Iron Gold

3.5 Stars...Finished. Currently staring at the wall, deeply conflicted, and questioning my entire identity as a Pierce Brown apologist.

Look. Listen to me. Do NOT come for me in the comments.

If you check my past reviews, you know I am a certified, die-hard Red Rising STAN. I have preached the legacy of Darrow from the rooftops.

So believe me when I say it physically hurts my soul to type this… but Iron Gold just did not do it for me.

I went into this expecting the hyper-focused, adrenaline-fueled, single-POV breakneck pace of the original trilogy. What I got was… a massive, sprawling, multi-POV space opera that felt like it was trying to wear a coat three sizes too big.

I respect the ambition, I really do! Expanding the world post-revolution makes total narrative sense. But the execution and the flow? Widely different. The seamless, infectious momentum of the first three books was replaced by a narrative structure that felt jarring. Just as I’d get a tiny bit of momentum in one plotline...BAM...we jump across the galaxy to a completely different character’s misery.

It was too long. It was bloated. There is a terrifying amount of action packed into these pages, yet if you held a gun to my head, I could genuinely summarize the actual plot progression in about 10 bullet points.

Here’s my biggest heartbreak: I did not like the characters. Any of them.

The New Crew: I wanted to care, I swear I tried. Lyria’s chapters felt like a grueling exercise in misery, Ephraim took forever to click (though he has some snappy dialogue), and Lysander… well, my blood pressure spiked every time his name appeared at the top of a chapter.

The OG Legends: This was the worst part. Watching Darrow and the old crew act so impossibly, breathtakingly dumb was painful. I get that peace is harder than war, and I get that ten years of political grinding breaks people, but watching these master strategists make decision after decision that had me screaming "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" at an inanimate piece of paper was infuriating.

I was bored. I was annoyed. I had to violently push my way through the middle 300 pages just out of pure loyalty to the Howlers.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but this didn't fit the bill. It felt less like a victorious return to the Sol system and more like homework for the rest of the new era.

I’m giving it 3.5 stars strictly out of respect for Pierce’s prose, the insane worldbuilding effort, and my delusional hope that this is all just massive setup for a legendary payoff in Dark Age.

Will I read the next one? Omnis vir lupus, unfortunately yes. I'm too deep in the trench to quit now. But my heart is officially bruised. 💔