Review: The Book 'Red Queen' Takes You To Newer Levels of Science-Fiction

The first book of author Victoria Aveyard’s new fantasy fiction novel series takes its readers through a world of power-hungry royals and the pains people went through to survive.

Victoria Aveyard grew up with a healthy dose of film and science-fiction narratives. Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones were some of the many films set in dystopian realities the soon-to-be best-selling author of the young adult fantasy novel series, Red Queen.

Her novel holds a sweeping tale of power and oppressive systems between two classes of people living in the same land; the Reds, who are born with red blood and were considered people of the lower-class who lived in the remote areas of the country and had to work laboriously to make ends meet for themselves.

In contrast to them, there were also the Silvers. These are the people of royalty and the higher class of society who were born with silver blood, that enables them to be equipped with various kinds of superhuman abilities, putting them at a superior level above their red counterparts.

The story surrounds the perspective of a Katniss-like main character, who possessed a deadly superhuman ability of her own despite being a Red. I delved deeper into the plot as it took me to places that opened doors to imagining the price ordinary citizens had to pay for their survival in a world of power-hungry leaders and politicians who rule their kingdom with an iron fist.

The words used in the novel describes the pain and thoughts of the main character throughout the plot in extremely meticulous detail. Every paragraph in the book was filled with words that were extremely descriptive and its narrative kept me glued to the pages at every turn. The sentences were plentiful and yet no word was redundant.

Everything Victoria Aveyard had to say through the voice of her main character were as real as it would be had she gone through the very same pain and ordeal she has created for her main character.

Victoria Aveyard took her readers through a series of heart-wrenching, suspenseful and breath-taking events that builds to the story plot, chapter by chapter. The development of every character in the book progresses throughout the pages and no character was left in the shadows of the story's heroine, Mare Barrow.

The series of story events was smooth and at no point of time confused me as a reader and I was able take in all that I have read without stopping to take a break to think about what I have just read and attempt to understand the storyline.

I felt that this fantasy novel itself was an epitome of creativity on a new level as compared other fictional reads that I have picked up over time. While the book had similar themes to another dystopian novel series The Hunger Games, I felt that this book had a creative touch to it when superhuman abilities and massive involvement of characters from the main character’s background, which was a step-up from everything The Hunger Games Series had to offer its readers.

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Original Date of Publication: February 2015

Sequel: Glass Sword

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Science Fiction

Rating: 9/10