I was afraid to write Morning Star.
For months I delayed that first sentence. I sketched ship schematics, wrote songs for Reds and Golds, histories of the families and the planets and the moons that make up the savage little world I’d stumbled onto in my room above my parents’ garage almost five years ago.
I wasn’t afraid because I didn’t know where I was going. I was afraid because I knew exactly how the story would end. I just didn’t think I was skillful enough to take you there.
Sound familiar?
So I put myself in seclusion. I packed my bags, my hiking boots, and left my apartment in Los Angeles for my family’s cabin on the wind-ripped coast of the Pacific Northwest.
I thought isolation would help the process, that somehow I would find my muse in the quiet and the fog of the coast. I could write sunup to sundown. I could walk among the evergreens. Channel the spirits of mythmakers past. It worked for Red Rising. It worked for Golden Son. But it didn’t work for Morning Star.
In my isolation, I felt shuttered, trapped by Darrow, trapped by the thousand paths he could follow and the congestion in my own brain. I wrote the initial chapters in that mental space. I suppose it helped their formation, giving Darrow a weird, sad mania behind his eyes. But I couldn’t see beyond his rescue from Attica.
It wasn’t until I returned from the cabin that the story began to find its voice and I began to understand that Darrow wasn’t the focus anymore. It was the people around him. It was his family, his friends, his loves, the voices that swarm and hearts that beat in tune with his own.
How could I ever expect to write something like that in isolation? Without the coffee powwows with Tamara Fernandez (the wisest person I know without white hair), the early dawn breakfasts with Josh Crook where we conspire to take over the world, the Hollywood Bowl concerts with Madison Ainley, the hours of debate about Roman military warfare with Max Carver, the ice cream crusades with Jarrett Llewelyn, the Battlestar nerdouts with Callie Young, and the maniacal plotting with Dennis “the Menace” Stratton?
Friends are the pulse of life. Mine are wild and vast and full of dreams and absurdity. Without them, I’d be a shade, and this book would be hollow between the covers. Thank you to each and every one of them, named and unnamed, for sharing this wonderful life with me.
Every upstart needs a wise wizard to guide his path and show him the proverbial ropes. I count myself lucky to have a titan of my youth become a mentor in my twenties. Terry Brooks, thank you for all the words of encouragement and advice. You’re the man.
Thank you to the Phillips Clan for always giving me a second home where I could dream aloud. And Joel in particular for sitting on that couch with me five years ago and wildly planning to make maps for a book that hadn’t yet been written. You’re a wonder and a brother in all but name. Thank you to my other brohirim: Aaron for making me write, and Nathan for always liking what I write, even when you shouldn’t.
Thank you also to my agent, Hannah Bowman, who found Red Rising amidst the slush. Havis Dawson for guiding the novels into more than twenty-eight different languages. Tim Gerard Reynolds for giving me chills with his audiobook narration. My foreign publishers for their tireless efforts in trying to translate Bloodydamn or ripWing or anything Sevro says into Korean or Italian or whatever the local tongue.
Thank you to the peerless team at Del Rey for believing in Red Rising from the moment it first passed across your desks. I could not ask for a better House. Scott Shannon, Tricia Narwani, Keith Clayton, Joe Scalora, David Moench, you’ve got the hearts of Hufflepuffs and the courage of Gryffindors as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you to my family for always suspecting that my strangeness was a quality and not a liability. For making me explore forests and fields instead of the channels on the tube. My father for teaching me the grace of power unused, and mother for teaching me the joy of power used well. My sister for her tireless efforts on behalf of the Sons of Ares fan page, and for understanding me better than anyone else.
The most profound thanks must go to my editor, Mike “au Telemanus” Braff. If he didn’t fully understand the extent of my neurosis before this book, he sure as hell does now. Few authors are as lucky as I am to have an editor like Mike. He’s humble, patient, and diligent, even when I’m not. That this book was brought to you only a year after Golden Son is a miracle of his making. I doff my cap to you, my goodman.
And to each and every reader, thank you. Your passion and excitement have allowed me to live my life on my own terms, and for that I am ever grateful and humbled. Your creativity, humor, and support come through in every message, tweet, and comment. Getting to meet you and hear your stories at conventions and signings is one of the perks of being an author. Thank you, Howlers, for all that you do. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to howl together soon.
Once I thought that writing this book would be impossible. It was a skyscraper, massive and complete and unbearably far off. It taunted me from the horizon. But do we ever look at such buildings and assume they sprung up overnight? No. We’ve seen the traffic congestion that attends them. The skeleton of beams and girders. The swarm of builders and the rattle of cranes…
Everything grand is made from a series of ugly little moments. Everything worthwhile by hours of self-doubt and days of drudgery. All the works by people you and I admire sit atop a foundation of failures.
So whatever your project, whatever your struggle, whatever your dream, keep toiling, because the world needs your skyscraper.
Per aspera, ad astra!
—Pierce Brown