Review: Iron Gold

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Notes while in progress. I have very real concerns about whether or not I am supposed to dislike a character - previously a hero - quite so bloody much. New older Darrow is an arsehole. He overrides the democratic government that he fought to create when he decides that he Just Knows Better*. Effectively becoming the autocratic dictator that he fought so hard to overthrow. And then he decides to ditch his wife and son - For Their Own Safety, which is a generic trope I absolutely _hate_ in this genre - without even talking to them. And instead he plans a braindead-ludicrous suicidal assassination run on Yon Skull-Encrusted Vader Clone. And there are _just_ enough warning notes in this to make me think that eventually Darrow _might_ be going to realize that he's being a jerk, which would overall make it better but which wont make reading this far any less painful.

*Current cultural context of the US president declaring war by ignoring Congress and assassinating a leader of a sovereign foreign nation _might_ not be doing this book any favours. Just sayin.

Notes from the end: The book is still well-crafted and exciting, but our main character Darrow has simultaneously gotten stupid and unsympathetic, so this really devolved into war porn in my book. By the end it feels like the _author_ knows it, as some of Darrow's closest companions abandon him, but Darrow himself is still well short of any kind of revelation. Saving grace are the bits set in the Jovian moons, which give us a glimpse of the culture of the people living out there.

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Review: Iron Gold

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Notes while in progress. I have very real concerns about whether or not I am supposed to dislike a character - previously a hero - quite so bloody much. New older Darrow is an arsehole. He overrides the democratic government that he fought to create when he decides that he Just Knows Better*. Effectively becoming the autocratic dictator that he fought so hard to overthrow. And then he decides to ditch his wife and son - For Their Own Safety, which is a generic trope I absolutely _hate_ in this genre - without even talking to them. And instead he plans a braindead-ludicrous suicidal assassination run on Yon Skull-Encrusted Vader Clone. And there are _just_ enough warning notes in this to make me think that eventually Darrow _might_ be going to realize that he's being a jerk, which would overall make it better but which wont make reading this far any less painful.

*Current cultural context of the US president declaring war by ignoring Congress and assassinating a leader of a sovereign foreign nation _might_ not be doing this book any favours. Just sayin.

View all my reviews