If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the next installment in Pierce Brown’s Sons of Ares comic series, you’re in luck, boyo. The hardcover book for Red Rising: Sons Of Ares Vol. 2 is available for pre-order, with a release date set for November 19, 2019 (see update).
RELEASE DATE UPDATE as of Oct. 2019:
While Dynamite’s website now says the release date for Sons of Ares Vol. 2 is November 20, 2019, Amazon has it listed as December 3 (same for Barnes & Noble and Indigo). Update as of later in October: Now Amazon says January 7, 2020. Update as of November 20: Amazon’s release date for the hardcover now shows January 21, 2020. Dynamite still has November 20 as the release date and the option to purchase the book is now showing.
On November 11, Amazon’s Kindle version of Sons of Ares Volume 2 updated the release date from November 20 to December 4, and then to December 11.
Check out the cover below:
Credit to the fine Howlers over at the Hic Sunt Leones Facebook group for spotting the book listings at Amazon and Canada’s Indigo site. I also found it available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble.
Spoiler Alert: This article contains vague spoilers about the plot of the Sons of Ares comics, which serve as a prequel to the Red Rising story. To be clear, these are not traditional novels like the Red Rising series. Sons of Ares is comic series (or graphic novel). If you haven’t read these comics yet, you can find more info about the series here and purchase Sons of Ares Vol. 1 book at Amazon.
What about the comics?
Ok, now let’s get to what we know and what we don’t know. We’re seeing the hardcover book available for pre-order, but there isn’t anything about Volume 2 on Dynamite’s website yet (that I was able to find, anyway), so it’s unclear if the comics will release ahead of the book, and if so, when. The first volume was released as individual comics before they were compiled into a hardcover book. I assumed that would be the case for Volume 2, however, as I said, there’s nothing on Dynamite’s website to confirm that yet.
UPDATE: A fan asked Pierce Brown if Wrath was an individual comic or the compilation of all six issues. Brown confirmed that it’s all six.
The plot:
Amazon has the following description included with Sons of Ares: Vol. 2: Wrath:
The world of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising expands further in the next installment of the Sons of Ares storyline.
Fitchner’s quest for revenge continues as he and the other Sons of Ares seek out the Golds who have wronged his family. But actions come with repercussions and an elaborate game of cat and mouse is on. A battle of Gold versus Gold erupts further into more than acts of vengeance and becomes the seeds of a revolution.
There’s nothing particularly spoilery about that plot, but it certainly sounds ominous. Paired with the unsurprising but deliciously vengeful sounding subtitle, it’s likely safe to assume there will be blood.
And speaking of blood, the cover art teases a bit of violence, along with a glimpse of (presumably) little Sevro. Is that Bryn’s sister, Ryanna holding him up in the air? Finally, at the center of the cover is likely to the split sides of Fitchner, as himself and Ares.
Sons of Ares Volume 1 took us back to Fitchner’s Institute days and then on to the time period where he fell for Bryn, the Red woman he would go on to marry and have a child with. Enter Sevro, the little baby Goblin who barely made it out of the last issue alive. Bryn was not so fortunate. So it stands to reason that Fitchner would have some bones to pick with his fellow Golds. And while we know where that will lead him, there are still pieces to this puzzle that have yet to be revealed.
UPDATE: ComicsBeat.com has some great quotes from Pierce Brown and co-writer Rik Hoskin talking about collaborating again for Sons of Ares Volume 2: Wrath. I especially like what Hoskin had to say about Volume 2 being a whole new story…
“For our second volume, we’re bouncing all around the Solar System with Fitchner and the Sons of Ares, with the usual cruelty, mannered snobbery, and violence we’ve come to expect from this world. It’s a whole new story, filling in the background of Ares that was only ever hinted at in the books. So, choose your color and get ready to stand your ground… or be trampled!”
Deepgrave, please?
Will we finally get to find out what happened with Fitchner at Deepgrave? There was a mention of that in Iron Gold. I thought maybe it was setup for more information to come later in the Red Rising books, but that was before we knew there would be more Sons of Ares comics coming. Will we see Fitchner’s “not exactly an escape” Deepgrave story at some point in the SoA comics?
As was the case with the first volume of Sons of Ares, Pierce Brown and Rik Hoskin are credited as writers of Volume 2, with Eli Powell listed as the artist. Amazon’s listing has the page count for Volume 2 at 132 pages, which is 20 pages shorter than the first volume.
Howler Life 