Morning Star is a science fiction novel published in 2016 by American author Pierce Brown. The novel is the third in his Red Rising trilogy, which tells the story of a Martian miner called Darrow who attempts to infiltrate and overthrow the upper-class "Golds."
Like the previous books in the trilogy, Morning Star is set on Mars, which humanity had colonized hundreds of years ago. This novel follows Darrow after he has suffered a year of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Jackal, including three months in interrogation and nine months trapped in a dark box. He is believed to be dead by those he has left behind, as there was a fake execution held by the Jackal.
Darrow manages to free himself from his imprisonment and joins the rebellion once again. After saving Victra au Julii, Darrow hides at a rebel stronghold. After some time to recover, the group decides to complete some small missions, such as kidnapping Quicksilver, the richest man in the galaxy.
After this, the group reaches the Ares hideout and Darrow fights with Sevro. However, this ultimately strengthens their friendship and they decide that Darrow should lead. The rebel group then announces across society that Darrow is in fact alive, and will lead the uprising. Darrow and Ragnar then leave the hideout, pretending to be Golds, but they are pursued by another ship and crash into the ocean. After facing various obstacles, they arrive at the Obsidian city and are captured and imprisoned before meeting Queen Alia. In the end, this results in the Obsidians joining Darrow's rebellion.
After finding out that Jackal has been hoarding fuel and nuclear warheads, Darrow argues that they should take the war beyond Mars. Traveling to a moon of Jupiter, they meet the Arch-Governor of the moons, and they both talk about assisting each other with their respective missions. The Arch-Governor decides that he will choose between Roque's and Darrow's missions.
The Arch-Governor decides to take Darrow's side, and the battle of Ilium is started, between Darrow and Roque's armies. Darrow ultimately wins, and take his forces back to Mars to fight the Jackal.
