Writer Suzanne Collins was forty-six when she published "The Hunger Games," a novel for young adults set in a dark future where North America has been obliterated by war and climate change. The residents of Collins's dystopia are forced to send their children to fight to the death in a sadistic game created by the government. The book wrestles with meaty themes: the effect of war, the dangers of voyeurism in popular culture, and how governments use hunger and threats of violence to control populations. This new edition details Collins's life before the Hunger Games, from the first eighteen years of her writing career in television to her well-received children's book series called The Underland Chronicles. Later chapters explore the phenomenal and unexpected success of the Hunger Games series, a franchise which has a net revenue of over four billion dollars to date.