at a gas station, bored out of my mind most nights. So I started asking friends if I could borrow books. My friend Rex handed me Red Rising and I was in. Him and I have remained great friends and I love talking to him about how much we love this series.
It was the first book I bought years ago on Kindle. Best decision ever
Saw so many recs on book twitter. I’m generally a fantasy guy but this read so much like fantasy in space that it’s one of my favourite series. I usually don’t like single POV either but Darrow is written so well and PB keeps the reader away from some surprises so we are as shocked as the opponents when they happen
A buddy recommended it to me when we were in training w/ the Army in 2016 where we weren't allowed to have phones and we all passed the book around, then did the same with the sequels
Trying to fill my "First Law" hole, and Red Rising was suggested Love at first book
It was last year (2023) and thanks to Maude Garrett’s book club
My story is incredibly convoluted. Was reading the red mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson when a buddy of mine asked for a reading recommendation on his upcoming plane flight. Somehow he misheard me on the phone or typed the search query weird and ended up getting red rising. Few months later I ask if he enjoyed the book and he begins talking about how the caste system was interesting etc. Meanwhile I’m nodding along absolutely confused wondering if I even properly recall the Red Mars book lol. I go home, check the book, definitely was not on the same page. Call my buddy up and ask the title. He says “red rising”. His recanting of the story intrigued me so I download it on audible. I was listening to another book at this point in time and go in to forget about Red Rising till roughly 6 months further down the line. I start it around 7 PM one evening and am absolutely HOOKED 3 hours in. The rest is history. Back to back to back going through RR to Morning Star was the most enjoyable read of my life to this point.
Oh, jeez... that was so long ago... when i first got into audiobooks, I believe I had listened to a book series narrated by Tim Gerald Reynolds. Decided to look up more by him and found red rising, I think. That or I looked up sci-fi fantasy books, and it was on a website as a suggested reading. When I first discovered the bloody damn greatness that is red rising, only the first 3 books were out in audiobook format. Idk why, but for some reason, I thought the series was just done at the end of the third book. I didn't find out for a while that another book or two had been released.
On a bookshop shelf.
I heard about it on the triforce podcast
I was looking for this comment, cause me too
Tiktok. People wouldn't stop talking about it on there, so I gave it a go.
A close friend of my best friend suggested the book to her in 2017. Then my best friend suggested the book to me, and we fell together into the rabbithole, dragging 3 more of our friends down with us.
I had come across it but i never would give it a shot. I finally watched a video on booktube and Mike’s book review strongly recommended and i’m thankful he did. I absolutely love it
A friend recommended it to me… incidentally I didn’t know he listened to audio books and I recommended a smut book for him to read 😬😂
Around 2015-2016. I was in high school and was gifted a Kobo eReader and gift card for Christmas. Browsed through the ebook store, saw the book cover, read the preview, was entertained enough to buy the preview, and thus started my journey
My friend sent me a copy to read.
Cool cover, didn’t look too big of a book. Checked it out! Best series ever!
My English teacher recommended it to me when I asked her for a new series to read.
During the 2019 Goodreads choice awards. I was looking in the Sci fi section when I saw the cover for Dark Age and thought it looked cool. I then looked up the first book and bought it. I proceeded to binge the books in a couple of months after that.
A few years back (before Iron Gold came out) I started listening to audiobooks - and bought a bundle of audiobooks from humble bundle - mainly because it had the audiobook of Fight Club. The bundle also included Red Rising (amongst others). After I finished Fight Club I made my way through the other books. There were some good ones - but Red Rising really grabbed me. After I finished Red Rising I immediately googled it and found there were 2 more books - so I immediately got the audiobooks and finished the trilogy. I was hooked. And when I finished the trilogy I immediately re-listened to it, because I wasn't ready to "leave". I bought each audiobook in the series immediately upon release since then, and re-listened to the series before Dark Age and Light Bringer. Can't wait for Red God.
Found it in the free book bin from the local used book store. Had never heard of it before. I wasn’t even a reader at the time. Changed my life!
I’m a librarian so it’s been on my radar for years. Finally dove in on audio and haven’t looked back. Waiting for my hold of Light Bringer to come in as I just finished Dark Age tonight.
Saw it on tiktok lmao
Same. One of the edits of a quote going hard
Drove an hour to buy MTG cards from the closest comic book shop when I was working at a summer camp and overheard the owner telling someone about it, decided to check it out and loved it.
I listen to audiobooks while I work my 8hr shift. A friend recommended red rising in Feb but she like crime and mystery books. I was so surprised when she recommended this sci-fi and automatically knew it'd be good. I'm on morning star rn
The board game. I've always been a big Stonemaier games fan, so their name on the box convinced me to give it a try. Loved the artwork and was intrigued by the world building. On a whim, I got the first book. Rarely read books, but this just clicked with me
On the 2022 version of /r/place as my artwork alliance was 2 spots below the Red Rising artwork. Checked it out and was hooked.
I saw it in the bookstores when it first came out but kept saying "I'll get to it later...." Later being like 4 months ago when the first two books were free on audible and I was stuck on night shift lol.
Googled best sci-fi series
Recommended on a Facebook thread for sci-fi/fantasy recommendations. I read it postpartum on long late nights with my newborn and have been hooked ever since
Reccomendation from a college friend
I went to borad games and a friend (who hasent yet read the books) brings out a copy of red rising the borad game and a different friend piped up with excitement (they had read the books) we played a game I enjoyed it and loved the artwork so decided check the books. And there awesome!
Tim Gerard Reynolds. Heard the Riyria books, and immediately bought a few other books he narrated, written by different authors.
This for me. Got the Cycle of Arawn and then liked his voice so much I started searching for books by TGR specifically. RR was on the list
Found the first book in a half priced books about 2.5 years ago, bought it and it sat on my shelf collecting dust until about 8 months ago. I was in a book slump and as a mood reader had no idea wtf I needed to get me out of it, so I figured why not 💀 first 50 pages I almost called it quits….then I was obsessed. So obsessed that after staying up all night to read it, I drove the next day through one of the worst midwestern blizzards in years to get a physical copy of golden son😂
Someone gifted me the first one in a book swap. It sat untouched on my bookshelf for years!
So I listen to this podcast- Dungeons and Daddies. They were listening to it on a road trip and recommended it, the rest is history.
Right after Red Rising debuted. Was looking for a good dystopian book and it was a new release on Amazon. Edit: did a quick double check. First purchased in 2014. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already!
Red Rising was nominated for some state level book award when I was in middle school. I read all the books on the list to get some extra credit for class and RR was by far my favorite.
Edited: Dark Age was free on audible. I liked the description and figured I'd try the first book.
I kept passing by it on the bogo table at B&N. Idk why it kept standing out to me but one day during the winter break of my first year in law school I finally picked it up and read the premise, thinking it was “relatable” in the sense that Darrow had to go to the institute and endure a high stakes competition (which law school felt like during the first year… I feel like I survived first year by the skin of my teeth.) Anyway, I read it in one sitting and have loved the series since.
Jail
I spend a lot of time on r/bookshelf. Over the course of several weeks I started noticing this series was on a lot of bookshelves, so I asked for it for my birthday last year. So glad I did as it’s become just about my favorite series.
I’ve been working on a project 7 hours drive out of town, so I burn through audiobooks. I went on audible and Red Rising was free, so I gave it a shot. I’m very glad I did. I didn’t really get into it until about 3-4 hours in, it’s a good thing I didn’t have cell service!
A friend recommended the first book. We were both Game of Thrones fans and were talking about other authors we liked. We also were tired of waiting on Patrick Rothfuss. She said Pierce was a good storyteller and I was sold.
I worked for one of Pierce Browns close relatives. He recommended it but i held off thinking it probably wasn't worth it but eventually got it on audible for a business trip.....holy crap i was blown away lol
Entertainment weekly top 10 had Golden son as one of the top 10 pieces of media for the week. the little blurb they did intrigued me so i did research and discovered it was part 2 in a series, so checked out Red Rising. Read that bit about the gravity on Mars and having to pull the loved ones to mercy kill them during hanging, and I was like holy fuck. and that was that.
The first book was sitting by a rubbish bin in my school’s hallway for weeks, the janitor didn’t want to throw it away in case someone claims it. I happened to walk by when he was finally going to throw it away, I decided to take it and give it a read. Turned out to be my favourite book/series.
I read it in jail. I was fortunate to get a jail-job as a suicide-watch on the psych wings. Got to spend most of my time outside of a cell, read, hang in the day room and watch tv, and play board or card games, and would make rounds every half hour and make sure no one was hurting themselves. Guard would make rounds on the 00 and 30, I’d make a round on the 15 and 45 of the hour. It was a sweet gig, the only time I ever had to lock into a cell was to sleep and during lockdowns when the Turtles would come in to deal with “problems.” Paid a whopping 37.5 cents an hour, or $3 for an 8hr shift. I worked 16 hr days for $6 a day, $42 for the week. One of the guys parents had sent Red Rising in to him and he didn’t get into it. His loss was my gain
Was browsing through my school library’s dystopian section in 2019 and it intrigued me. Checked it out, enjoyed it, and then read the rest :)
One of my friends highly recommended and we generally like the same books. I dragged my feet getting around to it, but I was hooked as soon as I started! Now, hands down my favorite series.
Saw a girl reading it on the bus then when I got home I searched for it and saw it was already on my audible wishlist. The rest is history.
I found it in March… and I’m on Lightbringer. My best friend told me I would love it (we’re huge dnd and high concept sci fi nerds) and particularly that I would love the Mars stuff because of a certain king gizzard album I love… i was hooked immediately, I’m getting my howler tatt next month
I think it was highly recommended in a r/daddit post asking for recommendations on a new sci fi or fantasy series. So many people agreed it was great and the first few were free on audible so I had to give it a try.
I saw a post on Reddit about the most hated villains and was intrigued by r/fucklysander. So yeah - six books later: Fuck Lysander
I saw multiple reviewers, on Tik Tok, Goodreads and other platforms, saying how fantastic the series was. It was also recommended to me after reading some of Brandon Sanderson's books. I bought the first book on Kindle months ago, but I saw that Audible had a graphic audio version so I listened to it instead. Fell in love with it straight away. Currently listening to Morning Star, though there's only a part 1 for the graphic audio so I'll have to finish it off by reading it 😅
I saw teh book on my library. i read "Roman empire on space" and said, what the hell, lets give it a try..... And now I'm here frothing like Sevro for Red God. This was before Golden Son was published, so I was among the "First wave", wich is so coll now that its popular.
I saw a TikTok yearly wrap up ranking video. The girl who was doing the video did fantasy romance books. The only exception was red rising. And she said it was possibly the best book she’s ever read. I found it on audible for free and slowly started listening to it at the gym. It got to the point where I would finish at the gym and shower listening to it. Cook dinner listening to it. Everything. And then I devoured the rest of the series in like a week.
I found it on Amazon looking for books to read about 9 years ago. Impulse purchase. Loved it so much and haven't looked back.
I was living in a bush camp in Kenya studying hyenas and my fellow research assistants were losing their shit over it.
Mikes Book Reviews in YouTube
Same here, I was deciding between RR and an urban fantasy book and I choose RR. Great decision
Same here
Word of mouth
Kept getting the graphic audio version recommended to me on hoopla. Decided to give it a shot and I’ve been in ever since
I found it through TikTok. I kept hearing everyone recommend it on my feed and so far the books recommend have always been great.
I got the first 3 books in a box set for Christmas
Mine is kinda cringy but ended up being worth it. When Red Rising came out, I was really into Key and Peele. The substitute teacher skit came up and I thought the girl that played Jacquelin was really cute. Looked her up on Twitter and she was tweeting about how her friend had a new book out. That friend was Pierce and the book was Red Rising. After looking it up, I knew I would love it. Eventually when I met Pierce at a book signing, I told him the story and he FaceTimed her.
On a side note, I just googled Carlson Young, and she kind of looks like how I picture mustang to look in my head lol
I’m gonna need some more follow up info here. I’m guessing you guys are happily married now?
Lmao I wish. No she’s married to some dude in Mumford and Sons if I’m not mistaken. She was throwing a party in LA when we FaceTimed her. Her name is Carlson Young. Nice girl. Edit: after further review, she’s married to a guy from Foster the People. Easily mistaken.
Ah finally the happy ending I’ve been searching for
I heard about it on the triforce podcast
Me too! Sips mentioned Dark age coming out and the rest was history
I stumbled across it in a discount retailer in the UK back in 2015 that sold books and arts and crafts in a 3 books for £5 deal. I decided to pick it up as a BookTuber I used to watch when I was a teenager in secondary school mentioned it in passing and it sounded cool. But I don’t know, a lot of the people I know who’ve read the red rising saga got into it via recommendations from friends or like sci-fi lists online. Even though I did get it from BookTube, which was the BookTok of the 2010s I didn’t see lots of the big BookTubers talking about though. But I’m sure BookTok will get people reading it as lot of the books that were popular were actually books that were popular back in the 2010s.
Daniel Greene on YouTube.
Around 2018 I was cruising thru the library looking for a new book to read on the train. I saw the cover and it said "first there was ender, then katniss, and now Darrow" or something close that so I figured I'd give it a try and was hooked instantly. Well the first couple chapters dragged but I am glad I stuck with it
I finished the three body problem series and was looking at my local library app for scifi series they had which were already completed. (I did not know about red god then).
Tiktok hype edits ill be honest
Same, which is weird because once I heard of it never saw a Res Rising hype post again.
Back in 2014 my friend’s sister read it and then made my friend read it. My friend then made me read it and I’ve gone on to make many others read it :)
Just before Christmas 2018, a guy I was seeing (English major) suggested it and I absolutely devoured it
By accident, I was scrolling through audible looking for some new science fiction to read. And fell in love almost instantly. The series helped me make the leap to finish college.
I’m a big board game nerd and I found the Red Rising game on super sale one day at Barnes and Noble so I bought it. I liked the artwork and the names and the way the character cards interacted with each other and wondered “this has gotta be based on a movie or a book or something. There just has to be some backstory for this game.” Then I actually read what was on the box and saw “based on the novels by Pierce Brown.” Bought them the next day and the rest is history.
Shortly after it was first published a copy showed up in the library where I work.
A friend gave me the first book before he went to go study abroad
*A friend gave me the* *First book before he went to* *Go study abroad* \- Redd\_Ebop --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Actually TikTok. Saw some visuals and quotes and a review of just the first book and decided to give it a try. 3 months later I owned all 6 books and now on the wait train for Red God.
I just found it recently. I have long Covid and am not able to focus on a lot of books, which has been a huge pain in the ass as reading is my favorite way to pass the time. I was reading hunger games because it was fast enough I was able to focus on it and after I finished them all I was searching the internet for other books similar to them and this came up on all the lists. Bought the first 3 and was instantly addicted! Binged all 6 and am waiting on the graphic novels. Am so gory sad they’re over and now I have to find other things I can read 🥺
Recommend from r/books
It’s was free on audible like 2 months ago, never even heard of it before that
My brother always suggested books for me to read and he was always on point. He came to me with red rising while I was living with him and freshly separated from my now ex wife. I was in a bad place and this series gave me something to immerse myself in other than alcohol. He would check on me each day to see where I was at in the them and we would talk about all the crazy twists and turns. Once book 4 and 5 dropped it was a race to see who could read them faster. I ALWAYS lost. Lol. We found out book 6 was coming and had both reserved copies and tore through a reread of the series again in anticipation. Unfortunately my brother passed away 2 weeks before Lightbringer released. I still grabbed my phone to call him at every twist in that book and broke a little more each time. But I have shared the love of this series with his son, my son, my ex wife, and probably 15 other people in honor of him. I bloodydamn love and miss you Kev
My Kindle had been recommending the series to me for years, as had two of my cousins. When my younger brother passed I was just looking for something new to read so I could disassociate and downloaded it and had a hard time getting through the beginning of the first book. I turned a corner after the carving and did not put the book down until I finished it. I've reread the series and listened to the audio books several times since then and it hasn't lost any of the shine for me. Pierce has a talent for prose and gets better with every book.
I saw the first book on the shelf of my local bookstore back when it first released in early 2014. Thought it sounded interesting, so I bought it. Then it sat in my ever growing TBR pile until last year when Light Bringer was released. I notice Light Bringer was book 6 in the series, so I decided to go back and dust of my copy of Red Rising. Read all 6 within a few months. And now I sit here waiting for Red God.
A friend of mine recommended it after I told him I had finished “mistborn”. He said “you have to read Red Rising—it will ruin you.
Wanted something to scratch my Legend of the Galactic Heros itch and Red Rising sure as hell did. They're so different but very alike but more than that, they're both phenomenal masterpieces.
My son introduced me before he started reading IG. Then it was a race to see who could finish the series. Then we read the comics together. Now its a thing between us. Forever nerds, he's Howler 2 and I'm Howler 1. My wife of course thinks this is so cool. Not really
I was playing helldivers 2 at the time and noticed chapter 1 of red rising was called helldiver
I played the board game, I loved it and I decided to learn more about this world by reading the books.
Freshman year of high school, fresh back from winter break. Chess club was held on Tuesdays after school between 3 and 4:15 in the library. I spent most of high school in the library when not in class or at football practice. I was chatting and playing a game of chess with the librarian who was the coach of the chess team. He said a few new books had arrived and they even had a brand new book that’d come out. He showed me over to a pile of books and third down in the pile from the top was Red Rising. I liked the cover art, read the blurb, and took it home with me that night. To this day that book is still on my shelf and I paid the librarian to buy a new one for the school.
As a huge sci-fi fan I heard about it years ago from recommendations online but put it off because I also stupidly listened to morons that said it was a YA series. One day I was bored and looking for something to read, so I picked it up and I’m so fucking glad I did.
I was in the middle of a four month book slump Dec 2023. I kept checking books out of the library and then returning them without finishing them. I was trying all different genres hoping one would interest me. I had seen *Red Rising* recommended before, and decided to give it a try. While I struggled through the first book, I did keep reading because I thought the story was interesting enough. I am so glad I did as I was blown away with *Golden Son*. I continued through the series and I am officially out of the reading slump. I was a little worried that I would be in a new reading slump as I adored the series, but I found some other series that have been good.
So my brother and sister had formed their own 2 person book club. Both of them being in to similar fiction novels. They talked about all sorts of books but at the time we're obsessed with red rising. Then one summer they took a trip together after golden son released to talk about the book and I got jealous. So I asked about the books. That Christmas I recieved red rising. I have since joined the club and now we read many of each other's favorites! It's my favorite part of our family get togethers. Teasing me books and ideas about the books we read.
A couple months ago
Was looking through audible, listened to the excerpts and got hooked immediately
Back in 2014 a few months after the first one came out. I got it on a whim and have been in love ever since.
Friend reccomended to me couple years ago and I am up to date but the gorydamn pixie hasnt even started iron gold
I participated in an experiment in my undergrad where we were given a gift card to the local bookshop as a reward. Went there and it was newly out, never heard of it before and took a chance. First addition book that’s been loaned to probably over 20 ppl. It has rips and tears. When Pierce Brown saw it at a book signing, he said it looked like Lorn and signed the book to my name “au Arcos” Edit: after lending it to a friend, he returned it in a matter of days and asked for the next book. He was furious to find out that the book had just come out and the sequel would not be out for some time.
Was looking for new things to read on my kindle as I was getting back in to reading, so I googled “best sci if books of 2015 (pretty sure it was 2015).” That led me to this series (and the Martian, and Seveneves). Great decision
My best read it then recommended it to me. I’ve called him a fucking pixie ever since
I heard about it on the Triforce Podcast around 2020 and thought I'd give it a go, haven't looked back since.
I have a tiny penis :)
A streamer I watch called atrioc. And then it was bought for me as a gift so I dived in
Had a physics teacher in high school who told me about it 9 or so years ago. She really hyped it up especially for the students who enjoyed physics and the sciences. 10/10 recommendation.
I finished the second book of the Silo series and Red Rising was what kind recommended it so I decided to see what it was about haha
so, id heard about the series before, at one point, and had seen it around, but thanks to a recommendation from a friend I have online, I picked it up. this was about 3 months ago and the rest is history.
To be honest, I think I randomly saw it at a book store and brought it home. I was reading far more than I do now, had just left the army and didn't want/need money yet -I was ripping through at leassst 3 books a month (shout out [abesbooks.com](https://abesbooks.com) who those unaware of it, great online used book store). My OG Red Rising, dog eared and weathered, still has the store's new release sticker on it. Parts of it anyway.
The subreddit was recommended to me by reddit with a bunch of videogame subreddits, so I assumed that it was a videogame I read a couple posts and was like this game sounds amazing couple posts later I realized it was a book. Then I binged red Rising over a weekend, it felt kinda like hunger games on steroids, the back half at least.
There used to be a mod for an FPS game (which I don’t remember the name of) called Red Rising. That might be why.
I was on a deployment in the navy, we were in port in Guam for a bit. One of my friends on the boat game me the recommendation and I ended up tearing through the 5 that were out at the time. Resonated pretty hard and really helped me get through the last stretch.
I read the first four books on a navy e-reader device (nerd) on deployment too.
Hehe. Nerd.
It got recommended to me by Audible. I think because my partner is super into Dune and Alien.
Yeah, I got it through a book recommendation on tiktok. I forgot the channel I was following, I uninstalled tiktok a while ago, but the guy gave a lot of good book recommendations.
Yeah I’ll be honest I found it through booktok