This is a fine specimen of a novel. The opening scene sets the imagination on fire and fans the flames until the very last page. This bonfire blaze of a story is as bright and hot as any you could want if you’re a sci-fi fan.

And it’s an underdog story where the dog already has a boot to its neck, and the gun that will put it down is being loaded; there should be no fight left in this dog, but no one told him that.

The main character Darrow (our underdog) lives in a world veiled by darkness and shadows—he’s a helldiver, mining the subterranean depths of Mars. The book makes the reader care about this tenacious teen, the life he’s built caring for his family, and how he’s able to scrape out a meager existence in the mines. But then that all changes. Spoilers in 3…2…1…

Son to a murdered father, husband to a murdered wife, Darrow will have his vengeance in this life or the next…Um, wait, wrong hero.

The book quickly sets up Darrow to follow his family to the gallows, which the Golds (the ruling class) use as one mechanism to maintain order, but a group of revolutionaries rescues him and sets things in motion. Darrow is a Red, the lowest class of humans, but he is augmented through a painful process to become a Gold. It’s his ticket to get his revenge and start the spark of a revolution. Tough odds though…

The book excels at building a dystopian world where humanity’s class war has reshaped the species. The Golds annihilated the nation states of old Earth, and made Mars and other planets the ruling center of the galaxy. They are tougher, meaner, and more ruthless than humans 1.0.

The Golds breed for superiority, and they take a very Darwinian approach to training their children to become their successors. The meat of the story takes place in a section of Mars’ Valles Marineris (it’s the biggest canyon in the solar system, according to Wikipedia), where up-and-coming Gold students fight for the coveted class championship. Darrow infiltrates this training academy, taking part in, and then taking apart the brutal trials of these so-called superior humans.

I loved the cat-and-mouse games and the deception throughout. Darrow makes unlikely allies and faces threats from unsuspecting quarters. This usually makes for the best stories when the setup is believable, and, yes, I was fully immersed.

One of the best scenes is when the meddling proctor Apollo tells Darrow—who is on his way to winning and beating out the preferred Jackal—to stop what he’s doing or there will be consequences. Darrows’ trusty Howlers, led by Sevro, are at that very moment taking down House Apollo, having used the classic crawl-through-shitty-sewers tactic to get in their castle. Apollo’s arrogance is his undoing later in the tale.

There’s a lot going on in this story—death, destruction, betrayal, alliances, guilt, loss, ambushes, baking bread (yes, bread), rape, magic boots, a colossal bear cameo, wolf boys, castles, cannibalism, horse carcasses, corrupt game masters…the list goes on.

I’ve never been one to pick up a book as my first leisure activity, but I literally ignored everything but eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks until I finished this book. I cannot wait to see what happens next!