Dark Age by Pierce Brown

Review by Samantha M. Siciliano

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Quick Summary:

 

As the fifth book in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, Dark Age continues the story of a future where humanity has colonized the Milky Way. Within that world, the Core operated under a rigid color-based caste system designed to “keep order.” Now, years after the Rising began, Darrow and others struggle to hold the young Republic together as old enemies and new threats emerge. 

 

The story follows Darrow, his wife Virginia, and returning POVs Lysander, Ephraim, and Lyria. Each viewpoint reveals a different corner of Brown’s vast world. Virginia navigates the political turmoil of the Republic. Lysander fights alongside the Remnant’s forces on Mercury. Ephraim becomes entangled with Pax, Electra, Sefi, and the Alltribe. Lyria offers a ground-level look at how ordinary Colors survive the chaos around them. Together, these five viewpoints allow Brown to explore the conflict from every angle. 

 

Before diving further into the review, there are two important notes that new readers should know.

 

First, this is not a series entry point—Dark Age relies heavily on the emotional and political foundation laid in the original trilogy and Iron Gold. 

 

Second, this book is best suited for readers willing to embrace dark themes, countless deaths, and a whirlwind of emotions. If you can handle that—and you also love sci-fi, fantasy, and/or dystopian novels—you will absolutely love this book. 

 

Fair warning: this review contains MASSIVE spoilers.

 

Alright—let’s get into it. 

 

The Review:

 

Before diving into the characters, world-building, and absolute emotional devastation, here are my updated series rankings:

 

        1. Iron Gold/Dark Age (You cannot have one without the other)

        2. Golden Son

        3. Red Rising

        4. Morning Star

You read that correctly—there is a tie for first. While Iron Gold was an absolute masterpiece, Dark Age was Brown’s magnum opus. They are ranked together because they feel less like separate books and more like two halves of the same story. Dark Age wouldn’t be nearly as gripping without Iron Gold’s setup—and it wouldn’t have hit me as hard emotionally. Brown builds on that foundation with a relentless pace that never lets up, making it nearly impossible to relax while reading. 

 

One of the series’ greatest strengths is its POV structure. The book continues using the perspectives of Darrow, Lysander, Ephraim, and Lyria, which worked so well in Iron Gold. However, in Dark Age, Brown added a new perspective: Virginia’s. Each POV brings something different, creating space for spectacular world-building while preserving the intimacy of a single protagonist. He maintains tension across multiple storylines while leaving microscopic slivers of hope. Throughout it all, Brown gives us enough understanding of the world, the characters’ choices, and their consequences without ever slowing the story down.

 

Nowhere is that balance more apparent than in Darrow’s chapters. 

POV Characters

 

Darrow: Darrow’s chapters in Dark Age are stronger than they were in Iron Gold—largely because this is where the consequences of his earlier decisions finally catch up to him.  

 

Throughout Dark Age, Darrow is fighting to keep himself and his troops alive. They suffer millions of casualties within the first few chapters while also dealing with radiation poisoning, all-encompassing exhaustion, and threats from every direction. Cut off from meaningful support and increasingly isolated from the Republic he is trying to save, Darrow is forced to fight a war determined to crush him. The danger comes not only from his enemies, but also from the political failures, military setbacks, and the decisions of those supposedly fighting on his side. His chapters are gory and gritty—much like a cornered animal fighting to survive.

 

Yet survival is only part of what defines Darrow’s story on Mercury. Faced with mounting casualties and dwindling options, Darrow turns to the Storm Gods in an attempt to change the course of the war. Originally hidden by Octavia as a doomsday weapon in case Mercury rebelled, the Storm Gods offered Darrow a devastating means of crippling the Society Remnant and preserving the Republic’s chances of winning the war. After modifying them for war, he unleashed a weapon that inflicted immense harm on civilians alongside the enemy forces he intended to strike—pushing him past the limits he swore he wouldn’t cross. 

 

The use of the Storm Gods shows Darrow at his most ambitious and dangerous, but it isn’t the only example of the calculated risks he takes throughout the book. He has Screwface undergo the carving process and infiltrate Atalantia’s army, providing the Republic with critical intelligence about Ajax’s forces and movements. The operation proves invaluable when Darrow learns of an impending siege at Heliopolis, the Republic’s primary stronghold, allowing him time to prepare for the attack.

 

Yet planning is only part of what makes Darrow dangerous. Even when his plans fall apart, he finds a way to turn setbacks into advantages. When Lysander used Darrow’s own EMP against him, everything went sideways. The pulse stripped away every technological advantage he and his men possessed, reducing the battle to little more than men, primitive weapons, and instinct. To make matters worse, Lysander and his army rode sunblood horses into the battle. Without missing a beat, Darrow rallied his troops—arming them with whatever they could find and adapting to the new reality almost immediately. He doesn’t just plan well; he recalibrates instantly. Moments like these forge Darrow’s almost mythic image among allies and enemies alike. Chapter 84, aptly titled “Meat Straw,” captures that reputation perfectly. Brown forces us to see Darrow through Lysander’s eyes: 

"Then I spot the signs of his advance from the far side of the Triumphia. It is like the coming of a tiger through tall grass. First a rippling in the distance that seems like the wind. Then a tunneling force. An outward swaying of riders. The starting of horses. Men disappear from saddles. Sunbloods collapse sideways with horrible wounds. And then, like a tiger's tail, the curved slingBlade rises above the stalks as he threshes all in his path. He kills with impossible aggression."

 

Reading that—holy shit. If I were in Lysander’s shoes, I would be scared shitless. For the first time in the series, Brown lets us experience the Reaper as his enemies do.

 

Chapter 84 plays out like a slow-motion movie, with a camera panning across the complete chaos surrounding Lysander. Kalindora suffers a horrific arm wound from Darrow—so severe that it ultimately must be amputated. Lysander comes away from the fight for Heliopolis with a broken arm and a concussion, courtesy of Darrow. Meanwhile, Darrow takes Lysander’s blade to the lung himself. On top of that, massive sunblood horses trample any unfortunate souls below. Viewed through Lysander’s eyes, Darrow seems less like a man and more like a force of nature. 

 

What makes Dark Age so effective is that Brown spends just as much time tearing down that myth as he does building it. For every moment that makes Darrow feel larger than life, Brown reminds us how dangerous his mistakes can be. One flaw that continuously resurfaces: he gives people chances when he shouldn’t. The most glaring example is Orion’s demise.

After Orion’s rescue from Atlas’s torturous hands, Darrow gave her time to recover and required a psychological evaluation before allowing her to return to combat on Mercury. Although she passed the assessment, it was clear to many that she was not ready for the front lines. Even so, Darrow authorized her to sync with the Storm God machine, choosing to overlook the toll that Atlas’s captivity—and the Mercurian people’s betrayal—had taken on her. When pushed beyond her limits, Orion became a danger to everyone around her. 

 

Darrow’s gamble finally comes due. Something within her breaks, and she pushes the Storm Gods to their highest settings. Unleashed at full strength, the machines would have destroyed everything of value to Atalantia—including the metal and slaves. It also would have killed countless people on Mercury—enemies and allies alike. Militarily, it would have been a victory. Morally and politically, it would have been a disaster. 

 

Realizing the devastation she was about to inflict, Darrow desperately tries to talk Orion down. When that fails, he uses the kill switch he had installed in her head in case she ever went rogue. It is one of the most brutal moments in Darrow’s arc, not because Orion dies, but because her death is the direct result of a choice he made. His decision to trust Orion costs him not only a loyal friend, but also millions of lives across Mercury—including those in Tyche, one of the planet’s most populous cities. 

 

After “escaping” Atlas’s torture mountain, Lysander returned to the Republic’s base alongside Alexander. Darrow, quite rightly, had him detained for questioning, fearing that he could be a spy. The situation changed when Glirastes noticed Lysander and demanded that he be released into his care, threatening to abandon work on the EMP if Darrow refused. Even though Darrow suspected there was something off with the man calling himself Cato—Lysander in disguise—he relented because he needed Glirastes to finish the weapon that would help him evacuate and escape Mercury with his Free Legions. Once freed, Lysander convinced Glirastes to join the Society Remnant, a betrayal that proved disastrous. Together, they sabotaged the EMP. With the shields and technology crippled, the Remnant was able to slaughter many of Darrow’s remaining troops. 

 

The cascade of events on Mercury marks a turning point in Darrow’s arc. Brown finally forces Darrow to pay the bill. Darrow is no longer just fighting the war; he is living with the consequences of the choices that brought him to this point. As they pile up, he begins to question how he sees himself in the war and where he fits within the society he helped build. The result is a constant sense of dread that becomes impossible to ignore.

 

By this point, Brown had me genuinely wondering whether Darrow was going to make it off Mercury alive. Two scenes in particular amplified that concern—Atlas’s capture of Darrow and Lysander’s assault on his remaining holdouts. During the Atlas chapter, I held out a smidge of hope that Darrow would somehow avoid being tortured and executed on film. I had no clue who was going to save him, but I knew it wasn’t going to be Sevro or Virginia. Thank goodness for Calloway and Thraxa. Even then, I dreaded what Atlas had planned for him. And yet, Atlas’s capture of Darrow wasn’t the moment that worried me the most. The final stand on Mercury somehow felt even worse.

  

The Republic’s final stand felt like the point of no return. Thraxa had told Darrow she planned to take her own life rather than be captured by Lysander and Atalantia, and honestly, it was hard to blame her. By this stage of the novel, Brown had made the prospect of capture feel worse than death. Look at what Atlas had planned for Darrow. Hell, look at what he’s already done to the captured Martians on Mercury, not to mention Alexander and his army. Between Atlas, Atalantia, and Lysander, there was no reason to expect mercy if the Republic lost. Morale was hanging by a thread—so much so that I’d forgotten Kavax sent Cassius to rescue Darrow. 

 

Halfway through the final stand chapters, I genuinely thought Darrow was out of options. Thraxa was bracing to end her life, Harnassus wanted permission to end his, and Darrow was preparing to give his life fighting with all he had for the Republic. When 99.99% of my hope had evaporated and the Free Legions seemed moments away from defeat, Cassius arrived in the Archi with a casual, “What's up, my goodman?” Cassius’s return felt like hope re-entering the story. His arrival doesn’t erase the despair—it simply cracks it open enough to let hope back in. 

 

Cassius’s rescue solves one problem, but it also highlights just how much Sevro’s absence is felt. In previous books, Sevro was often the one dragging Darrow out of impossible situations. Here, that role falls to Cassius. While Sevro is still present throughout the novel, much of his trademark humor and chaos takes a backseat to the story's darker tone. With his family scattered and his daughter missing, Sevro is carrying burdens that leave little room for the reckless Goblin readers have come to expect. Given the events of Dark Age, that change makes sense, but I still found myself missing the energy he typically brings to the series. 

 

The clearest indication of that shift comes when Darrow trespasses into Sevro’s booby-trapped room on the Morning Star, known as Sevro’s Palace. The room serves as a visual reminder of what matters most to him. One wall is dedicated to his friends and victories, including mementos such as Darrow’s original slingBlade. Another honors his father, Fitchner, and the legacy he left behind. The final wall is devoted to his family, filled with holograms and trophies connected to Victra, his daughters, and the Howlers. Together, its contents reflect his love for and loyalty to his chosen family. The room also reveals a side of Sevro that often hides beneath the Goblin persona. Duty may shape his life, but family ultimately defines it. 

 

The contrast between Sevro and Darrow becomes clearer when you look at how each man relates to his family. Darrow’s keepsakes tell a very different story. He doesn’t have many physical reminders of his family—just Pax’s bike key, which serves as his only tangible connection to them. It reminds him what he is fighting for, but also of everything he has missed. The same sacrifice that drives him forward is what keeps him distant from his son. Unfortunately, that distance also hurts Pax. Darrow seems to believe the fragile Republic needs him to be a weapon more than Pax needs him to be a father. Sevro, however, holds his family close and is growing weary of the war that keeps pulling him away from them. Darrow loves his family just as much, but fighting keeps him at a distance. He knows what he’s fighting for. He just doesn’t know how to hold onto it. 

 

That tension sits at the heart of Darrow’s story. His struggle is about preserving his humanity while carrying the weight of war. Dark Age repeatedly asks whether the people fighting for a better world can do so without losing themselves along the way. Lysander functions as the perfect counterpoint because he believes many of those sacrifices are justified. 

 

Lysander: Perhaps the most significant shift for Lysander in Dark Age is that he’s forced to make decisions on his own instead of relying on Cassius—but that shift doesn’t make him a better person. His first major decision is to go to war for Dido and the Rim—a conflict that challenges everything he believes. War quickly exposes the cracks in his idealized view of Golds, particularly when he encounters figures like Atlas and Atalantia, whose methods reveal the brutality lurking behind Society ideals.  

 

Atlas driving pikes through Martian Reds in the desert to die slowly makes that point ruthlessly clear. The image immediately shatters Lysander’s idealized vision of Gold “civility.” As the Fear Knight, Atlas embodies how quickly that civility disappears in favor of something more barbaric when Gold power is threatened. 

 

Atlas isn’t the only person who challenges Lysander’s beliefs. While in discussion with Atlas, Lysander learns that Atalantia is preparing to use biological warfare against the Free Legions on Mercury. Her willingness to deploy biological warfare reflects the worst of the Society Remnant—callous, power-hungry, and consumed by war. But even that revelation pales in comparison to what he learns about Octavia. The realization that Golds are not flawless hits hardest when he learns that his grandmother ordered his parents to be killed and then erased his memory. In the end, Octavia’s self-preservation mattered more than her family. 

 

The contradiction at the heart of Lysander’s character only makes sense once you look at how he was raised—or more accurately, conditioned. As Octavia’s grandson and eventual heir, he grew up at the center of a Society that appeared orderly, prosperous, and functional. Shielded from the worst abuses, he was taught that Gold was superior by design and destined to rule. Even though she may have been his grandmother, Octavia invested far more time in molding him into a Peerless Scarred than in raising him as a grandson. After her death, he spent his formative years with Cassius, watching the Republic descend into chaos. It is little wonder, then, that Lysander gravitates toward the Society that shaped him rather than the fragile, failing Republic unfolding before his eyes. 

 

Those experiences don’t make him reject the Society—they make him want to rebuild it in his own image. A Society 2.0, if you will. He envisions a place where honorable Gold behavior can flourish, and power is not abused. In that world, Golds enforce the law and customs while setting an example for everyone else. He remains convinced that the other Colors must be “shepherded”—though what that means varies from person to person.  Lysander doesn’t suffer from a lack of logic. The logic itself is the problem. One of the best glimpses into that worldview comes from how he talks about Mercury itself: 

"There is time enough to be lost in the Majesty {Majesty of Mercury} that is, and to remember nature cannot provide this with her careless hands. My race of mortals carved this Paradise of irradiated rock and violent gas by channeling the greatest virtues of all men and common cause." 

 

To Lysander, Mercury is proof of what Gold leadership can accomplish. In truth, generations of Reds labored in the mines and constructed the cities and landscapes of uninhabited planets. 

 

Lysander’s upbringing plays a major role in how he views Darrow. His anger toward him began in Morning Star, when Darrow and his allies killed Aja and Octavia right before his eyes. To Lysander, Darrow is not simply an enemy; he is living proof that the natural order of the Society has been overturned. That resentment is inseparable from his belief that Golds are inherently meant to lead. As a result, he assumes he is better suited than Darrow to govern, restore order, and shape the future. 

 

Dark Age repeatedly tests Lysander’s belief that he is better suited than Darrow to lead, but one instance in particular discredits that idea—his treatment of Alexander. Where Lysander sees himself as a noble alternative to leaders like Darrow and his cousin Atalantia, his actions toward Alexander unveil how quickly that self-image falls apart when his ambitions are threatened. When Alexander and Rhonna appear in Lysander’s chapters, Lysander reveals another clue to who he really is—a little pixie bitch. Part of what makes this moment so frustrating is that Alexander embodies many of the qualities Lysander claims to admire. He is honorable, selfless, and committed to helping others. Brown has said that he struggled to continue Alexander’s story, but dammit, I was just starting to like the guy. His swashbuckling, self-deprecating, and jovial ways made him incredibly easy to cheer for, especially because he maintained it even while Atlas was torturing him. 

 

Unfortunately, that goodwill didn’t save him. While Rhonna and Alexander are checking on Cato, Darrow announces over their earpieces that they need to be careful, as they are actually standing in front of Lysander. But before Alexander can land a strike, Lysander shoots him. Unwilling to risk a Razor duel that might jeopardize his time-sensitive plans, Lysander forgoes the Gold honor code and chooses the fastest path to victory. 

 

But for all his moral failures, the tragedy of Lysander isn’t that he lacks ability. Octavia left him with more than a warped worldview, but she also taught him how to use Mind’s Eye. I suspect Brown uses it to help close the gap between Lysander and Darrow, allowing him to slow time, steady his mind, and outmaneuver opponents. It even allows Lysander to sell the Cato disguise to everyone completely except Darrow, who maintained some reservation. 

 

Mind’s Eye matters less for its power than for what it reveals: trauma, training, and ideology all working hand in hand. For Lysander, it transforms him from an exiled fugitive into a deadly combatant, enabling him to process sound, movement, and spatial information so quickly that he can dodge attacks and slaughter trained assassins in total darkness or chaos. It also allows his intellect to keep pace with warriors who are stronger, faster, and more experienced than he is. Brown showcases this beautifully when Ajax’s men attack him in the desert. More importantly, Mind’s Eye ties him to the legacy of House Lune, reinforcing a belief he rarely acknowledges but never truly abandons: that he is destined to lead.

Lysander isn’t the only one shaped by Mind’s Eye. Atlas is as well, and despite possessing such an extraordinary ability, he prefers fear, pain, and intimidation. For all the discipline and self-control the ability requires, he still chooses to torture his enemies. For him, cruelty is not a vice but a tool of war. He uses it to break enemy morale, extract information, and preserve order in the Core because he believes fear is the fastest path to victory. People think twice about stepping out of line when faced with the possibility of encountering the Fear Knight. All of this raises a troubling question: if Atlas becomes an influence on Lysander, what lessons might he pass along?  

 

Equally troubling is the possibility of Apollonius learning Mind’s Eye. He is already one of the most dangerous and highly intelligent war criminals in the series. Nonetheless, Lysander is willing to trade a rare skill to secure such an ally. That’s before you even factor in that Darrow slighted Apollonius and is now his mortal enemy. Although Apollonius cannot use Mind’s Eye at this point in the series, I suspect he will have it in Lightbringer. Should that happen, all hell will break loose. 

 

Lysander’s poor judgment isn’t confined to war and politics; it also shapes his romantic relationships. Few examples illustrate that better than his pursuit of Seraphina, where his emotions, latent-Gold-supremacist views, and raging hormones repeatedly cloud his judgment. The relationship with Seraphina initially makes sense: she’s his age, from a forbidden land, and he hasn’t had the chance to connect to others while drifting throughout the Core with Cassius and Pytha. That context helps explain his initial enamored attitude toward Seraphina in Iron Gold. On Io, she toys with his emotions, and Lysander is painfully slow to realize that she is simply using him. In reality, she is a harsh and disciplined Gold of the militaristic Rim, not the idealized version of her that Lysander creates in his head. 

 

But even after recognizing that Seraphina doesn’t match the image he built in his head, he remains reluctant to abandon the possibility that there could still be something between them. In many ways, he seems more attached to the idea of Seraphina than to the person herself.

 

That fantasy fully collides with reality when Seraphina dies during their attempt to destroy Darrow’s Storm God, a loss Lysander views as “senseless.” But her death doesn’t make him any wiser. Rather than forcing him to question his assumptions, it leaves him searching for that same sense of connection elsewhere. 

 

He soon finds it with Kalindora. She is a total badass—after all, she is the Love Knight—and genuinely seems to have her heart in the right place, offering affection, mentorship, and a link to his past. Unlike many of the people surrounding him, Kalindora appears sincere in her concern for him and provides a sense of stability at a time when much of his world is in chaos. She treats him as a person rather than a political ally or military asset. Mind you, she is twice his age—which isn’t automatically a problem, but it’s still a bit weird. 

 

However, on her deathbed, Kalindora discloses that she and Atalantia had taken part in the murder of his parents, shattering both his idealized view of his family and whatever sense of family he had left. Kalindora is the last sentimental anchor remaining in his life, and when she dies, another piece of his humanity dies with her. Her final confession leaves Lysander with one final, ugly truth: Atalantia is even more dangerous than he realized. Unfortunately for Lysander, she is also about to become his wife, not out of love, but necessity. Yet despite everything he learns about Atalantia, he remains tied to her. 

 

Atalantia serves a very different role in Lysander’s life than either Seraphina or Kalindora. If Seraphina represented idealism and Kalindora represented connection, Atalantia represents Society itself: ambition, hierarchy, and survival at any cost. It is a dysfunctional relationship built on distrust, trauma, and pure political necessity. He initially approaches his relationship with Atalantia as a way to get one over on Ajax, then later uses it to save his own life and preserve the ambitions he claims not to have. As a result, the relationship becomes one of the most consequential political calculations of his life.

 

Unfortunately for Lysander, Atalantia saw him as a serious threat because of his accomplishments during the Battle of Ladon. He saved Mercury from chemical annihilation, won the support of lowColors and Grays, and strengthened his standing among the Golds and Obsidians. After the battle, he is no longer a mere soldier; he has become a statesman and a peerless scarred. This transformation makes him more than a celebrated war hero; it makes him a formidable political rival in Atalantia’s eyes, especially since he is the heir of the previous two Sovereigns. To celebrate his military success, Atalantia held a Triumph ceremony for him, secretly planning to use it as an opportunity to assassinate him. Anticipating the assassination attempt, Lysander knew he needed to ally with her, so naturally, he proposed they become a power couple. The proposal—pun fully intended—halts the assassination attempt and turns a potential execution into a political alliance. She accepts, knowing she can use him to secure her position as Sovereign. 

 

As if the political implications weren’t bad enough, he’s engaged to his aunt figure from childhood. Ew. Just… ew. Atalantia is twice his age, which is weird—but there are worse things. She is, quite literally, a sociopath. After everything he learns about her, he still chooses to stay by her side. She is sadistic. She is manipulative. She happily killed Lysander’s parents. Does he actually think he is safe with her? Or will they spend the entirety of Lightbringer playing chicken? Yeah—you picked a real winner there, Lysander. 

 

His relationship with Atalantia exposes one of the biggest contradictions in Dark Age: Lysander keeps denying his ambition to become Sovereign, even as his actions constantly reveal it. He falls in the Iron Rain to become a Peerless Scarred, infiltrates Heliopolis to attack Darrow and his Free Legions while rescuing captured Golds, leads the Praetorian Guard, courts Atalantia, and allies himself with Apollonius. The problem is that pursuing power and securing it are two very different things. He has surrounded himself with enemies and increasingly dangerous allies, many of whom would kill him without hesitation if given the opportunity. Either way, most roads seem to lead to the same possible conclusions:

1) Cassius kills him. 

a. Cassius took responsibility for raising Lysander and gave him every opportunity to choose a different path. No one has worked harder to pull him away from the influence of the Society than Cassius. However, Cassius’s oath to serve the people and uphold honor has become his life’s mission. Lysander chose the corrupt path, and because of that, Cassius can no longer justify letting him live. At that point, he has to eliminate him. In my Iron Gold review, I said it would be poetic if Cassius were the one to kill Lysander—and I still believe that prediction holds. If any ending fits, it’s Cassius killing Lysander. 

2) Atalantia kills him.

3) Darrow kills him.

4) He survives—though that outcome leaves several unresolved questions hanging in the background.

One unresolved question centers on Pytha. My conspiracy mind is definitely reeling, but her sudden appearance beside Lysander and her willingness to follow him feel off. That alone isn’t enough to convince me she will abandon Lysander, but several other details make me suspicious. From Iron Gold, we know that Pytha was imprisoned in a mining outpost brig for smuggling before Cassius recruited her to fly Archimedes. In Dark Age, she admits to Lysander that she previously served as an elite fighter pilot for the House Bellona fleet. Pytha and Cassius hid this information from Lysander, allowing him to believe that she was a hot-tempered, disgraced commercial pilot. Hiding this information suggests a level of trust between them that Lysander was never fully included in. 

 

Those circumstances make Pytha’s decision to stay at Lysander’s side feel particularly strange. Perhaps she is simply biding her time until a better option comes along. Even so, it does not erase the larger questions about where she ultimately belongs. For one thing, after seeing how she was treated while captive in the Rim during Iron Gold, she doesn’t seem eager to return to a world dominated by Golds. Her dynamic with Cassius felt very different; when she flew the Archi with him, she seemed far more like an equal. Combined with her history with Cassius, it is difficult to imagine her remaining at Lysander’s side forever. If I were a betting woman, I’d say she plays double agent for Cassius down the road. To put it plainly, she does not belong in the world Lysander is trying to build. 

 

Whether Pytha defects or not, the larger issue remains the same: Lysander still sees himself as the person destined to save everyone, and that belief is ultimately what makes him dangerous. Unlike many of the characters around him, Lysander rarely questions whether he should be the one shaping the future. Instead, he spends Dark Age trying to impose order on the world around him. That mindset stands in sharp contrast to Ephraim, who starts the series barely believing in anything at all.

Ephraim: Ephraim is my absolute favorite character. Or I should say—he was. His death crushed me. In fact, two deaths in Dark Age made me close the book for the night: Ephraim’s and Ulysses’s. That may sound strange to readers who disliked Ephraim in Iron Gold, and I understand why. After all, he is deeply flawed, but I never saw him as irredeemable. He went through hell, and the drugs just made sure he stayed there. Brown goes to great lengths not to excuse his behavior, but to explain it. As a result, Eph feels human rather than irreparably broken. 

 

That difference between understanding Ephraim and forgiving him is exactly why his arc succeeds. His story asks for understanding, not absolution. Rather than seeking sympathy through excuses, Brown focuses on showing how Eph became the person we meet in Dark Age. 

 

Ephraim’s fear of attachment is evident from his earliest chapters in Iron Gold. Given the loss of his squad and, later, Trigg during the war, that fear is understandable. To cope with his PTSD and survivor’s guilt, doctors prescribed him Zoladone, which gradually became a way to numb the pain. Alcohol soon served the same purpose, reinforcing his self-destructive cycle. At his lowest point, he no longer believed he deserved to live. He was simply going through the motions, with little hope that life had anything better to offer. And then something—more like someone—changes that. 

 

The first step toward that transformation begins in the unlikeliest of places—the kidnapping of Pax and Electra. Everything shifts once he realizes he has placed Volga—the purest of souls—in harm’s way. For perhaps the first time since Trigg’s death, he has someone worth fighting for (insert song, A Girl Worth Fighting For here). Determined to make things right, he rescues the very children he kidnapped. While it is just him and the kids journeying back to safety, Pax forces him to confront the grief, the numbing, and the emotions he has spent years trying to outrun. In the process, Ephraim finally becomes sober and finds two additional, kid-sized reasons to keep going. Volga, Pax, and Electra refuse to let him retreat into himself. 

 

Once Eph starts grabbing life by the horns, Brown fully commits to that transformation. And honestly, it works. Ephraim’s arc is messy, morally ugly, and completely earned, making his growth feel real rather than idealized. It’s not redemption in the traditional sense—instead, it’s survival evolving into something more. In Iron Gold, he’s the Gray Grinch, content to drift through life and numb himself to the world around him. By Dark Age, he becomes a teacher, sharing his knowledge and trade secrets with the Skuggi while also taking Pax under his wing and building a real relationship with him. 

 

Watching Ephraim rebuild his life is what made his story land especially hard for me. I know I am beyond cynical in my darker moments, so seeing him go from deeply jaded to being impressed by life again was genuinely wonderful. His willingness to reconnect with people and allow himself to care again only made that transformation more meaningful. Personally, I’ve had my own history with alcohol, weed, and prescribed Valium while trying to cope with my past. Now that I am sober, most days I wouldn’t trade it for the world, which is why watching Eph reclaim that part of himself felt so rewarding. 

 

A giant part of that transformation comes from the people he lets into his life—or more accurately, the people who force their way in. Electra, though rough around the edges, consistently challenges him to think about others instead of just himself. Pax pushes him toward sobriety and forces him to confront vulnerabilities he had spent years avoiding. Sefi provides something equally important: a sense of purpose. By hiring him to mentor the Skuggi, she gives him a reason to invest in something larger than himself. 

 

Taken together, those relationships reveal what Ephraim had been missing all along—connection. His story suggests that even the most wounded people can be pulled back through human connection, not by being fixed, but by finding someone worth fighting for. I love a good redemption arc, but in Ephraim’s case, I was devoted to it.

 

But Brown doesn’t ask us to take Ephraim’s growth on faith—he tests it. While attempting to rescue Volga, Lyria, and Victra from the Red Hand, he finds himself in a position where he must trust Pax with people’s lives—including his own. Past Ephraim would have let his pride take control of the ship during the attack on the Red Hand, but here he trusts Pax to be the expert pilot while he focuses on keeping as many civilian fighters alive as possible. Through his relationship with Pax, Eph learns to trust others again. More importantly, he chooses to. 

 

As much as I loved seeing Ephraim rebuild his life, Brown ripped him away from me. Ephraim decides to go on a suicide mission to protect Volga from Volsung Fa—her own grandfather. Still, that decision felt like the final expression of everything he had become. For the first time in years, he has someone he refuses to lose, and in the end, he dies fighting for something he never thought he’d have again: family.

 

For much of his life, Ephraim’s goal was simply to squeak by. As he so elegantly put it: "Fuck heroes, kid. It's all about being slick enough to squeak through. That's the last man standing.” In the end, he stopped fighting just to survive, learned to enjoy life again, and ultimately gave everything for someone else. 

 

What hurt most is that I can’t say his death surprised me. When he and Volga shared a quiet moment at the Julii house, I had a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to be around much longer. I really didn’t want to believe it, but when a character finally opens up after being closed off for so long, it often feels like the author is preparing to break my heart. Losing him would have been difficult without his transformation, but his death after he had finally become the man he was meant to be was heartbreaking. 

 

Like Kintsugi pottery, the cracks in his heart remained, but they had become part of his story. The wounds never disappeared; they were gradually mended through purpose, family, and connection until they formed something whole again. Protecting Volga became the final expression of that change. In the end, it cost him everything, but he finally died whole. 

 

Unfortunately, his death leaves Volga in Fa’s hands. Damnit. On the bright side, it could open the door for her to become a POV character, and I would love to see that happen. This feels entirely plausible, as it would allow us to witness Fa building his empire—and hopefully its collapse. More than anything, I hope Volga gets the chance to kick his ass for killing Ephraim. After everything he sacrificed for her, seeing her take Fa down would feel like a fitting payoff. Rest in peace, buddy. I’m sure going to miss you. 

 

As heavy as his storyline becomes, Brown never loses sight of the personality that makes Ephraim so fun to read. Even through all of his growth and heartbreak, his antics and sense of humor often lighten the atmosphere. One of my favorite moments in Ephraim’s storyline comes in Chapter 41, Obsidian Rising:

 

…I’m pinned inside a fatass Julii ore hauler heading toward Mars with no escape plan, no intel except what the Obsidians give me, and no weapon, not even a wrench.

 

To put the olive on top, I’m stone cold sober.

Ozgard sets his bag of walnuts on a gear box and leans toward the pilot to whisper                    something… I grab one of his walnuts and busy myself trying to open it as I stare out the            duroglass.

He [Ozgard] freezes as he sees the walnut shells around my feet. His eyes flare wide and he grabs me, manhandling his fingers down my throat… sick up all over his chest.

“What the hell!” I [Ephraim] gasp.

 

“You ate from my bag.”

 

“I’ll buy you another walnut, asshole… Jove on high. Who does that!”

 

“Walnut?... What is walnut, jackass? These spirit berries from home. These for shaman             only.”

 

I look at my hands. Are they vibrating? The roof of my mouth tastes like chalk and                    asparagus and ice cream. “Will I die?”

He shrugs, “We will see.”

 

He trips on the psychedelics. Hard. This scene is so effective because Ephraim spends most of the series acting like the smartest person in the room, only to be completely humbled by a handful of spirit berries. He may have been able to handle Z, but those berries handed him an ass-kicking!

 

The ending of Chapter 41 is just *chef’s kiss*. Moments before leaving the Julii ore ship to attack armed robots guarding the Martian mines, Ephraim—high as fuck—thinks he is equipped with all the essential gear he needs, including armor, gravBoots, and a gun. In reality, he’s buck naked and carrying a mop—not a rifle. I cannot tell you how many times I heartily laughed while reading this chapter. 

 

But beyond just being funny, moments like this keep Ephraim grounded as a character—he isn’t just trauma and redemption; he still has personality. Without that humor, he would be only a tragic story. With it, he feels alive. Bravo, Brown!

 

Somehow, that wasn’t even the funniest moment in his storyline. One scene that had me laughing out loud comes when Ephraim introduces himself to his Skuggi students. I was transported back to my first year of teaching, a time when I thought credentials actually mattered to students. Spoiler: most kids couldn’t care less. Ephraim gives a whole spiel—a good one—about his impressive accomplishments, how the Skuggi know killing but not spy work, and what skills he plans to teach them. 

 

Then, after what I assume was a twenty-minute lecture, we experience this wonderful interaction:

Ozgard clears his throat. “Ephraim.”

“Yes, Ozgard?”

“Forgot to mention. Only half speak Common.”

I [Ephraim] close my eyes. “I hate you.”

 

Honestly, this is the most first-year teacher thing ever—walking into a room assuming your audience knows what they “should” know. One of the hardest parts of teaching is figuring out what your students actually know. You don’t know what the previous teacher covered, what gaps exist, or whether all of your students even speak English fluently when you walk into a new school three weeks after the year has started! The language reveal lands perfectly because it exposes how badly Ephraim misread his audience. I still giggle every time I think about it. 

 

Unfortunately for Eph—and for the reader—Dark Age never lets that humor last for long. As much fun as his chapters could be, one of the most ruthless moments in his storyline was Sefi’s death. Holy shit, it was brutal. But what stayed with me wasn’t the violence. It was how completely Fa weaponized the idea of family. Brown amplifies the horror through his pacing, driving the chapter forward at breakneck speed before slowing everything to a crawl. Even though I was 99% sure Sefi was going to die because of Ozgard’s prophecy—“Sister murder brother, brother murder father, father murder daughter”—that still did not prepare me for the barbarity of her death. 

 

Sefi’s death stands out because it transitions Ephraim’s storyline from growth into consequence. It marks the point where his newfound purpose collides with Fa’s brutality. What makes the death scene more horrifying is that Fa treats family as both a privilege and a weapon. Fa didn’t claim Sefi as his brood like he did Ragnar and Volga. To determine whether she was worthy of leading the Obsidians and being recognized as his daughter, he subjects her to a merciless trial. In a one-on-one duel, he tears her open with his clawed metal hands and pours salt into her lungs. Even more grotesque is the fact that Fa mimics affection for Sefi while flaying her alive—shedding a tear and speaking about family. During his monologue, he mentions that Sefi will see Ragnar in Valhalla, suggesting he knew she was of his lineage and that she had earned the right to lead. Yet he kills her anyway. 

 

The tragedy of Sefi’s death extends beyond Fa’s cruelty. In many ways, her downfall began long before he ever set foot on Mars. That process begins with Darrow, whose decisions helped lay the groundwork for the fracture between the Obsidians and the Republic. For ten years, he relied heavily on the Obsidians as shock troops in his deadliest campaigns. Over time, this relentless strategy broke their spirit. Many realized they had traded slavery to Gold warlords for being cannon fodder under a Red warlord. Darrow’s treatment of the Obsidians created a rift between them and the Republic, opening the door for others to exploit both Sefi and the Alltribe.

 

Once that rift formed, few people had more influence over Sefi than Ozgard. As her shaman and closest advisor, he uses that position to weaponize her spiritual beliefs and deep desire to protect her people. Using grand, apocalyptic prophecies—like claiming Sefi is destined to rise from the ashes and unite the Obsidians—he reinforces her sense of destiny while steering her toward the future he wants. Knowing Sefi is increasingly paranoid and distrustful after Atalantia’s poisoning, he positions himself as her primary confidant by undercutting advisors like Xenophon and Valdir, portraying them as corrupted by Gold thinking or by a desire to solve problems through violence.

 

However, Sefi views Ozgard’s mysticism as little more than theatre, not divine guidance. Instead, she turns to Xenophon because he appears loyal, calculated, and organized—qualities she associates with effective Gold leadership. In doing so, she casts Ozgard out, walks directly into Xenophon's trap, and leaves herself vulnerable when Volsung Fá arrives. 

 

Sefi’s vulnerability wasn’t just shaped by Ozgard’s influence, though. By this point in the series, the relationship between the Obsidians and the Republic is already severely strained. Through the crisis surrounding Pax and Electra’s kidnapping, Virginia sees an opportunity to repair the relationship while simultaneously advancing the Republic’s interests. Part of that strategy involves steering Sefi toward seizing Martian helium-3 mines from Quicksilver. The move eases some of the Republic's political and economic burden while also giving Sefi an opportunity to secure territory for the Obsidians—land Darrow promised them in exchange for their support during the war. But while Virginia operates ten moves ahead, Sefi believes she is acting independently. As she focuses on threats like the Red Hand and control of helium-3, she never realizes that Xenophon is quietly becoming the greatest threat to the Obsidians.

 

As bad as these actors sound, Ozgard was more of a grifter, and Virginia was more of a politician. Neither acted with truly malicious intent. Amel and Xenophon, however, actively exploited the trust placed in them. Unlike the others, Amel didn’t rely on psychological manipulation. As Sefi’s trusted Pink servant, he poured her drinks and attended her during even the most private meetings. When the Day of Red Doves came, that trust made him uniquely dangerous. After receiving a code ordering him to assassinate Sefi, he exploited the access that came with his position to slip a lethal poison into her bottle of wine.

 

However, Xenophon intercepted the plot and chose not to stop it—letting the assassination attempt progress just far enough to expose Amel’s betrayal directly in front of Sefi and her small audience. This tactic cemented Sefi’s belief that Xenophon was not only supremely loyal but also her protector. In reality, he was strategically isolating her from her allies while feeding the flames of her paranoia, making her increasingly dependent on his counsel. That trust allowed Xenophon to shape how Sefi interpreted everyone around her. 

 

Xenophon’s influence becomes even more apparent after Valdir slays Sefi’s beloved griffins. He capitalizes on the incident by presenting evidence that Valdir’s drink had been laced with fever cloud mushrooms. Because fever cloud mushrooms are a tribal hallucinogen commonly used by shamans like Ozgard, the implication seems obvious to Sefi. She had already distanced herself from Valdir, but this proves to be the final nail in the coffin for Ozgard as a trusted advisor. 

 

Xenophon also fostered resentment toward Darrow and the Republic by arguing that Obsidian warriors were dying en masse for Republic interests rather than their own. The claim was not entirely false, but he repeatedly weaponized that grievance to drive an even deeper wedge between Sefi and the Republic. 

 

Without Ephraim’s chapters (and yes, I remember how many people complained about him in Iron Gold), we would have spent far less time with Sefi, Pax, Electra, and Ozgard. He gives us an outsider’s perspective on the Alltribe, which is fitting because we are outsiders looking in as well. While he may not drive the central conflict, his perspective provides a unique window into the Alltribe and the people around it. 

 

Ephraim’s story impacted me heavily—sometimes like a wrecking ball to the gut. At its heart, his story is about how broken someone can become—and still find something worth fighting for. Lyria makes the perfect follow-up because her struggle begins from the opposite direction. She isn’t trying to rebuild a shattered life—she’s trying to build one for the first time. 

Lyria: Lyria is one of the most improved characters in Dark Age, and for anyone who complained about her in Iron Gold, you can shove off! She begins this book scared, angry, and powerless, and Brown wastes no time showing us exactly what that feels like. Her chapters open with her captivity aboard the Julii ship, trapped inside a featureless puzzle cell where fluctuating gravity, blaring noises, and color-shifting lights leave her sleep-deprived, isolated, and even hallucinating. Yet even here, she starts taking back small pieces of control. 

 

Her arc isn’t about strength in the traditional sense—it’s about refusing to stay stuck. While trapped in her cell, she adapts to her situation by communicating with Volga, managing her environment, and carving out small pockets of control. Slowly, her demeanor and confidence improve. As she finds her footing, she stops taking shit from anyone, and it’s bloodydamn awesome. 

 

That resilience becomes even more impressive once she is forced to act under pressure. As much as I hated Victra for torturing Lyria and Volga, two things are true: Victra could have treated them exponentially worse, and the experience helped Lyria realize that she is a fighter. That realization helps her survive the Ascomanni attack on the Julii ship and lays the foundation for everything that follows, from infiltrating the childwives and helping lead a revolt against the Red Hand to ultimately freeing both Volga and Victra. Fig is undoubtedly part of the equation by this point, but the courage, stubbornness, and resilience driving her actions were present long before Fig appeared. Besides, Fig seems to amplify those qualities rather than create them. 

 

The impact of those qualities becomes impossible to miss when Lyria finally gets the chance to confront Harmony. Cornering her alone in a mine, Victra and Lyria force a reckoning that has been years in the making. Lyria looks her arch-nemesis square in the eyes—calmly—and she and Victra send Harmony into a pit full of deadly pitvipers. That moment is Lyria’s agency in action. It’s horrifying—but also very satisfying. 10/10 deserved. More importantly, it’s the clearest expression of her growth because Lyria’s arc in Dark Age is, at its core, about ceasing to react to the world and starting to shape it herself. She goes from “I don’t control my destiny” to “I’m making destiny my bitch.” 

 

That shift is precisely why her future suddenly feels so much bigger than it did in Iron Gold. Once Lyria begins shaping her own destiny, it becomes much easier to imagine her helping shape the fate of others as well. Lyria understands the consequences of political decisions better than many of the people making them. Unlike most leaders in this series, she understands what life in the Republic looks like from the very bottom of society. Because of that, she might be exactly the kind of leader the Republic needs, whether as a senator, the head of a spy network, or perhaps even as Sovereign one day. 

 

But just as Lyria’s future starts to feel full of possibility, Dark Age cruelly reminds us what kind of book it really is—the soul-crushing kind. That reminder comes in the form of one of the novel’s most heart-shattering moments: the murder of Ulysses. When his body was discovered, I stopped reading. For me, it’s one of the few moments in the book where the violence becomes impossible to compartmentalize. As Joseph Stalin once said, “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” Ulysses’ murder makes the horrors of war feel immediate and devastating. Lyria’s viewpoint forces you to sit with the human cost of that violence in a way the other POVs don’t. As a result, the trauma surrounding Ulysses’ murder becomes a defining aspect of her story.

 

More broadly, Ulysses’ death highlights something Dark Age keeps returning to: the danger of becoming numb to suffering. For many characters, desensitization becomes a coping mechanism that allows them to push traumatic experiences to the back of their minds, often as a form of self-protection. Very few characters in Dark Age get the opportunity to process what they have lost, which is why I was relieved when Victra finally took time to grieve the senseless loss of her newborn son. The contrast between grief and desensitization is one of the reasons Lyria’s chapters stood out to me. She doesn’t get to look away. Whether among refugees, victims of the Red Hand, or civilians caught in the middle of war, she is forced to witness the worst of the worst as the people society ignores struggle to survive.

 

Because she can’t look away, her perspective becomes one of the novel’s most valuable. She embodies the countless people trying to survive as the world falls apart around them. Unlike many of them, she changes—not because the world gets better, but because she does. She learns how to endure without letting the world decide who she becomes. In many ways, she represents what freedom looks like on the ground: not triumph, but confusion, instability, and change. 

 

That ground-level perspective makes the transition to Virginia especially interesting. Where Lyria experiences the Republic’s failures from the ground, Virginia must confront them from the top.

Virginia: Virginia’s chapters in Dark Age feel like multi-level chess in The Big Bang Theory—except the pieces are the Republic’s leaders and enemies. Her chapters are filled with Senate power struggles, factional infighting, and political maneuvering as every faction competes for influence. Virginia isn’t just fighting a war—she’s trying to hold the Republic together as it actively falls apart, all while navigating relationships across the Republic, from allies to enemies alike. There was no room for error. Only consequences—and they weren’t just political.

 

Nowhere is that more obvious than in her efforts to rescue Pax and Electra. As a mother, she wanted to act. As Sovereign, she couldn’t afford to. The stakes extended far beyond her family. If word of Pax and Electra’s situation leaked, the political fallout could cost Virginia her position and hand the Republic over to leaders who were far less interested in preserving it. Unable to leave her post and retrieve Pax and Electra herself, Virginia relied on Victra to act on her behalf. The plan was to trade Lyria and Volga to Sefi in exchange for the safe return of Electra and Pax. Unfortunately, the mission turns into a complete debacle—thank Fa. Even so, Virginia manages to maintain her position and prevent a change in Republic leadership, at least for the moment. Preserving her position, however, is only one of the many crises on Virginia’s plate. She’s also trying to support her husband from half a solar system away. If she couldn’t reach him herself, she would find another way to help.

 

For Virginia, waiting on the sidelines for the Senate to approve sending aid to Darrow was never an option. If the Republic wouldn’t move fast enough, she would. Despite never receiving official approval to grant herself additional wartime authority (cough*Day of Red Doves*cough), she still finds a way to send the life-saving supplies to the Mercurian Free Legions and a message of hope to Darrow. Her message was simple: "The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends." 

 

Virginia demonstrates that philosophy throughout the novel, especially in how she approaches her strained relationship with Dancer. He had already spent months being manipulated without realizing it, and she knew that trying to manipulate him further would only push him away. What he needed, and deserved, was the truth. So she and Sevro used the PsychoSpike recording to show Dancer that the Duke of Hands had used him and positioned him as the fall guy in the Syndicate’s plans to tear the Republic apart. Her honesty helped open his eyes to the threat the Syndicate and Society Remnant posed to the Republic. 

 

That’s the dilemma of her position. It’s not whether she’s right, but whether anyone will listen before it’s too late. Dancer listened, but only because Virginia understood what mattered to him. For all his flaws, Dancer values the Republic’s well-being more than his own reputation. Recognizing that, Virginia knew coercion would never work. To understand why, it helps to look at Dancer’s upbringing. 

 

Dancer’s reaction is logical because the Vale, religion, competition, and scarcity he was raised in were each designed by the Board of Quality Control to create obedience and prevent unity between clans. The goal was never to simply manage the Reds, but to make them police themselves. That conditioning extended into nearly every aspect of life. Because the Board viewed Reds primarily as laborers, it made homosexuality taboo, turning something deeply personal into a tool of control meant to ensure the continued production of workers. So naturally, when Dancer saw the compromising footage of him and the Duke together, it was more than a political embarrassment; it reopened a lifetime of shame rooted in that conditioning. 

 

Virginia’s response is significant because she wasn’t managing him politically—she was navigating the scars of shame and distrust that conditioning had instilled in him. Instead of using the recording as leverage, she and Sevro destroyed it. This decision was more than a political calculation; it reflected one of Virginia’s greatest strengths: her ability to understand the systems that shape people. 

 

Virginia’s understanding of Dancer pays immediate dividends. After she and Sevro destroy the recording, Dancer agrees to speak with the other Vox Populi members on her behalf and publicly support her efforts. She and the senators gather at the Forum, where Virginia believes she has secured enough votes to assume wartime authority, allowing her to send an army and supplies to aid Darrow on Mercury. For a moment, it appears that her efforts have paid off. 

 

Unfortunately, insight and good intentions can only do so much when the Republic’s foundations have already begun to collapse. Rather than granting her more wartime power, the Forum turns into a slaughterhouse. 

 

As some senators succumb to poison hidden on their ceremonial togas, the shield protecting the Forum goes down and Lilath’s lowColor mob rushes inside. Her mob overruns the building, and the chamber descends into chaos. Daxo, along with other Golds, Grays, and Obsidians, rush to Virginia’s defense, but without their weapons, they are rapidly cut down. Senators throughout the Forum are slaughtered as well. It is a literal bloodbath.

 

The violence alone makes the scene memorable, but Brown’s craftsmanship is what elevates it. Seriously, read this: 

He [Daxo] cleaves the Red with the scorcher in half with the edge of the Dawn Scepter’s star. A man swings at him with a knife. Daxo is already past him, but reaches back to shatter his hand and take the knife. He wheels it down on the head of a Brown in a hammer stroke, flattening the head, and then casually flicks the scepter back into and through the face of another man before bringing it about in a wheeling stroke that shatters three more of the rioters. He kicks a Brown woman in the chest. Her sternum collapses and a bulge from his foot pushes out her back. The last, a young Red man with piercings through the bridge of his nose, stabs at Daxo. Daxo catches the blade in his left hand. It sinks into the palm but bends against the reinforced bone as Daxo pushes back till the man’s straightened arm snaps like a twig. Daxo embeds the scepter in the man’s chest and grabs the man’s other hand. He pulls on both arms, lifting the man in the air so that he is eye to eye with Daxo, his feet kicking half a meter from the ground. With a roar, Daxo pulls off both the man’s arms. The body drops to the floor, spitting blood. Daxo rips the scepter out of the man, pulling ribs with it, and beats his own bloody chest with gore-spattered hands. “LIONHEART!!!” He spins the scepter, pointing it at the crowd. “Dogs! Traitors! In the name of your Sovereign, disarm! Disarm!”

 

I reread this paragraph several times because I found it so striking. What impressed me most was Brown’s command of pacing—slowing things down when he wants the reader to sit with a moment and accelerating them when chaos takes over. The intensity of the scene made me feel as though I were standing in the Forum watching the battle unfold. It. Was. Glorious. That level of control is one of the reasons Daxo’s final stand lives rent-free in my head alongside the ending of Golden Son. 

 

Meanwhile, Virginia’s situation continues to deteriorate.

 

The scale of the chaos surrounding her is almost impossible to comprehend. Sevro is on Earth trying to survive a Syndicate ambush. Darrow is on Mercury fighting to keep himself and his troops alive. Atalantia sieges Mercury. Luna is unraveling after the Day of Red Doves. Sefi is fighting to take the mines on Mars. Lyria, Victra, and Volga are battling the Red Hand on Mars. Fa is preparing to usurp Sefi. The Rim has allied with the Society Remnant to bring down the Republic. And right in the middle of that chaos is Virginia. She has spent the entire novel trying to hold the Republic together, and now she is a prisoner in the hostile takeover. 

 

As if the Republic’s external enemies weren’t enough, another threat had been growing in the background for years. Unlike many of Virginia’s other enemies, this threat traces its roots directly back to the original trilogy. In Morning Star, the Jackal casually mentions that he isn’t worried about his plans failing because he had a Plan B. At the time, I assumed he was referring to the nukes. Instead, he appears to have been alluding to a plan to clone himself in the event of his death. Preserving the Jackal’s life was never the real goal. It was to manufacture another Adrius. For someone so obsessed with survival, that is a chilling distinction.

The full implications of Adrius’s contingency plan are far more disturbing than simple cloning. Lilath carried out that plan using his stored DNA to conceive and raise a clone of Adrius. From the moment of his conception, she began shaping the Abomination into Adrius’s successor. To do this, she used videos Adrius had recorded to instill the same skills, mindset, and worldview that defined the Jackal. But she wasn’t simply raising a clone; she was trying to recreate Adrius himself. What makes this situation truly disturbing is that Lilath’s devotion to Adrius never disappeared. Instead, she redirected that same obsession toward the Abomination, blurring the line between child, successor, and replacement. 

 

The result is an Abomination who, in some ways, feels even more dangerous than Adrius himself. What makes him frightening isn’t that he is identical to the Jackal—it’s that he isn’t. He lacks many of the experiences that shaped Adrius, but those missing experiences do not make him any less dangerous. If anything, they make him more unpredictable. Adrius understood that his failures had shaped him, and he wanted the Abomination to inherit those lessons. But Lilath put Adrius on such a tall pedestal that the Abomination never learned from those vital failures. Raised in secret and hidden from the world for most of his life, he was denied the experiences that taught Adrius how to navigate politics, manipulate people, and solve real problems. That absence of experience left him fundamentally different from the Jackal. 

 

Virginia quickly realized those differences could be exploited. She knew that if she was going to escape the Syndicate’s hands, she would have to turn Lilath and the clone against one another. To do that, she focused on what motivated each of them. The Abomination craved Virginia’s approval and the sense of family she represented, while Lilath’s devotion to both the Jackal and his clone bordered on worship. While probing the Abomination, Virginia discovered that Lilath had deliberately withheld some of Adrius’s recordings, believing it would make the clone stronger and crueler. Armed with that knowledge, Virginia drove a wedge between Lilath and the clone by revealing that she possessed a collection of puzzle boxes Adrius had left behind. In doing so, she demolished any control Lilath had over him, laying bare a weakness the Jackal would never have had. 

 

The Abomination’s relationship with Virginia mirrors Adrius’s relationship with his father, Nero, in an important way: both crave validation from someone whose approval feels impossible to earn. Although he was raised on Adrius’s recordings and groomed to become his successor, he remains a child searching for a family. Lilath may have taught him strategy, cruelty, and ambition, but she could never give him the genuine familial connection that he hungers for. Because of that, the Abomination becomes fixated on Virginia, the closest thing he has to family. As Adrius’s twin, she possesses firsthand knowledge of Adrius, Nero, and the Augustus family that no recording could ever provide. He wants her approval, respect, and perhaps even her affection. Above all, he wants Virginia to see him as something other than a copy of Adrius. In many ways, Virginia becomes the person whose opinion matters most to him.  

What separates the Abomination from Adrius, however, is his motivation. Adrius was driven by rejection, a need for paternal validation, and a desire for absolute control through terror. Beneath that was a desperate fear of being discarded. Every victory, atrocity, and contingency plan seemed designed to prove that he was too valuable, too intelligent, and too dangerous to ever be cast aside again. The Abomination, by contrast, seems driven by sibling validation, a search for identity, and the weight of living up to a ghost. Unlike Adrius, he inherited a mythology before he ever had the chance to become his own person. In many ways, he feels like a blank slate being forced into a rigid mold. Lilath didn’t just raise him to admire the Jackal; she raised him to become him. The problem is that the Abomination isn’t Adrius, no matter how badly Lilath wants him to be. He is trapped between the legacy he inherited and the identity he has yet to discover for himself. 

 

For all those differences, he is no less sociopathic than the Jackal. When Virginia and the clone are alone together, he mentions that he once visited a slaughterhouse on Earth with Lilath and was fascinated by how it operated. To commemorate the trip, he wanted a giant iron cow constructed. However, Lilath commissioned an iron wolf designed to torture and kill his enemies. To her, a predator killing a predator made tactical sense, and there was a certain irony in killing Howlers inside a wolf. To the Abomination, however, the cow symbolized people blindly marching toward their own destruction. By creating the iron wolf, Lilath completely missed that point. From that moment on, he viewed her as a fool who understood neither him nor the philosophy behind the symbol. 

 

Virginia, however, is far less interested in his philosophical musings than in what he does with them. In all honesty, she seems genuinely disgusted with the Abomination throughout their interactions—and even tries to kill him at one point. After all, he took a group of Howlers, locked them inside the giant iron wolf statue, and then had it heated so they would suffer as they burned alive. It’s the kind of cruelty that is equal parts symbolic and horrific, making him feel eerily similar to Adrius. Yet the similarities go only so far. Unlike Adrius, who forged his own path through failure and adversity, the Abomination was raised on a mythologized version of the Jackal and shaped by the sycophants around him. 

 

While the people around her grow increasingly unstable, Virginia remains remarkably consistent. Her sections match exactly how I imagined her speaking and thinking. Brown did a fantastic job showcasing Virginia’s Gold education, critical thinking, and intellect through her speeches and dialogue. They feel polished, deliberate, and thoughtful while carrying the weight of leadership. The Audible narrator, Rendah Heywood, brought those qualities to life, capturing both Virginia’s intelligence and the authority that comes with being Sovereign. 

 

Virginia’s political skill and intelligence are vital to her survival, but her resilience defines her. More than any other character in Dark Age, Virginia shows that building a society is far more difficult than breaking one.  

**

 

One thing Brown does remarkably well is reward readers who pay close attention to details. He left several breadcrumbs in Iron Gold that seem insignificant at the time but begin to pay off in meaningful ways in Dark Age. One of the first breadcrumbs I kept coming back to was Sophocles’s fascination with the birds at the Telemanus estate. When the birds resurfaced during Virginia, Sevro, and Dancer's meeting at Lake Silene, they suddenly seemed far more significant. The birds turned out to be eavesdropping devices planted outside the Telemanus and Augustus homes. That’s why Sophocles was enamored with the birds—he knew they were not real. The reveal also casts Publius’s actions in a new light. As Dancer lay dying on the Senate floor, Virginia noticed Publius smirk at her and wondered how he could have known Dancer would support her. The birds provide a possible answer, one the Abomination later reinforces when he boasts that his "little birds sang such sweet songs” to him. 

 

Another breadcrumb surfaced in the form of a Copper and a Gray. While wandering around the Telemanus estate with Sophocles, Lyria witnesses a Copper and a Gray having a heated argument inside a jamField. Much later, when Publius’s role in Dark Age grew, I immediately thought back to that scene. The Copper had to be Publius “The Incorruptible.” As a general rule of thumb, if someone has a moniker like “The Incorruptible” attached to their name, it is either staunchly true or completely, and often ironically, false. Publius certainly fell into the latter category. Once it became clear that Publius was working with the Syndicate and the Abomination, Lyria’s encounter with the Copper in Iron Gold suddenly took on new meaning. 

 

And what about the Gray? If that Gray was a warden sworn to protect the Republic, what better way to bring it down than to have one of its protectors stand by and watch it fall? It didn’t help that earlier in Iron Gold, Darrow and Sevro accidentally killed the beloved hero-turned-warden Wulfgar and faced no consequences. That would piss off plenty of loyal wardens and give Publius a pool of recruits. 

 

Another breadcrumb centers around Cassius’s “death” in Iron Gold—a storyline that never sat right with me. I stated in my Iron Gold review that Cassius wasn’t dead. There was no body. It was an off-screen death, which left just enough ambiguity that I was never fully convinced he was gone. After Cassius’s duels on Io, Diomedes took the severely wounded Gold away. Wanting to uphold his honor, Diomedes repaid Cassius for saving Seraphina’s life by saving his own. He later announced that Cassius had died from his injuries and claimed that warriors had stolen his body to desecrate it, allowing Cassius to disappear from the Rim’s view entirely. 

 

Somehow, Cassius escapes, repossesses the Archi, and flees to the Core to warn them about the Rim’s plans. Then, when all seems lost in Darrow’s final chapters, Cassius returns to save him from certain death on Mercury. Cassius’s return only works because Brown gives the mystery room to breathe. A lot of room to breathe. His reappearance also raises one of the questions I am most eager to see answered in Lightbringer: what happens next between Darrow and Cassius? 

 

Cassius wasn’t the only character whose “death” deserved a second look. I called Lilath as the Syndicate’s leader (I even told my hubs after publishing my Iron Gold review). Her body was not found when the ship was destroyed in Morning Star. Unfortunately, she survived and raised the Abomination, which I never would have predicted. 

 

***

 

Zooming out for a moment, Dark Age has a vast cast of antagonistic factions, villains, and supporting characters all justling for power. We see Dido vs. Diomedes, the Abomination vs. Boneriders, Atalantia vs Atlas and Fa, Lysander and Apollonius vs. Atalantia and Ajax, and the Rim vs. the Core. Once you start looking at all these competing agendas together, the story begins to resemble a conspiracy board.

 

Each individual villain driving those conflicts makes things even messier. Atalantia is a major player, though I already covered her extensively in Lysander’s section. Ajax will be a fascinating player given his anger toward Lysander and Atalantia. Even more interesting to me is his father, Atlas, who seems to be playing his own game to gain control of the Core—if not for himself, then for someone he deems capable or aligned with his values. Unlike the other enemy leaders who serve themselves, Atlas serves the ideal of a “true society” rather than a person, making him a dangerous and unpredictable player on the board. If he decides the Rim better serves his ideals, I have little doubt he will turn on Atalantia. Diomedes is equally difficult to read. I am not sure whether he is genuinely aligned with the Society Remnant or simply using them until the Rim can arrive in full force to destroy Atalantia and her army, should the Republic collapse. 

 

The Republic also faces threats much closer to home. Among them is the Abomination, who has the support of the Boneriders and holds Sevro and his Howlers on Luna. His next move is likely to involve tracking down Virginia on Mars.

 

Those broader political power struggles are only part of the problem. Take Apollonius, for example. The prospect of him learning the Mind’s Eye technique is terrifying. He is already extremely intelligent, dangerous, and unhinged, making him a feral apex predator. He is nicknamed the Minotaur, and the title fits. Lysander’s other ally, Glirastes, may prove just as valuable, becoming instrumental in rebuilding Mercury and helping Lysander win support across the Society Remnant. If they follow through with their plans, Lysander gains more than a rebuilt planet—he gains legitimacy. 

 

But even with all of these threats, Volsung Fa is the one who concerns me the most. He is one of the most disturbing, larger-than-life antagonists in Dark Age. As Atlas’s super-weapon, he operates on a completely different level. He is massive, brutal, and possesses unmatched physical strength. But that isn’t even the most terrifying part (although that IS horrifying); it’s how deliberately he targets the people closest to his enemies. Sefi is a perfect example. Atlas & Fa deployed Xenophon to infiltrate Sefi’s life, and we all know how well that went. He also coordinated with the Obsidian Jarls and turned them against her progressive rule. After stripping away her support network, he attacked. Not only did he orchestrate Sefi's torturous death, but he also encouraged the destruction of the community she worked so hard to build. 

 

I fear he plans to do the same thing to Volga. He’s already removed one of her major supports, Ephraim, by ripping out his heart and eating the damn thing. With Eph gone, I cannot help but wonder whether Fa will use the people she cares about to keep her in line. She has such a kind heart, and I have no doubt he will try to break or corrupt it. If that happens, I swear I will chuck the book across the room. It’s time for Victra to keep her word about House Barca answering the call should she ever need aid. 

 

Fortunately, the villains aren’t the only ones with capable allies. The Republic has an impressive supporting cast drawn from increasingly diverse corners of the Core. One such person is Harnassus, a disciplined Orange and key military organizer of the Republic. His downfall was his willingness to comply with the Senate. By sending half of the Mercurian troops back to Luna, he helped create the opening Atalantia needed for her attempt to take Mercury. Yet even with only a portion of the Free Legions remaining, his steady operational command prevents total collapse. It makes sense why Harnassus obeyed the Senate. Unlike Darrow, he could not simply ignore its orders without consequences. But when the Senate orders him to arrest Darrow, he sends the message “Bloodydamn” back to them and continues to stand by Darrow as they fight together on Mercury. The Senate wasn’t going to send aid fast enough to help Harnassus and his men. Darrow was. 

 

The Rat Legions were some of the toughest Red veterans to emerge from the mining tunnels on Mars. Because of their brutal, Vietnam-style fighting experience in the Martian tunnels, they are uniquely suited to some of the most horrific combat environments in the solar system. Their presence on Mercury was instrumental in holding the choke points and strongholds throughout Heliopolis during the Ash Armada’s Ash Rain. While more conventional armies fold under the terror Atlas spreads through enemy ranks, the Rat Legions hold the line. Without the resilience and numbers of the Rat Legions, Darrow's forces would have been overwhelmed much earlier in the Mercury campaign. They represent the heavy price paid to keep the dream of the Republic alive. 

 

In Ephraim’s chapters, we see Sefi and the Obsidians break away from the Republic to build a peaceful homeland on war-torn Mars. While doing so, she works to unite the fractured Obsidian tribes into a single people, the Alltribe. After generations of forced servitude to Golds, Sefi wants the Obsidians to build a future on their own terms. To help her people succeed, she employs other Colors who are experts in their fields—like Ephraim—to educate the Alltribe and create a more self-sufficient Obsidian community that does not rely solely on its warrior traditions. That goal alone makes Sefi one of the more compelling leaders in the series.  

 

Taken together, characters like Harnassus, the Rat Legions, and Sefi help anchor a story that has grown far larger than any one protagonist. The expanding scope of the conflict never feels overwhelming because each layer builds naturally on what came before. The moving pieces now include the Rim entering the Core, the Society Remnant consolidating power on Venus and Mercury, Mars becoming the last major battleground, Luna descending into corruption and rebellion, Earth falling under Rim and Society control, and the emergence of the Ascomanni from the Kuiper Belt. Despite all of that movement, Brown keeps the story grounded through a handful of core perspectives: Lyria and Ephraim on Mars, Darrow and Lysander on Mercury, and Virginia on Luna. No matter how large the conflict becomes, there is always a familiar viewpoint anchoring the reader. 

 

Dark Age isn’t expansive solely because of its war and politics. The technology adds to the world-building and is every bit as futuristic as I’d hoped. Darrow’s chapters center on repairing and modifying the Storm Gods, while Glirastes builds the largest EMP ever created. Even though Carving is not new, Screwface’s modifications suggest the Republic may have additional spies in Atalantia’s ranks—or vice versa. In Lysander’s chapters, we learn of Oculus—a hidden city in the Rim designed by Glirastes and secretly funded by Quicksilver. That mystery resurfaces in Lyria’s chapters when Pax points her toward Oculus, believing its advanced technology may be capable of repairing the parasite implanted within her. HunterKiller robots also make their debut in Ephraim’s chapters.

 

Virginia’s chapters push things even further technologically. We are introduced to the Pandemonium Chair and learn that she has studied its uses, leading to the creation of the PsychoSpike. The device allows the user to view, edit, or erase a subject’s memories and can also manipulate brain chemistry and hijack the nervous system, causing temporary paralysis. But wait, there’s more! In her chapters, we also learn that Octavia used the Ocular Sphere to create a Big Brother-style surveillance network, spying through cameras, drones, and satellites while compiling extensive files on various Golds. Brown has created a more expansive world with each installment in the series, and nothing about Dark Age suggests he is finished. He has engrossed me with larger battles, more political intrigue, and he continues to push the boundaries of what is possible within the world itself. Lightbringer is going to knock my socks off; I just know it. 

 

***

 

Dark Age does something no other book has done—it crushed my spirit. I’ve cried and been overwhelmed by many books, but I have never read one that left me this emotionally exhausted. 

 

Part of the reason it is so exhausting is that Brown refuses to leave the reader in despair. Even at its bleakest moments, he leaves behind glimmers of hope. In the later part of the book, Virginia escapes the Abomination and performs the Iron Circle around Mars. Looking down at the surface, she sees the shape of the SlingBlade and two massive fleets gathering to defend the planet—reminders that Mars remains loyal to the Reaper and the Republic. 

 

The same pattern repeats throughout the novel. Sevro, Clown, and Pebble remain trapped with Lilath and the Abomination, yet there is still a chance they will be rescued by Darrow and Cassius—or that Sevro has a crazy plan of his own. Pax was kidnapped by Ephraim and later held hostage by Sefi, but the boy we met in Iron Gold is gone. He shows immense growth—learning to fight, maneuvering ships in battle, and using Virginia’s files to strategize well beyond his years. Even Darrow’s darkest moment ends with Cassius arriving just when all seems lost. These glimmers of hope matter because Brown knows exactly when the reader needs them.

 

***

 

An impressive improvement over Iron Gold was that Brown did not force equal chapter counts for each POV—he let each storyline take the space it needed. Part I focused on Darrow and Lysander and served as an effective setup for Virginia’s chapters. Had Virginia, Lyria, or Ephraim’s chapters appeared in Part I, it would have disrupted the flow. In later parts, Brown wasn’t afraid to have several chapters in a row following the same character. He also didn’t hesitate to pause a character’s storyline for extended stretches. Brown’s decision not to force equal POV distribution kept me constantly curious about whose chapter would come next. 

 

Brown applies the same level of care to the novel’s larger framework. Part I centered on the struggle for Mercury between Darrow and Lysander. Part II revolved around the politicking and the Day of Red Doves sequence. Part III shifted its attention to the Obsidians and the Abomination, while Part IV built toward the novel’s final stands. Each part builds naturally into the next, moving from battlefield conflict to political collapse, then to rising chaos, and finally the desperate last stands that close the book. 

 

The novel’s structure is only part of what makes Dark Age so effective. Brown consistently delivers with his dialogue and prose, bringing each scene to life through memorable character interactions, sharp attention to detail, and a distinct sense of atmosphere. From Virginia’s Day of Red Doves chapter to Ephraim’s naked mop attack, Sefi’s death, and Lysander watching Darrow carve through an army, Brown delivers some of the strongest scenes in the series so far. This book is easily Brown’s grittiest and goriest yet, and he does an excellent job bringing the battles and combat scenes to life. I tend to lean on the same words repeatedly—hit, sliced, ripped, tore, shot, bludgeoned, and slashed—while Brown’s wide range of vocabulary, vivid descriptions, and beautiful analogies make every fight feel fresh and engaging. Many times, I found myself holding my breath or speed-reading through sections to see what would happen next. 

 

My biggest criticism of Dark Age had nothing to do with the novel itself—it had everything to do with the Audible narration (not the dramatized version). The name pronunciation changes made me cringe every time they differed from the earlier audiobooks. Cassius, previously pronounced “Cass-ee-us,” became “Cash-us.” At one point, Ephraim’s narrator also mispronounced Sefi’s name. Instead of “Seph-ee,” it was said as “See-fee.” 

 

The narrator changes also altered the tone of several characters, particularly Lyria and Lysander. When a narrator successfully establishes a character’s voice, consistency across later books becomes important. Lyria’s bitter, gritty, unpolished voice from Iron Gold was not present in Dark Age. Her melodrama fit the character because she was young and had endured a tremendous amount of pain. In Dark Age—both in Brown’s writing and the Audible performance—her voice felt much more polished. When did that happen? What happened to her edge? Perhaps the parasite entering her body could have impacted her vocabulary, but her voice sounded different even before that moment. 

 

As for Lysander, I especially didn’t care for his new narrator. We went from a young man whose thoughts moved a hundred miles a minute and carried the lexicon of someone highly educated in Iron Gold to a slow-speaking old man with a slur who sounded like he smoked 450 burners a day on his trip from the Rim to Mercury. The performance fundamentally changed the character. I am very relieved that Tim Gerard Reynolds is the sole narrator for Lightbringer, although I would have preferred the original cast from Iron Gold and Heywood narrating Virginia. Whatever my issues with the audiobook, the novel itself did not miss the mark.

 

***

 

Few characters leave Dark Age unchanged, especially Ephraim, Lysander, Lyria, and Pax. It was awesome to watch them mature right before our eyes. Their development feels earned because Dark Age repeatedly forces them to confront the consequences of their beliefs. Even when the characters made misguided—or outright stupid—choices, those choices rang true to who they were. I am very curious to see how the remaining three change in Lightbringer, but I’m most excited to watch Pax. He has Virginia’s mind and Darrow’s spirit—a dangerous combination, and one that ties directly into a theme running throughout Dark Age: inheritance. 

 

Nearly every major character spends the novel deciding which parts of the past deserve to survive and which deserve to be left behind. I have discussed many examples throughout this review: Pax inheriting from Darrow and Mustang, Lysander inheriting from Octavia, Virginia struggling against her father Nero’s beliefs, and the Abomination inheriting both Adrius’s DNA and legacy. You see it in Volga caught between Ragnar’s legacy and Fa’s vision for the Obsidians, Cassius trying to leave Lysander with a better legacy than the one Octavia gave him, and Darrow thinking about Pax’s future. The novel repeatedly asks what people choose to carry forward, but it also forces them to live with the results of those choices. 

 

If inheritance is one of the novel’s central themes, consequences are the other. I have discussed many examples throughout the review, but my favorite moment is a line from the prologue. Using a communications channel, Darrow speaks directly to Atalantia, saying, “Well, here I am, you deviant bitch. Here I bloody am. The motherfucking consequence.” It’s brilliant. Bloody. Fucking. Brilliant. Darrow’s message is clear: if Atalantia wants him dead, she’s going to have to do it herself. She may have backed him into a corner, but by doing so, she has unleashed the Reaper. More importantly, the line encapsulates one of the series’ central themes: the bill always comes at the end.

 

Throughout Dark Age, characters are repeatedly forced to confront the consequences of their choices and adapt in ways they never thought they would. In doing so, Brown reveals what survival, power, and change truly cost. One minute you think everything is going to be okay and the next, a door slams in your face. The relentless emotional pressure kept me reading late into the morning, occasionally sneaking glances at the ends of chapters. It’s been months since I finished Dark Age, and the book has stayed with me long after I turned the last page. 

 

***

 

I was warned that the three books after Morning Star are very dark, and I have to say—Dark Age was the most relentless one yet. I still laughed, but more often than not, I found my heart racing or breaking. The deaths hit hard, and there were multiple times I reached for my consolatory cheese and crackers. 

 

Dark Age is what happens when every debt comes due. It’s a story where each victory demands another sacrifice—whether in war, leadership, freedom, love, or hope. The novel repeatedly asks what people are willing to lose in order to survive and whether the cost is worth paying. It’s the kind of book that makes you grimace, flinch, and want to throw it far across the room. And somehow, I would still read it all over again in a heartbeat.

 

That alone is enough for Dark Age to earn a perfect 5/5. Few books examine the cost of survival with such honesty, brutality, and heart. The prose, dialogue, POVs, and worldbuilding were superb. Dark Age kept me on the edge of my seat—and left me wrung out. Even after putting my heart through the wringer, I still wanted more. That may be the highest compliment I can give it. Truthfully, I have no idea how Lightbringer and the final book in the series are going to top this. I absolutely cannot wait to start reading it!

 

I highly recommend that you READ THE FRACKING BOOK!

 

Up Next: The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields