Marissa Meyer’s superhero-inspired novel RENEGADES now has a cover, and read an excerpt from the book!

LA Times revealed the cover for Marissa Meyer‘s first post-Lunar Chronicles novel, Renegades, and it looks wonderfully ominous. It seems reminiscent of some futuristic-style images, including the color-scheme of the poster for the original 1982 Disney sci-fi movie Tron as well as the imagery of the 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis. The movies are very different, but unique in their own right.

We are looking forward to how Renegades plays out its own story, with the protagonist named Nova, “a girl on a quest against the superheroes that have liberated humanity from the villains that reigned over them.”

Read an excerpt:

Excerpt from ‘Renegades’:

They were right to be afraid.

Hundreds of years.

Who would have stood for it?

Ace changed everything. He united the most fearsome prodigies he could find and together they rebelled. His group cared little for the loss of innocent lives, or mass destruction, or even what would come next once the old world crumbled. They cared only for change, so change they got.

He started with the infrastructure. Government buildings torn from their foundations. Banks and stock exchanges turned to rubble and ash. Bridges ripped from the sky. Entire freeways reduced to rocky wastelands.

Then he went after the people who had failed him. Failed all of them.

The entire government, gone. Law enforcement, disbanded. Those fancy bureaucrats who had bought their way into power and influence… all dead, and all in a matter of weeks.

Chaos rose up to fill the void that civilized society had left behind, and fear and distrust would go on to rule for twenty long years.

They call it the Age of Anarchy, but we think of it as the good old days.

Looking back now, people talk about the Anarchists and the other gangs who rose to power like they were the worst part of those twenty years, but they weren’t. Sure, everyone was terrified of them, but they mostly left you alone as long as you paid up when it was your due and didn’t cause them any trouble.

But the people. The normal people. They were far worse. With no rule and no law, it became every man, woman, and child for themselves. There were no repercussions for crimes or violence — no one to run to if you were beaten or if your family was killed. No police. No prisons. Not legitimate ones, anyway. Neighbors stole from neighbors. Stores were looted and supplies were hoarded, leaving children to starve in the gutters. It became the strong against the weak and, as it turns out, the strong are usually jerks.

Humanity loses faith in times like that. With no one to look up to, no one to believe in, we all became rats scrounging in the sewers.

Maybe Ace really was a villain. Or maybe he was a visionary.

Maybe there’s not much of a difference.

Either way, he and his gang ruled Gatlon City for twenty years, while crime and vice spread like sewage around a backed-up pipe. And the Age of Anarchy might have gone on for another twenty years. Fifty years. An eternity.

But then, seemingly overnight… hope.

Bright and sparkling hope, dressed up in capes and masks.

Beautiful and joyous hope, promising to solve all your problems, fix all the world’s evil, rain justice down upon your foes, and probably give a stern talking to a few jaywalkers along the way.

Warm and promising hope, encouraging the normal folks to stay inside where it was safe while they fixed everything. Don’t worry about helping yourselves. You’ve got enough on your plate, what with all the hiding and moping and turning-a-blind-eye you’ve been doing lately. You take a day off. We’re superheroes. We’ve got this.

Hope called themselves the Renegades.

Read the Q&A with Marissa right here, where she reveals her inspiration for the superhero story and who her favorite superheroes are.

By Molly

Molly is a proud Canadian who is currently attending university in Scotland. She loves to read, write, watch films, and talk about Sarah J. Maas books. If not snuggled up with a book, Molly can usually be found tapping at the dance studio, or writing yet another essay.