What was your inspiration for Steelheart ?
I was on book tour, running late to meet my editor in Pittsburgh. My phone was dead, I’d forgotten my charger, and was rushing along, when someone cut me off in traffic. I got very annoyed at this person, which is not something I normally do. I’m usually pretty easygoing, but this time I thought: “You’re lucky I don’t have super powers, guy-who-just-cut-me-off, because if I did, I’d totally blow up your car right now.” Then I thought: “That’s horrifying that I would even think of doing that to a random stranger!”
Anytime that I get horrified like that makes me realize that there’s a story there somewhere. So I spent the rest of that drive thinking about what would really happen if I had super powers. Would I go out and be a hero, or would I just start doing whatever I wanted to? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing? I came up with a world where people become what I call Epics. They gain super powers, but they use them in the wrong ways, like I was tempted to do when that car cut me off. That spun me into the story. How would normal people fight against these individuals with awesome powers? How would the country deal with them?
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