Read Rising: A Red Rising Book Club Podcast

The crew centers on Lysander, Darrow, Lyria, and Ephraim, with a mix of character analysis, plot recap, and plenty of side commentary on the series’ moral messiness.

We cover Ephraim's heist, Lysander's tense prison scenes, and Lyria's increasingly dangerous orbit around the core players. The episode focuses on betrayal, shifting loyalties, and how much damage people can do while insisting they're still the good guys.

Buckle up for the suck, buttercup.

Pierce Brown! Iron Gold! These chapters split between political fallout, a dangerous prison break, and three very different POVs trying to survive a society in collapse. Nick, Sam, Liz, and Craig focus on how much of this section is setup and how much of it is quietly doing heavy lifting for the rest of the book. What say you?

This episode covers the first part of Iron Gold and tracks three major threads: Darrow’s escalating break with the Republic, Lyria’s devastating loss and decision to leave, and Lysander’s capture on the Rim. It also introduces Ephraim’s uneasy new assignment and opens up a larger conversation about loyalty, power, and who gets used as a weapon.

This discussion covers four POVs in Iron Gold chapters 10 to 15: Darrow, Lyria, Ephraim, and Lysander. The group focuses on the clash between war and governance, the human cost of the Red Hand attacks, grief and self-destruction in Ephraim’s arc, and what Lysander’s decisions reveal about loyalty, power, and conscience.

This episode sets up the start of Iron Gold and immediately reframes the series through multiple perspectives. The group talks through the shift from Darrow-centered storytelling to a wider, messier republic, while also introducing Lyria, Ephraim, and Lysander as major new lenses on the world. A lot of the discussion centers on what war has cost the low colors, whether Darrow is still right to push forward, and how the new structure of the book mirrors the political structure of the Republic itself.

This episode kicks off Iron Gold and immediately makes it clear that the story is changing shape. With multiple POVs now in play, the crew covers Darrow, Lyria, Ephraim, and Lysander, while debating what the Republic has become ten years after the revolution. The conversation centers on the cost of victory, the strain on Darrow and Mustang, and the fact that freedom did not magically solve anything. It is part recap, part character study, and part argument over whether Darrow is protecting the Republic or undermining it.

This episode closes out the original Red Rising trilogy by zooming in on the last stretch of Morning Star and then widening out to ask what the trilogy means as a complete story. The discussion covers Mustang taking power, Lysander’s strange loyalty, the Jackal’s ending, Darrow and Mustang’s hidden plan, and the reveal that Darrow has a son. The group also reflects on the trilogy’s core themes, including found family, the cost of war, and whether people can really change. It’s a true end-of-era conversation for Nick, Norman, Sam, and Liz as they finish the first three books.

This episode covers the final stretch of Morning Star Part 3, with the group breaking down Darrow’s Luna plan, Cassius’s reversal, and the collapse of Octavia’s rule. It matters because nearly every major betrayal, reveal, and payoff from the trilogy comes due here.

This section covers the fallout from the Battle of Ilium, the brutal tightening of the rebellion, and one of the most memorable Sevro moments in the trilogy. It matters because the book shifts from battlefield chaos into emotional turns, betrayals, and hard choices that reshape the rest of the story.