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So I ve started book 3 and got to the point where they interrupt the meeting between the Silver and Mustang. Firefight, people dead, arguing with Sevro. But I’ve kind of paused after blitzing the first two books as a lot of things happened or were revealed that have really cemented that I don’t like Darro.

- I think he’s a hypocrite. He wants revenge over Eo but believes nobody else has any right to object to all the people he has killed directly or indirectly. We’re told a little before this that Red death squads are going around murdering people and nukes being dropped on cities.

- He’s got no plan. He has had two whole books and yet he has not given any thought at all to what exactly he’s going to do once the society is gone. He has made no effort to canvas peoples opinions much less sway them in any way. This isn’t a character flaw or just gray it’s unforgivable after two entire books. He has not been that pressed for time and busy.

- He sadistically enjoys melting a gold woman with a plasma gun and then remonstrates Sevro for being too violent and aggressive. It’s not the first time he enjoys doing this either but this was particularly gratuitous. This isn’t a nuanced character flaw and in this instance the author uses it as a moment of catharsis. It was just distasteful.

- It’s incongruous that he claims Gold should not rule by becoming a Golden superman who can lead the lesser castes into a brighter future on the back of his military might. His victories are very much due to him physically overpowering his opponents and being better at them in war. I don’t take it seriously that he hit the gym and then just got straight back into the fight. I don’t take the characters inner monologue at his word when he pretends to be humble.

- Tears others down to make him look good. I don’t like how book 3 begins with the author tearing down Sevro and Mustang who made a mess of things in the absence of Darro. Essentially blaming them for all the defeats and problems.I get that he’s trying to set the stakes and get us ramped up for coming back from the jackal but that felt unnecessary. Why tear two other characters to make Darro look indispensable? It felt disrespectful particularly with Mustang who hasn’t really done much of anything for two books beyond Darro tell her who he is.

- Compares poorly. I very much prefer Stormlight Archive or Song of Ice and Fire where you have alternating POV. Making Darro the only character of relevance and with any agency really rubs me the wrong way when he just isn’t very likeable. He’s an arrogant idiot full of hubris and hasn’t died because they juiced him up. Like if the author is going to address all this he is playing the long game. Daenerys gets torn to shreds in a monologue in book 1. Darros mother kind of does knock him a bit but really everybody just worships the ground he walks on.

But yeah, it’s a problem because Darro is the story and I am really disliking him going into book 3. It’s a shame because I do like the world and the plot is quite gripping and fast paced. Like he compares very poorly to Kaladin from the Stormlight Archive. I’d say they’re pretty similar in being wronged and wanting revenge on the Nobles. But I felt much more empathy for Kaladin. It’s a shame because I read Stormlight on the same recommendation as well but I am really finding it tough to like Darro. I am going to take a pause for a few days and come back to it but really knocked wind out of my sails.

I think you just need to move on and read something else. Not every book needs finishing, and there are plenty of other top notch fantasy books out there. Would you like some suggestions?

Check the What Are You Reading thread for ideas. Also, you might get more responses in that thread.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I think you just need to move on and read something else. Not every book needs finishing, and there are plenty of other top notch fantasy books out there. Would you like some suggestions?

Check the What Are You Reading thread for ideas. Also, you might get more responses in that thread.

Yeah, I mean I won’t be getting another audible credit for a while. The dramatised version of this series is really good.

I’d like to read a story that has a powerful woman as the lead character. 40K and AOS books tend to be bad even if they do have that archetype. ? Think Daenerys esque but not really fussed about if they’re a warrior, ruler, mage, as long as it’s engaging and that’s the broad strokes of it. No rogues or assassins. They’re boring.

I wasn’t exactly suggested the Red Rising book because of that. But my mate did mention “oh you’ll really like Mustang. Space Daenerys.” Which, two books in I am not really seeing. It’s very much been the Darro and Sevro show. I am pretty sure Min got more dialogue in Wheel of Times first two books.

If you want WH40, Rites of Passage is a novel about an old Lady Navigator vying for control of her House after having her husband assassinated to protect the House from the Inquisition due to his trafficking in Xenos artifacts. She is strong in mind and willpower, but physically feeble. It’s a good read.


I don’t know if you’ve heard of Banewreaker, but it might fit what you’re looking for. It is also a bit of a satire on LOTR in the way it frames its world-building and conflict.

I put your quote in a spoiler but did want to respond to it as I'm on my second read to get back to the newest book which I apparently missed the release of.

Darrow is 100% flawed and the author actual uses the people around him to show how truly flawed he is. That said he's a child soldier emotionally. He should be messed up. He's found a way to win and that's generally the only way that's consistently worked for him and he KNOWS it'll work. He has a better read on the structure of the society than anyone from that society. But the entire structure of that society is insane. It's part of the appeal for me in the series is the intracies and depth the author has actually put into the series.

I'm also not sure when but they do diverge in perspectives I think after the first 3 books. This includes current characters and some newer ones but it's less Darro's story than THE story at that point.

Also I don't love the Kaladin/Darrow comparison and would never have recommended this series based on that unless it was something like "Wanna read if Kaladin had really really had a fethed up life?".

Kaladin is a young man that was raised by a loving family who was pushed around and it resulted in his brother being killed. The difference was Kaladins family was actually upper middle class by the local standards and he only really suffered a year or two of "trials" before the brother thing. He was betrayed a second time by the ruling class by them deviating from the way they are supposed to act and tossed aside. Dude has some pretty intense depression and mental health issues to the point where it seriously limits his growth and I'm hoping to god we're done with mostly that aspect of his character as way to many words have been used on it already. But his suffering and rage are drops in an ocean compared to Darrow.

Darrow was raised a slave on a substinance level of life. He saw his dad hanged at a young age for "dancing". His pregnant wife was taken from him after a series of issues and he was forced to pull her feet to shorten the time she was going to take to strangle to death (bear in mind I think he's 16? when this is happening). He's then killed for simply burying his wife. It goes from there but doesn't get LESS messed up for the remainder of his childhood;

Kaladin and Darrow on a surface level could be compared I guess but they are so completely different it's not even close.

All that said I'd suggest if you want the multi perspective and like the actual world to just read a synopsis of 3 and then jump to 4. I'm pretty sure that's where the multi-perspective kicks in.

@Hulksmash

Mortarion had a hard life as well.

I heard that about book 4 with multiple POV as it’s very odd to only have one POV so I had asked around about that.

Kaladin has things pretty bad like. The only difference is that Darro doesn’t have a cute spirit guardian to be his moral compass. Crucially, we also see his struggles for a significant portion of the series where he’s a slave in a Warzone in which they’re used as arrow fodder. With Darro we get, in the audiobook, it felt like very little time before his time as a slave and really his time as a Red is over. From that point he becomes Golden Superman who handily beats everybody. He comes to power far too early in the story and Kaladins story is much better for the telling. It’s a lot easier to understand why he hates the Lighteyes and struggles to trust Dalinar. It is vastly more impactful then when he decides to help them in the final battle and you see the fulfilment of his potential.

Darro is a jock who gets juiced by comparison. He isn’t truly vulnerable and essentially becomes a superhero once he becomes a Gold. The vulnerability part of his story is rushed through and not given enough time and it feels like a fast food tragedy.

Liking him is almost entirely predicated upon buying into the power/revenge fantasy element. Which from what my friends said was the main selling point for them. Also, his hatred isn’t of the “system”, “the state”, “the party” or “the man” because the Society is equated in the story with the Golds as a species. So when he says I am going to destroy their Society it’s essentially genocidal language. This makes the characters complete absence of any forward thinking or consideration just plain unforgivable. Just very vague references to Eo’s dream which he gives no active thought to what that entails. Fine when it’s talk but by book 3 it ain’t talk. It’s a serious matter I after I two books I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the character to have less vague and undefined notions of this. Nobody is that short sighted and the author has left it very late to get more specific.

Only time I really cared about Darro was when Sevro accepts him as a Red. It’s like those Horus Heresy characters where you read them, you follow their story well enough but you don’t really care about them. By start of book 3 he’s basically just a Space Marine punching bag where I didn't take his setbacks or pain seriously. He was reduced to a mechanism of the plot.

The Mustang reveal I genuinely wanted to backhand him for how stupid he was. Like when Odin banishes Thor for being unworthy level. Really undermined it and as stated before we don’t really get much of Mustang prior to this and Darro didn’t deign to talk to her himself about this stuff. Like he had plenty of time to drop “you know what is this reform stuff, I am curious?” “you heard how bad them Reds have it” “what would you do if you could?” This is basic bare bones stuff and it’s not forgivable he did not gage this or give it any thought prior to deciding to show her a video of his carving and leave her outside to process all this.

Plus this followed on from another few scenes that really annoyed me about Darro. He starts to become very dismissive of his memory of Eo. Oh she was just some plain Red girl who was stupid and silly. Why have I let my imagination get carried away. He goes to her grave and thinks that. It’s completely tone deaf. If the writer was trying to convey that he’s moving on and coming to terms with Eos death then it was terribly done. Trashing your dead wife’s memory was a really horrible thing to do.

"Liking him is almost entirely predicated upon buying into the power/revenge fantasy element."

This shuts down any real discussion. Personally I feel like you missed a lot of the subtext and depth of the series based on your last comment. I don't actually like Darrow as a person. I do enjoy him as a character because of how the series is written and as the center of gravity in which the story is told.

As a heads up yes, Darrow does start with a KILL THEM ALL attitude toward the Golds. It's part of his growth once he realizes Golds aren't all one people and class.

Also bear in mind that the Darrow, especially in the first 2 books, is VERY much a weapon. He's deliberately kept in the dark. He was never supposed to be the "leader". He was being groomed as the general/admiral but a tool under another actual leader. A big part of book 3 is him coming to terms with the change and accepting himself as the nucleus of change. Seeing the good and the bad of the gold society and listening to others who have thought about the after.

 Hulksmash wrote:
"Liking him is almost entirely predicated upon buying into the power/revenge fantasy element."

This shuts down any real discussion. Personally I feel like you missed a lot of the subtext and depth of the series based on your last comment. I don't actually like Darrow as a person. I do enjoy him as a character because of how the series is written and as the center of gravity in which the story is told.

As a heads up yes, Darrow does start with a KILL THEM ALL attitude toward the Golds. It's part of his growth once he realizes Golds aren't all one people and class.

Also bear in mind that the Darrow, especially in the first 2 books, is VERY much a weapon. He's deliberately kept in the dark. He was never supposed to be the "leader". He was being groomed as the general/admiral but a tool under another actual leader. A big part of book 3 is him coming to terms with the change and accepting himself as the nucleus of change. Seeing the good and the bad of the gold society and listening to others who have thought about the after.

That is what my friends said they liked about Darro consistently. He’s a wronged man out for revenge. You’re saying him calling an Iron Rain isn’t set up by the author as a badass moment? Why else make him a killing machine who talks down to entitled golden boys and girls? Yes, I think when he plasmas that woman to death and enjoys it that is framed as a moment of catharisis for the character as he comes back from being wronged by the Jackal. It is wrote that way. We are not invited to judge him harshly for this. It’s just in bad taste. When a Custodian does that to a female Chaos cultist I do a double take but that’s trying to be grimdark whereas this was author going “yeah look at Darro get back into the saddle and slag this haughty bitch” That’s all I inferred from that.

There’s vague references and thoughts about how he thinks Mustang is a planner with dreams for the future and how “if she can’t change then none of the Golds can change”. But after two books that is incredibly vague and it’s kind of arrogant that he believes that’s his call. For all I know this is another Robespierre, not George Washington. That may be intentional ambivalence to create narrative tension but it’s come across as false and with him as an idiot.

He may be a soldier but he does dwell on the idea of Eo’s dream and how he wants to be the one to tear down and break their society. Before the Gala for example. By book 2 he is already in the driving seat and so these aren’t the rantings of some low level grunt. I look at that character and think “ah he’s like Paul Atreides” so I am meant to view ominous sweeping statements with seriousness. Which means when he’s ominously weighing up the fate of an entire people I see guilotine and camps. He certainly hasn’t been all “well this democracy thing sounds great.” The fact he does not take the time to talk to Mustang and he does not need to reveal his identity to do this, comes across as moronic on his part. Nobody is that short sighted. His views have like barely changed beyond burning the whole house down. Any sudden shift on these issues would be entirely left field and they would not wash away a very bad taste.

His view on the Golds only seriously changed in book 3 when he realised the Reds were okay working with Sevro. Where basically the decision has been made for him because they all ended up on the right side anyway with Sevro and the Howlers. Like I’ll give an example. When Sevro reveals he knows, Darro is pretty much getting ready to kill him until he realises they are on the same side. So the decision is made for him. He then doesn’t do what a normal person would do and think “wow, not all Golds are evil. This changes XYZ. I bet you Sevro could be this or that in the new world and it will great.” No, he just rolls with it and continues to be an ass to all the other Golds and not have that be a catalyst to start feeling out if he can start rolling that out with his companions. He just tends to roll with events rather than proactively thinking. With Mustang he should have spent some time to canvass her opinions and world views. Indicate that he understands the distinction between good and bad golds and how he wants world to be. Not throw the kitchen sink at the end of the story.

Like you’ve heavily implied he has a more serious conversation Mustang about the future stuff in book 3. It is far too late to be subtly feeling out each others world views. That is book 1 stuff. I suspect that would be another kitchen sink moment to get the story moving onto the next best. So far he has essentially just observed her actions and overheard rumours about her. Up until he directly reveals everything, essentially on WhatsApp, he made no effort. He’s a spy. Why is he not trying to reconcile his revolution to the woman he loves? It’s pretty obvious where he would go and I do not take it seriously that we are on book 3 and having that conversation.

Yeah, probably time to move on from the series

For other books the first 3 mistborn, warbreaker, in Fury born, and I'm sure there are more out there.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Yeah, probably time to move on from the series

For other books the first 3 mistborn, warbreaker, in Fury born, and I'm sure there are more out there.

Do they have idiot characters who are told about democracy in the opening chapter and forget about it for 3 books until another underdeveloped character reminds them about it? Like I am sorry but Darro is a fething idiot if he has killed millions of people without having given even the most basic thought to what he’s fighting for. Most characters would be punished for that level of ignorance. I think that is false drama to lend weight to Mustang and Darro teaming up.

No need to be an a-hole. We obviously dont agree on Darrow but i was addressing your request for other books. And Well two of those are written by Sanderson. The other is written by David Weber who might or might not be one of the better sci-fi writers for a series currently alive. Also try the Pillars of Reality by Jack Campbell if you want a good female lead.

So Darrows just started the Rising. Ummm, not sure how all the Golds aren’t dead.

We get scenes implying and outright showing the order to not kill civilians is ignored. Makes sense and it’s what would happen if you tried to do that and people reacted that way. It’s stated that all the low colours across the Solar System rise up, not just on Phobos. So, all the High Colours should have just been killed right then and there unless they were in armour or on a ship. Like my friends have mentioned things about the later books that make utterly no sense with this being an event. There should be almost no Golds left at this point. Currently the story seems to be walking back and saying “yeah, if the army shows up we’re dead.” Which is a bit difficult to take seriously when they kill every Gold they encounter easily.

I am not sure why Mustang was making a big deal about genocide in a previous book but now she’s all “meh. Got to break a few eggs.” Like there shouldn’t be much of a war at this point. Like sure some might have got to their boats but most aren’t going to have had time to do that. It felt like the author was mentioning refugee ships over and over to stress that most of them got away and they aren’t all dead. Which doesn’t really add up given that you’ve got pinks and servants killing people in houses. It’s pretty difficult to orchestrate an escape plan at that point.

I did appreciate Mustang calling Darrow an idiot. Like this is a hundred times worse than what he did before and still got no plan.