re: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Recommendation & Discussion Thread

Finished Red Rising and I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed. I hear that this is the worst of the series but it was so hyped up I was still expecting a little better.

I realize a new author is going to have flaws and I'm sure he gets better, but it was kind of hard to read at times and he had cliche lines throughout. Also quite a bit of plat armor going on there for Darrow. He's not every good at writing fight scenes as well.

Going to keep going on with the series though since pretty much everyone says it gets much better. The framework for a good story is there.

A few minor spoilers/complaints....




***spoilers***

Darrow is too perfect. I mean the guy can do no wrong. He's just perfect at everything and everything comes waaaay too easy for him. I mean a horse could be riding at him full speed and he just throws a punch and the horse falls and he's out. Three guys come at him, three punches and their out.. He's left without a scratch throughout the whole book.

Except for the dumbest part of the book. He needs to punish Tactus for attempted rape, so the way he gains everybody's respect/gets people to follow him is by... taking the lashes himself. Tactus attempts to rape someon, Darrow takes a beating for it, everyone is so impressed by it that now they all follow him without even being marked as slaves. Makes no sense. Was seriously rolling my eyes at that part. And when after a fight, he pats a few slaves on the back and drops a "they'll remember that pat on the back for the rest of their lives." Come on dude, get over yourself.

The Jackal was definitely disappointing. Half the book builds up to a showdown with the Jackal and all the repercussions that would come if he goes against him and all wo get is Darrow pinning him to a table with a knife and then him escaping only for Mustang to bring him back naked and tied up. Boom, it's over, he wins. Pretty big let down.






***end spoilers***

Don't want to sound like I hated it, I still liked it, but it was definitely had some parts that were pretty dumb and cheesy.