50 Fun Facts About The Lunar Chronicles

In Marissa Meyer's Cinder, what does the cyborg heroine lose on the palace steps as she flees the ball?

Her foot comes off on the stairs, an image that inspired the whole book: Marissa Meyer pictured Cinderella losing a foot instead of a shoe.

Before The Lunar Chronicles, Marissa Meyer spent ten years writing fan fiction about which 1990s anime?

Sailor Moon fan fiction taught Marissa Meyer her craft: she finished more than forty stories, many of them novel-length, before she sold a book.

What does a disguised Queen Levana feed her stepdaughter, Princess Winter, to give her the plague?

A sour apple candy, Winter's favorite treat, hides the plague, and Levana hands it over herself while dressed as an old crone. Winter faints and is kept alive in a suspension tank.

How is Queen Levana related to Cinder, the cyborg mechanic at the heart of The Lunar Chronicles?

Her aunt Levana is the younger sister of Cinder's mother, Queen Channary, and is believed to have tried to kill her as a small child to keep the throne.

What happens to Captain Thorne when the satellite carrying him and Cress crashes to Earth in Cress?

He goes blind after hitting his head in the fall, so Cress, who has spent most of her life alone in orbit, has to lead them both to safety.

In which city of the Eastern Commonwealth does Cinder work as a mechanic at a market booth?

New Beijing was chosen because some scholars trace the earliest Cinderella tale to ninth-century China, and Marissa Meyer wanted to honor the story's roots.

Which fairy tale inspired Cress, the third novel in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles?

Rapunzel's tower becomes an orbiting satellite, and Cress keeps the famously long hair until it is cut off above her shoulders with a knife.

Which android, Cinder's loyal companion, takes the lead in Marissa Meyer's graphic novels Wires and Nerve?

Iko's personality is officially a malfunction, one that makes her forget she isn't human, and in the comics she hunts down rogue wolf-hybrid soldiers.

Cinder is revealed to be which lost Lunar princess, long believed to have died in a nursery fire?

Selene was spirited to Earth by a Lunar doctor who performed her cyborg surgery, and she grew up with no memory of her royal past.

Which fairy tale inspired Scarlet, the second novel in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles?

Little Red Riding Hood gets a science-fiction twist: the wolf is a street fighter engineered as a soldier, and the hood is a red hoodie from her grandmother.

Which fairy tale inspired Winter, the final novel in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles?

Snow White's evil queen got a book of her own first: Marissa Meyer set Winter aside partway through to write a whole novel about Levana's past.

Which member of Linh Cinder's adoptive family treats her as a friend, then falls ill after a junkyard trip?

Peony, the younger stepsister, catches the plague while helping Cinder look for spare parts, and Cinder later wears Peony's silver dress to the ball.

What is the name of the deadly plague that kills Emperor Rikan and sweeps Earth in The Lunar Chronicles?

Letumosis was once harmless to Lunars, but by the time of Cress a mutated strain has begun to kill them too.

In The Lunar Chronicles, what do Lunars call the illusion that lets Queen Levana appear impossibly beautiful?

Glamour works by manipulating the bioelectricity of people nearby, so that they see, and even think, whatever a Lunar wants.

In which country does Scarlet Benoit live on her grandmother's farm, near the small town of Rieux?

France really does have a Rieux: the setting is based on the southern town of Rieux-Volvestre, whose name Marissa Meyer admits she mispronounced for years.

In which desert do Cress and Thorne come down after her satellite is sent plunging toward Earth?

Sahara heat nearly kills them both before a group of travelling traders, later revealed to be Lunar traffickers, picks them up.

Which Lunar Chronicles prequel, published between Cress and Winter, tells Queen Levana's story from her teens?

Fairest follows Levana for about ten years from the age of fifteen, and shows the cruel older sister who made her childhood a misery.

What does Prince Kai bring to Cinder's market booth to be repaired when the two first meet?

A tutor android is his excuse for the visit, but it secretly holds his research into a missing Lunar heir.

How do Cinder and her crew stop Emperor Kai's wedding to Queen Levana at the climax of Cress?

Kidnapping the groom means tranquilizing Kai and flying him away from his own palace, and Levana answers by openly declaring war on Earth.

Which palace guard, Princess Winter's childhood friend, is ordered by Queen Levana to kill her?

Jacin Clay fakes the killing by stabbing Winter's pet wolf instead, so that the queen will believe her stepdaughter is dead.

What are Lunars called in The Lunar Chronicles if they are born without powers and cannot be mind-controlled?

Shells got their name because they are 'empty' of Lunar powers, and under Queen Channary's law they were to be killed as newborns.

Which character in The Lunar Chronicles is revealed to be Cress's father shortly before dying of the plague?

Dr. Erland is a Lunar fugitive hiding under an anagram of his real surname, Darnel, and he had believed his daughter was killed as a baby.

What is the full name behind the nickname of Cress, the hacker heroine of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles?

Crescent Moon Darnel was taken from her parents at birth, and at nine she was shut inside a satellite to spy on Earth for Luna.

What causes the hallucinations that torment Princess Winter throughout Marissa Meyer's novel Winter?

Suppressing her powers has cost Winter her sanity: she refuses to use her Lunar gift, and she sees the palace walls bleeding.

Which title do Queen Levana's mind-controlling courtiers, such as Aimery, hold in The Lunar Chronicles?

Thaumaturge is a real word meaning a magician, which Marissa Meyer first came across on a word-a-day calendar while she was writing Cinder.

During which month-long writing challenge did Marissa Meyer draft Cinder, Scarlet and Cress?

NaNoWriMo set a target of 50,000 words in November, but Marissa Meyer wrote about 150,000, including the whole first draft of Cinder in roughly two weeks.

Which standalone Marissa Meyer novel about a villain from Alice in Wonderland is excerpted in Stars Above?

Heartless gives the Queen of Hearts an origin story; it was sold as a two-book series but ended up as a single novel.

What relation to Wolf is Ran, the Lunar soldier who kills Scarlet's grandmother in Marissa Meyer's Scarlet?

His younger brother Ran first meets Scarlet as a stranger on a train, and Wolf ends up killing him when Ran hunts her down.

Which human reaction did Linh Cinder lose when she was rebuilt as a cyborg, along with blushing?

Crying is impossible because her tear ducts went when she was fitted with prosthetic eyes, though she can still sweat.

What does Queen Levana bring to Earth in Cinder to tempt Emperor Kai into marrying her?

A plague antidote, just one vial of it, is her bribe; Cinder gets hold of it too late to save her stepsister and gives it to a young boy instead.

Which servant of Queen Levana keeps Cress captive on a satellite and later captures Scarlet?

Sybil Mira meets her end on a rooftop, where Cinder breaks her mind and she leaps to her death.

Before running her farm, Scarlet's grandmother Michelle Benoit followed which career in The Lunar Chronicles?

Military pilot turned farmer Michelle Benoit kept the lost Lunar princess hidden for eight years in a suspension tank.

Which military rank does Carswell Thorne of The Lunar Chronicles really hold, despite calling himself Captain?

Cadet Thorne is also a deserter, wanted for stealing a military spaceship, yet he insists that everyone call him Captain.

Which gift from Prince Kai does Cinder wear to the royal ball, along with a borrowed silver dress?

Silk gloves suit Cinder well: she wears gloves all through the first book so that nobody sees her metal hand.

Which keepsake of her dead stepsister lets the military track Cinder down in Marissa Meyer's Scarlet?

Her ID chip was kept after Cinder learned that plague victims' chips were being harvested from their bodies for some unknown purpose.

Which metal plates the upgraded prosthetic hand that Linh Cinder receives in prison at the end of Cinder?

Titanium replaces the steel of her old limbs, and the new fingers hide a flashlight, a stiletto knife, a screwdriver and a projectile gun.

Which genre label does Marissa Meyer use when asked if The Lunar Chronicles is sci-fi or fantasy?

Space opera is her answer, borrowed from Star Wars, for a series that mixes spaceships and cyborgs with a mind-control power that works a lot like magic.

What is the name of Luna's capital city, home of Queen Levana's palace, in The Lunar Chronicles?

Artemisia sits near the Moon's north pole on the edge of Mare Frigoris, the Cold Sea, under domes that imitate Earth's days and nights.

What model of spaceship does Carswell Thorne steal from the American Republic military before meeting Cinder?

Rampion ships were Thorne's dream long before the theft: at thirteen he was already planning a one-way trip out of Los Angeles in one.

Which Hans Christian Andersen tale does Marissa Meyer retell with an android heroine in Stars Above?

The Little Mermaid becomes The Little Android, a story Marissa Meyer first gave away free online before collecting it in Stars Above.

What is the real first name of Wolf, the street fighter who helps Scarlet Benoit search for her grandmother?

Ze'ev is a Hebrew name that means wolf, so his fighting nickname is simply a translation.

In The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder's birth year is written 109 T.E., an abbreviation that stands for what?

Third Era years are counted from the end of the Fourth World War, which makes our own time part of the Second Era.

Which fairy tale did Marissa Meyer retell in the contest story that led her to The Lunar Chronicles?

Puss in Boots got a science-fiction makeover for a contest that drew only two entries, and Marissa Meyer's story came second.

Marissa Meyer, author of The Lunar Chronicles, grew up in which Washington city, also her birthplace?

Tacoma is also where her parents met, at the Old Spaghetti Factory, the restaurant where she later worked at sixteen.

Which superhero trilogy did Marissa Meyer publish after finishing The Lunar Chronicles?

Renegades grew out of a sign that Marissa Meyer misread, and its first book reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list.

The peace deal that Cinder agrees to sign with Earth once Levana is defeated in Winter is the Treaty of what?

Bremen's treaty comes only after a last duel in which Levana stabs Cinder in the chest; Cinder survives because she is a cyborg.

In Marissa Meyer's history of Luna, which moon material is fused into glass to build the city domes?

Regolith matters so much to Lunar life that whole outlying domes are given over to mining and processing it.

In Marissa Meyer's history of Luna, which man became the first true Lunar and made himself its monarch?

Cyprus Blackburn's DNA was damaged by cosmic rays in childhood, and he used the mind control that resulted to get himself elected and then crowned.

Under which pen name did Marissa Meyer post her fan fiction before publishing The Lunar Chronicles?

Alicia Blade was also the byline on a gothic novelette of hers, The Phantom of Linkshire Manor, which appeared in a 2007 romance anthology.

Where on Luna does Princess Winter keep the captive Scarlet at the end of Marissa Meyer's Cress?

In her menagerie, a zoo-like collection of animals, Winter quietly tells the prisoner that she is on her side.