Pierce Brown

Pierce Brown was born in Denver, Colorado, and moved frequently during his childhood, living in several different states and attending more than ten schools. His mother, Colleen Birdnow Brown, served as president and chief executive officer of Fisher Communications and chairperson of the board of directors for American Apparel, while his father, Guy Brown, worked as a local banker. Brown attended Pepperdine University, graduating in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics.

Brown was drawn to storytelling from a young age, inspired in part by the tall tales told by his grandfather. After finishing high school, he began attempting long-form writing in earnest. Before achieving commercial success, he wrote six full-length manuscripts over five years and received rejections from more than 110 literary agents. During this period, he supported himself with a variety of roles, including managing social media for a tech startup, working on the Disney studio lot, assisting on a United States Senate campaign, and working as an NBC page on The Tonight Show while living in his former political science professor's garage.

The concept for Brown's breakout novel emerged after he revisited the Greek tragedy Antigone and envisioned blending ancient myth, Roman structure, and dramatic space opera. He wrote the first draft of Red Rising in two months while living above his parents' garage in Seattle, Washington. Published in January 2014 by Del Rey Books, the novel follows the rebellion of Darrow in a caste-divided Martian society. It quickly became a critical and commercial success, entering The New York Times Best Seller list and earning Brown the Goodreads Choice Award for Best New Author.

Brown continued the story with Golden Son in 2015 and Morning Star in 2016, both of which received critical acclaim and won consecutive Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel. Morning Star also reached the top spot on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list. He later expanded the universe with a sequel series that includes Iron Gold (2018), Dark Age (2019), and Light Bringer (2023), as well as the prequel graphic novel series Red Rising: Sons of Ares, co-written with Rik Hoskin. By 2024, the Red Rising saga had sold over six million copies.

Shortly after the publication of Red Rising in February 2014, Universal Pictures secured the film adaptation rights in a competitive seven-figure auction, attaching director Marc Forster with Brown developing the screenplay. Brown completed several drafts of the script before the screen rights eventually reverted back to him. He subsequently transitioned development toward adapting the material as a television series.

In addition to the Red Rising universe, Brown has contributed to other speculative fiction franchises, including authoring the short story "Desert Son" for the 2017 official Star Wars anthology From a Certain Point of View. He also co-wrote the 2021 feature film The Blazing World and announced The Book of Lorn, an illustrated serialized novella created in collaboration with artist Giannis Milonogiannis.