If you are anything like me—and let us pray that you are not—you’ve likely had more than your fill of the pre-teen dystopian sci-fi/fantasy genre that Hollywood has been determined to cram down our throats for the past five years.
Hunger Games. Divergent. The 5th Wave. Most of TNT’s primetime programming.
Even the best of these chick-led sagas—Jennifer Lawrence’s Hunger Games—wore out its welcome by halving the final installment (“Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2”) and quartering the actual drama in the films themselves. The “brain trust” behind the woeful Divergent franchise is doing the same thing with a vastly inferior product.
I’ve seen better ideas emanate from a Lincoln Chafee presidential campaign.
But fans of science fiction (over the age of 15), take heart! There is reading material—and soon, cinematic fare—to scratch the itch that ails your creative soul.
Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy is Hunger Games, but for grownups.
Brown, a young Pepperdine grad, released his first book, Red Rising, in 2014 and thanks to a compelling narrative and excellent word-of-mouth the second installment, Golden Son, landed in the Top Ten on the New York Times’ best-seller list in 2015. When the third and final chapter of the saga dropped less than two months ago, Morning Star debuted at number one.
Director Marc Forster (World War Z) is already attached to direct the first Red Rising film.
The premise of the vast world Brown created is this: 700 years from now, mankind has colonized the entire solar system and organized itself into an elaborate caste system. Society is led (and dominated) by Golds—a superhuman race of genetically engineered political rulers and fierce warriors who have constructed a society and culture mirroring that of Ancient Rome. The rest of the universe is filled with various castes known by different colors and who serve specific purposes; they cannot rise beyond their pre-determined position. At the bottom rung of the social ladder are the Reds (think: dirt-poor Irish immigrants circa 1900 who work in coal mines and die young). In between are Greys (military), Pinks (effeminate sex slaves), Whites (intelligentsia) and even Obsidians (Viking-like marauders that the Golds employ to scare the solar system into submission).
A young Red—Darrow of Lycos—is recruited by a terrorist organization known as the Sons of Aries for a very special mission. With the help of a visionary plastic surgeon, Darrow is genetically re-engineered to take on the body and form of a Gold. He is to infiltrate Gold’s society and military and position himself high enough in the universe’s pecking order that he can eventually lead a massive rebellion.
Themes of sacrifice, love, friendship, and the true meaning of freedom permeate Red Rising’s pages from beginning to end. Instead of asking his audience to believe that 14-year-old girls are going to successfully lead bloody revolts of oppressive regimes, Brown treats his readers with enough respect to give them war on more realistic terms. People die. Violence surrounds the characters. Dangers exist beyond choosing the wrong boyfriend.
But Red Rising is not merely some chauvinistic, needlessly ferocious version of Divergent. Women fight alongside men. They are respected. They are loved. They are protected and also protect those they care about.
While tackling other prickly social issues—war, race, and socio-economic tensions—Brown undeniably has a particular worldview he wants to communicate to his readers. But telling a good story is his priority; his ability to marry the stories and lessons of antiquity with dynamic characters in a futuristic, science-fiction setting is impressive.
The books are not flawless. Brown borrows liberally (and unmistakably) from other sweeping epics. The main characters end up having the same conversations over and over again. And the complete lack of any positive affirmation of religion or spirituality in the Red Rising universe renders the narrative largely devoid of the metaphysical motivations that give epics such as Lord of the Rings and (the original) Star Wars trilogy gravitas.
But in the end, Red Rising is something adult fans of dystopian science fiction have been longing for ever since Katniss Everdeen let fly her first arrow: A story that is about big ideas and epic confrontations rather than stifled tween lust.
The post Finally! A ‘Hunger Games’ for Grownups appeared first on Acculturated.