On the Brave New World of Mars, humanity is segregated into genetically engineered castes, each a different color. Beneath the surface of this inhospitable Dune like world lives Darrow, a young miner. The Helium-3 must flow. But rebellion is afoot, and Darrow undergoes operation Gattaca to transform his lowly Red body into that of a Gold. Then it’s off to the Institute, where he competes in the Hunger Games to crown the next Ender. Soon he’s caught up in a Game of Thrones as the great houses vie for power. Along the way he makes some quirky friends, all the while remembering his dead Braveheart wife.

It’s all very familiar, but it’s blended together nicely. Like all your favorite flavors rolled together into a burrito. High praise, right? The writing isn’t inventive or challenging, but it’s smooth and entertaining. I think the book qualifies as young adult, but it seems to aim a little older. More emphasis on adult than young.

Most comparisons will be to the Hunger Games, capitalizing on recent success. The Institute is a long running free form battle between kids in the woods, occasionally observed or assisted by hidden sponsors. But in terms of purpose, it’s more like Ender’s game. It’s not a punishment, it’s a great honor, and designed as a training and selection facility.

Unlike the Hunger Games, Red Rising isn’t trapped by its concept. There’s a natural progression for sequels and it’s not the exact same thing all over again. After the Institute comes the Academy, but the second book skips right over that entirely, and is all about the events afterwards.

Along similar lines, most of the just so elements to the story make sense and fit nicely in the story’s world. The political structure and segregation of humanity into castes is, in the story, a natural consequence of early space colonization. It’s never explained what role Helium-3 plays in terraforming or why it must be mined on Mars, but after the first few chapters, it doesn’t matter. The central story elements require very little suspension of disbelief. A lot of the story works because the character was crafted and trained to be better. He has a different perspective, sometimes, because he was raised very differently, but it’s not the typical orphan hero story where a new magic power is discovered each chapter as necessitated by the plot.

If the book has a flaw, it may be that the characters are a bit too static. Their personalities at the moment of introduction pretty much fix their behavior from that point forward. It’s kept interesting, however, because even while all the good characters are working together, they have different ideas of what’s right, leading to some complex interactions. Some of the inevitable betrayals feel a little predictable, but often not. There’s a lot of scheming and potential for betrayal, and it doesn’t always come as expected.

The third book starts off a little slower, with more focus on ideological dialog than political maneuvering, but then it picks up again. There’s more than one suspiciously improbable turn of events, but eventually everything concludes satisfactorily.