In Golden sun Darrow quotes Lorn many times before his fight with Cassius, something he never did in "Red Rising". I think this was intended as foreshadowing that he trained with Lorn, he mentioned how Lorn did not take on new students and quoted him in many different chapters. People who think that Darrow fighting Cassius is a Mary Sue moment are just wrong.
To add to this the second book really had me wishing that Darrow had picked lorn in the beginning leading up to that moment , I thought he was cool and seemed wise and then when it was revealed he was getting trained by him I didn’t see it as oh here’s to save the character more , in the time you guys didn’t see me the reason I’ve been saying he is great is because I was being trained by him
Darrow cassisus fight was the best fight of the trilogy. It’s totally princess bride “I have only been using my left hand but I am actually right handed” plot twist but with power levels.
I do agree with the points made about how plans are laid out vs what readers are told. This was more of a glaring issue with the end of Morning Star for me, but truly it does not make sense with the perspective we have. We are made to feel an insane amount of anxiety & despair while Darrow, because he has a plan, does not feel that, but we don’t even know that, despite being in his head. Watching all these events unfold as if he didn’t expect it, when he actually did all along… It truly is like lying to your readers. It is effective in that it causes an emotional reaction, but I don’t wanna read just to feel negative emotions.
I can kinda understand the "too many betrayals" thing, I also had this thought at some point during reading this series. I mean, c'mon, how many people can change sides in one book before it becomes boring 😂 But too many plot twists... lol, no. I love "Golden Son", best book in the original trilogy :D
I always read this series as a form of montage. We get a very high level and fast paced view of long stretches of time told in very short cuts, interrupted occasionally by slower more conversational scenes. It's a lot different than some of the books I've read recently, but it isn't necessarily bad.
I agree that Brown’s writing (at least in RR and GS, that’s as far as I am) DOES skip a lot of information I’m looking for. For example: I’m told Roque and Darrow are besties… but I never actually see it. I was not ever convinced by their friendship. Im told certain people are extremely dangerous but I never actually see them do much. Im told a *lot* about the world but never actually see any of it. And most of the time, I’m not even told anything! For example, I had a hard time picturing the city on Mars, there were so little descriptions. Of course I came up with a cool city in my mind but I wish I was given more descriptions of what the hell is going on
I dnf the first book when it first came out. Had a lot going on at the time, it just didn't work out, like a relationship.. I think I'll give it another shot!
Darrows admiration of himself is more of a admiration of gold in general. If you suddenly get a bodybuilder body overnight, of course you are going to marvel over what your body can do, like, how could you not 🤷😂
Also agree that a majority of the characters are throw away side characters. Coming out of the first book Darrow, Cassius, Mustang and Sevro were the only characters I wasn’t considering throw always. Roque, Ragnar, and Jackal were definitely upgraded in this one tho
The gladiator in space comment made me chuckle. I think the problem with the first book is that it was essentially just medieval hunger games and so a lot of people read that and then were jarred when golden son was all sci-fi and took place mostly in space and other planets.
"Oh btw I trained with Lorn, surprise" felt very tell don't show, to me as I was reading it. Also the time jump skipping most of the Academy did result in telling us a lot of things about that time period, not showing us. I kinda get where review 2 was coming from 🤷♀️
You guys have got to read will of the many. The plot is similar to red rising but in a completely different and intriguing world and is honesty better in my opinion. Also it’s written by James Islington who wrote the Licanus trilogy which you guys love.
I got the audiobook for the trilogy but just couldn't get into it. Not because of the story, but the writing style. I just can't deal with books/povs in 1st person. I prefer the way wheel of time is written.
Im going to say something stupid. I read the first book a few years ago and don’t remember much. Is it crucial to read the first book if i want to read the second?
I think it makes sense in the first book. He's in an arena with children. Strong intelligent children, sure, but none of them had Darrow's life experiences or conviction or willingness to win. They fought for house pride while Darrow knew he was fighting for something more. It made him perceive and act differently, and ultimately led to the strategy that helped him create formidable and dedicated allies.
My only criticism of this book, that I LOVE, is the Cassius duel. The Lorn training reveal was not foreshadowed. At all. It was a deus ex machina that took me out of the story so badly that I genuinely thought I missed a chapter. I stopped reading trying to figure this out and went to Reddit and found out I was not the only one with this reaction and confusion. If you’re going to do a twist like that, for the love of god foreshadow it! If you still want to do the thing where you have no hints to Lorn at all then fine. Draw more attention to Darrow being weird about his free time. Mention that he doesn’t go out, or deny his friend’s requests, three times or something and now I’m wondering what Darrow is hiding. Saying Darrow doesn’t like plays one time is not sufficient. Just felt like an offhanded comment to reinforce his character of not indulging in Gold culture
People who review a book they skipped to the last chapter for . . . and give it a 1. I can never understand them. I mean, what do they expect: to be able to understand it without having read most of the book?
@@2ToRamble Just like Golden Son, Howling Dark is a HUGE departure and game changer for the series. I definitely recommend it, and as a reader of both, I actually prefer Sun Eater on the whole.
I liked golden son but the ending felt like it was purely for shock factor, i haven’t read morning start yet but i feel like i alr know that everything will be fine and darrow somehow gets out of the predicament hes in cos hes written so OP. It’s still extremely far from a 1 star tho id say 4.1 out of 5
Comment and correction. Fantasy swear words can be fun if they are actually part of the story and not just lazy writing. Too often you can tell that the author is just replacing modern English swears and I hate that. Pigs bollocks and bloody hogs swollups to that. Swearing is fine and fun, fantasy swearing should be just as fine and fun. Using it as a thin vial of self censorship is bullshit. No joke IRL if someone says "Dang it" or "frick" I will blow the fuck up. Either swear or do not but no bullshit. Sorry for the rant but now for the correction. I hate cursing. Despise it with every fiber of my being and don't like it IRL or in fantasy. IRL because although I don't believe in magic (ie I don't think curses are real) the act of cursing is the act of wishing ill/harm to befall another. While the act of wishing harm doesn't effect the real world the effect that wishing harm (especially prolonged and consistent thought patterns of wishing harm) warps the brain is bad. Even if the other person is the worst of the worst person wishing harm on them does nothing to them but does have an effect on your brain. Wishing them to stop being the worst of the worst, fine. Wishing that they would stop acting in harmful ways, fine. Doing things to counteract or prevent the harm they want to or try to do, fine. Wishing harm, not fine. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I think you guys are letting your love of the book cloud your judgement of people criticisms, for example I think you guys absolute are aware that there is such thing as too many plot twists or plot twists for the sake of there being plot twists. Now in saying that you can obviously have the opinion that the review is wrong and that's not what's happening in Golden Son.
Idk if yall will see this but i want to recommend book called the will of many its similar to red rising in some ways but considering the ending its going in complete different direction. Considering austins love for red rising im sure you would like this one as well. At start its bit slow tho u need to give it some time
Also, the plot armor argument is idiotic. Of course the MAIN character of a book has plot armor, the whole book series is about that person, of course he’s not going to die. But in regards to red rising, Darrow doesn’t have plot armor in any regard other than death. Everyone he loves can die, terrible things can happen, he doesn’t always win etc.
The more and more I read, the more I realize there are actually very very few actual 1 star books in the world. The people that leave 1 star reviews are one of three things 1. Bitter/jealous/just general haters. 2. Complete morons who didn’t actually read the book. 3. People that don’t understand that their subjective tastes are NOT justification for giving a one star review.
Why their subjective taste wouldn't be a justification to give a book one star? That is the whole point of it, no? THEY are rating the book. And you saying "The people that leave 1 star reviews are one of three things" is ridiciolous for me.
I cackled at Richard's "I blame the parents" quip! 🤣
In Golden sun Darrow quotes Lorn many times before his fight with Cassius, something he never did in "Red Rising". I think this was intended as foreshadowing that he trained with Lorn, he mentioned how Lorn did not take on new students and quoted him in many different chapters. People who think that Darrow fighting Cassius is a Mary Sue moment are just wrong.
Totally agree 🤌
To add to this the second book really had me wishing that Darrow had picked lorn in the beginning leading up to that moment , I thought he was cool and seemed wise and then when it was revealed he was getting trained by him I didn’t see it as oh here’s to save the character more , in the time you guys didn’t see me the reason I’ve been saying he is great is because I was being trained by him
Darrow cassisus fight was the best fight of the trilogy. It’s totally princess bride “I have only been using my left hand but I am actually right handed” plot twist but with power levels.
One thing I thought I would never say. "I 100% agree with Richard I want GLADIATOR everywhere!"
The sleep one was funny, because I literally read the first half of the book in the middle of the night because I couldn't stop reading.
I do agree with the points made about how plans are laid out vs what readers are told.
This was more of a glaring issue with the end of Morning Star for me, but truly it does not make sense with the perspective we have. We are made to feel an insane amount of anxiety & despair while Darrow, because he has a plan, does not feel that, but we don’t even know that, despite being in his head. Watching all these events unfold as if he didn’t expect it, when he actually did all along… It truly is like lying to your readers. It is effective in that it causes an emotional reaction, but I don’t wanna read just to feel negative emotions.
Even if I don’t agree with Austin’s rating of morning star, I agree with him heavily on golden son 😭😭
Giving it one star is admitting that you never read it.
Cassius’ arc is my favourite
“I am Cassius Au Bellona, my honor remains.”
I went from loving him to hating him to loving him and now I very sad
I can kinda understand the "too many betrayals" thing, I also had this thought at some point during reading this series. I mean, c'mon, how many people can change sides in one book before it becomes boring 😂 But too many plot twists... lol, no. I love "Golden Son", best book in the original trilogy :D
Whats your favorite book in the whole series?
I always read this series as a form of montage. We get a very high level and fast paced view of long stretches of time told in very short cuts, interrupted occasionally by slower more conversational scenes. It's a lot different than some of the books I've read recently, but it isn't necessarily bad.
I agree that Brown’s writing (at least in RR and GS, that’s as far as I am) DOES skip a lot of information I’m looking for. For example: I’m told Roque and Darrow are besties… but I never actually see it. I was not ever convinced by their friendship.
Im told certain people are extremely dangerous but I never actually see them do much. Im told a *lot* about the world but never actually see any of it. And most of the time, I’m not even told anything! For example, I had a hard time picturing the city on Mars, there were so little descriptions. Of course I came up with a cool city in my mind but I wish I was given more descriptions of what the hell is going on
I dnf the first book when it first came out. Had a lot going on at the time, it just didn't work out, like a relationship.. I think I'll give it another shot!
Yes! One more try 😁
Darrows admiration of himself is more of a admiration of gold in general. If you suddenly get a bodybuilder body overnight, of course you are going to marvel over what your body can do, like, how could you not 🤷😂
Also agree that a majority of the characters are throw away side characters. Coming out of the first book Darrow, Cassius, Mustang and Sevro were the only characters I wasn’t considering throw always. Roque, Ragnar, and Jackal were definitely upgraded in this one tho
Watching you guys giggle and make fun of each other makes my Friday. Thanks for making this great podcast!!
Waiting for the "Reading 5 Star Reviews For Iron Gold" 🤭
😁😁 fair play lolol
The enemy to worse enemy trope is literally jojos bizarre adventures
The gladiator in space comment made me chuckle. I think the problem with the first book is that it was essentially just medieval hunger games and so a lot of people read that and then were jarred when golden son was all sci-fi and took place mostly in space and other planets.
I remember in the red rising 1 star review there was one that really pissed you off in the golden son review what was it?
The first one 🫡
The parents are definitely to blame. 🤣🤣🤣
Ik this is old, but still, lorne was mentioned in the first book amd it was known since the first book that he doesnt take students
He spiitin with that pun analogy
I’m pretty sure there’s absolutely no swearing in RR
"with a BLOODY DAMN' kiss"
"Oh btw I trained with Lorn, surprise" felt very tell don't show, to me as I was reading it. Also the time jump skipping most of the Academy did result in telling us a lot of things about that time period, not showing us. I kinda get where review 2 was coming from 🤷♀️
Atalantia and Atlas wrote these
Spiderverse has a great antagonist to enemy arc
"I blame the parents!" 🤣🤣🤣
You guys have got to read will of the many. The plot is similar to red rising but in a completely different and intriguing world and is honesty better in my opinion. Also it’s written by James Islington who wrote the Licanus trilogy which you guys love.
Thank you for the rec! It’s definitely on our list 🫡
What was the mud scene lol i cant remember
Her opinion seems obsolete in a sense when Red Rising had a fair amount of violence. I am yet to read Golden Son but I will be picking it up soon.
2:50 finding out your child is gay😂
I got the audiobook for the trilogy but just couldn't get into it. Not because of the story, but the writing style. I just can't deal with books/povs in 1st person. I prefer the way wheel of time is written.
hey guys can you please make a video, whenever you have time on how to read fast or increase reading speed...please
Good idea! We’ll write this down and see if we can run with it
@@2ToRamble thanks you guys...btw. love you Richard...
I got toward the end of the book and got impatient and read the last chapter and hated myself for it!!😂😂😂
Nooooo 😭😂
Im going to say something stupid. I read the first book a few years ago and don’t remember much. Is it crucial to read the first book if i want to read the second?
Yes - definitely read the first!
I considered Darrow and Mary Sue as well. But done tastefully.
I think it makes sense in the first book. He's in an arena with children. Strong intelligent children, sure, but none of them had Darrow's life experiences or conviction or willingness to win. They fought for house pride while Darrow knew he was fighting for something more. It made him perceive and act differently, and ultimately led to the strategy that helped him create formidable and dedicated allies.
I think that joke was going to Austin's prison cell
My only criticism of this book, that I LOVE, is the Cassius duel. The Lorn training reveal was not foreshadowed. At all. It was a deus ex machina that took me out of the story so badly that I genuinely thought I missed a chapter. I stopped reading trying to figure this out and went to Reddit and found out I was not the only one with this reaction and confusion. If you’re going to do a twist like that, for the love of god foreshadow it! If you still want to do the thing where you have no hints to Lorn at all then fine. Draw more attention to Darrow being weird about his free time. Mention that he doesn’t go out, or deny his friend’s requests, three times or something and now I’m wondering what Darrow is hiding. Saying Darrow doesn’t like plays one time is not sufficient. Just felt like an offhanded comment to reinforce his character of not indulging in Gold culture
24:46 Darrow and Cassius
Is that a Buffalo Bills hat…. Oh no
#ravensflock
Also this channel got me into Red Rising lol
👊👊
Bloodydamm these are crazy takes
The fact that this video has the ability to exist means there are far to many people with terrible taste
Change the title to "Reading delusional 1 star reviews for the greatest Modern Scifi book ever"
There ya go 😂
People who review a book they skipped to the last chapter for . . . and give it a 1. I can never understand them. I mean, what do they expect: to be able to understand it without having read most of the book?
Have you guys read Sun Eater?
We both read book 1, and I (austin) have yet to continue
@@2ToRamble Just like Golden Son, Howling Dark is a HUGE departure and game changer for the series. I definitely recommend it, and as a reader of both, I actually prefer Sun Eater on the whole.
I liked golden son but the ending felt like it was purely for shock factor, i haven’t read morning start yet but i feel like i alr know that everything will be fine and darrow somehow gets out of the predicament hes in cos hes written so OP. It’s still extremely far from a 1 star tho id say 4.1 out of 5
Comment and correction. Fantasy swear words can be fun if they are actually part of the story and not just lazy writing. Too often you can tell that the author is just replacing modern English swears and I hate that. Pigs bollocks and bloody hogs swollups to that. Swearing is fine and fun, fantasy swearing should be just as fine and fun. Using it as a thin vial of self censorship is bullshit. No joke IRL if someone says "Dang it" or "frick" I will blow the fuck up. Either swear or do not but no bullshit.
Sorry for the rant but now for the correction. I hate cursing. Despise it with every fiber of my being and don't like it IRL or in fantasy. IRL because although I don't believe in magic (ie I don't think curses are real) the act of cursing is the act of wishing ill/harm to befall another. While the act of wishing harm doesn't effect the real world the effect that wishing harm (especially prolonged and consistent thought patterns of wishing harm) warps the brain is bad. Even if the other person is the worst of the worst person wishing harm on them does nothing to them but does have an effect on your brain. Wishing them to stop being the worst of the worst, fine. Wishing that they would stop acting in harmful ways, fine. Doing things to counteract or prevent the harm they want to or try to do, fine. Wishing harm, not fine. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face.
This has got to be the strangest take I’ve ever heard.
@@justinjosie5417 why is it strange?
I do dislike the time skips just give me another book 😭😭
I think you guys are letting your love of the book cloud your judgement of people criticisms, for example I think you guys absolute are aware that there is such thing as too many plot twists or plot twists for the sake of there being plot twists. Now in saying that you can obviously have the opinion that the review is wrong and that's not what's happening in Golden Son.
We need the Dark Age review!!
Coming up!!
Idk if yall will see this but i want to recommend book called the will of many its similar to red rising in some ways but considering the ending its going in complete different direction. Considering austins love for red rising im sure you would like this one as well. At start its bit slow tho u need to give it some time
I rly wanna tell u main point of the story so u would be more interested but it would ruin the ending lmao
This is absolutely on our radar! Appreciate it very much - we’re already convinced on reading it 🤝
9:54 📙✈🥸💀
Two years between? I’m seeing like a possible let down going into book2.
were all these reviews written by golds who lost their wealth by the rising?
Lolol
The bleep was to cover up "Lysander fan" 🤢
😆
Also, the plot armor argument is idiotic. Of course the MAIN character of a book has plot armor, the whole book series is about that person, of course he’s not going to die. But in regards to red rising, Darrow doesn’t have plot armor in any regard other than death. Everyone he loves can die, terrible things can happen, he doesn’t always win etc.
Dank Farrik😂
Are you guys both Bills fans?
I (austin) follow the bills - Rich is a fan by association lol
Are you guys Bills fans!?!?
Go Bills!
Hyperion? You’re on shaky grounds. I’m also beginning to get burned by book tube.
Go bills
Why you hate Hyperion? lol
We’re going to have to make an episode on it for sure lol
Good thing you bleeped out the joke. Extremely offensive
😂
The more and more I read, the more I realize there are actually very very few actual 1 star books in the world. The people that leave 1 star reviews are one of three things 1. Bitter/jealous/just general haters. 2. Complete morons who didn’t actually read the book. 3. People that don’t understand that their subjective tastes are NOT justification for giving a one star review.
Don’t think I’ve read a one star book ever. Words for me is like C or D
Why their subjective taste wouldn't be a justification to give a book one star? That is the whole point of it, no? THEY are rating the book. And you saying "The people that leave 1 star reviews are one of three things" is ridiciolous for me.
@@szfo6090 honestly no book that is good enough to be published can possibly be a 1 star. These people have incoherent views
Lol
Have you guys read Malazan? If you didn't, you don't know what is epic fantasy.
😂😂😂😂