Red Rising is a sci-fi trilogy. I dropped it towards the end of the third book, out of spite. Rest of this post is spoilers.
The first book felt somewhat predictable nearer the start, almost formulaic in a sense. Also, the main character read like a full grown adult, until you find out he's actually a teenager, because of course it's a YA dystopian series. His age isn't mentioned until later, but he has a whole ass wife and feels like a gruff adult. Nah, he's 16. With a wife. Yippee dystopia. She's gonna die and be his reason for rebelling against the system, right? Yep. Because of course. Like I said, formulaic.
Formulaic or not, though, the journey through it was well written. While I thought the wife was also a rebel, she's just got that rebellious spirit, and the MC's uncle is the one who's a rebel. It gets pretty brutal at times, with the mc's hanging and subsequent burial and then rescue, because the uncle gave him a drink that fakes his death. Where the story diverges from the standard formula is after the MC leaving his home, where he's introduced to the rebels and then told he's gonna be biologically modified until he's indistinguishable from one of the oppressing class, then sent to their schools to blend in and betray them from the inside.
Then it goes back to tropes by having the MC and all the students run a war game in the wilderness where they're forced to survive on their own and fight against each other. Get this, hunger games, but sci-fi.
I say that, because I'm a very pessimistic and cynical person by nature, not because I didn't like it. Red Rising's approach to the hunger games style war game was very well executed, along with the MC's development throughout. He himself is one of the oppressed, so he's constantly at risk of getting caught. Despite that, he does make friends there. Most important of which is Cassius and Sevro (my goat). They call each other brothers. Except, before the actual war game, the arbiters of the academy paired off each student and forced them to fight to the death in the nude, and the person the MC fought was Cassius's actual brother. This is very important for the rest of the trilogy.
My biggest gripe about the whole thing is the author wrote these kids as basically gods. I mean, I get it takes place on Mars with reduced gravity and these kids are the pinnacle of human GMO, but still... clearing hundreds of kilometers in a few hours?
I won't spoil the latter half of the war game and the end of the book, because it's quite well written and a very good plotline. Suffice it to say, despite following tropes and formulas, so far the book has a lot it does differently within those confines, and all of it hits pretty hard.
The sequel to Red Rising is Golden Son. It follows the MC at the very end of his school period. After the first war game (which also doubled as the kids' first academy), they went to an actual naval academy to learn to lead space ships and sci-fi battles. Which also had the whole war game setup, but the book starts with the end of that whole period. Anyway the MC loses, then enters the darkest hour where his life as one of the oppressor class is falling apart and he's questioning his place, goals, and own capabilities, as well as what he's actually supposed to do as the imposter among them. Anyways he figures it out and starts a civil war in the most dramatic way possible; starting a duel at a banquet and winning via plot convenience. Apparently, before the events of the book, he was trained by the best swordsman and duelist of all time. Something that I'm 90% sure was never actually mentioned or hinted at throughout the book. Yay plot convenience.
Queue a bunch of different battles and fights, character development, and more plot points. Really, I don't remember too much of the entire middle section of the novel. Probably because I spent literally an entire day reading the novel in (nearly) one sitting. Either way, it had me hooked for the most part, and I can't recall at the moment anything specific I had problems with.
The end of the book slaps the reader with an enormous plot twist though. The MC gets betrayed by some of the people he worked with in the oppressor civil war, mainly because they found out he's an imposter and actually one of the oppressed class. Characters important to the MC get slaughtered in front of him, and then he gets knocked out, ending the novel with a fade to black.
Wait, so what was the point of everything else in the novel? All those battles, all those wars, was it just to say "yeah a bunch of the oppressor class died because of the MC?" I honestly could not tell you. It was cool though.
The third book pissed me off a lot. I've already written a whole bunch so I won't dwell on it too much. For the most part, it was solid. More plot points happening, building up the story, the rebellion formally starts, lots of great character moments. Oh, yeah, here's a spot of capitalist propaganda for you.
There were a number of questionable decisions made by the characters throughout the novel that resulted in other characters dying, even though it probably could have been avoided. The MC is struggling a lot with the war costing the lives of his closest friends on both sides, struggling to bear the weight of all the lives lost in the name of revolution, even having to sacrifice some of them himself for the future of the rebellion. Lies and deception abound, double crossing, questioning loyalties and more. Very emotionally heavy novel, mixed in with action and the like.
Now for the reason I made this post in the first place. See, remember way back in the first novel, when I said the MC had to kill Cassius's brother? I hadn't brought it up again since, but that was a major plot point in the first book and what the MC used to spark the civil war in the second book. Cassius and the MC were close, and in the third book, they're on opposing sides, but still respect each other. Both are worn down by the cost of war. To keep it brief, there's a lot going between them, but eventually the MC and his crew defeat Cass and take him prisoner.
On the way back to Mars and the main battle, the MC gets the brilliant idea to... release Cassius? Keep in mind, this guy is the deuteragonist. Cassius is to the oppressors what the MC is to the rebellion (more or less). He is one of their ace in the holes, one of their best fighters, one of their strongest champions and leaders. You're just going to set him free? Why again? Because civilization needs honorable people like him? What the fuck are you on about?? This literally makes no sense. I know what the author is trying to assert, I know where it's coming from, I know there's been a lot of emotional buildup towards this by the author, I know how the MC feels, especially since he had to kill someone else he called brother during the war games of the first book (not sevro, don't worry it's coming). I understand how the idea came to him, but why the fuck is all his lieutenants and closest confidants going along with this?? This is literally the stupidest decision I've ever seen in my life, with the dumbest reasoning behind it. "We can't be civilized if we kill him" ok I get it, "So let's let him go" what the fuck???
Cassius vows to leave the war behind. Ok, sure, whatever, affirmations and such. Hey, remember lies and deception?
Frame 1 those handcuffs are off, Cassius breaks his vow and kills the MC's last remaining adopted brother, Sevro. I fucking immediately stopped reading. This whole scene was stupid. It literally made no sense and ruined the rest of the novel for me.
According to the wiki's synopsis, this meant nothing; Sevro is actually alive, and Cassius betrays the oppressors near the end and saves the MC. I don't care. I literally do not care. This was total bullshit and I refuse to read the rest of the book over this. I almost dropped the entire series in the beginning because I thought it was predicable, but my friend called out my lack of patience so I pushed through it and stuck with it, but enough is enough. I only have so much time and energy to deal with bullshit plot "twists" built up to with the most mental gymnastic shit I've ever seen in my life.
Eruptor/crossbow was already the meta, doing this just reinforced it. Anyone running medium pen would've immediately noticed the change. Hell, I dropped in day 1 of the patch after getting the new SMG (gallant, it's medium pen) and I genuinely thought the penetration was broken because it was bouncing off hive guard faces. They're one of the few enemy bugs that actually had medium pen, and were the most prolific of the few.
Primaries in general are kind of useless against bugs, you burn a whole clip to kill a handful that are replaced by two dozen more. Hence why explosive primaries are meta; they actually do something to stem the tide.