Fifteen years after the fall of the heroes, the world has learned how to survive without them. Supervillains rule openly, former champions have faded into obscurity, and the idea of heroism itself has become something people no longer trust. In this fractured reality, Ledge Carp—once known as the infamous Crime Clown—finds himself facing an unexpected problem: with no heroes left to fight, even victory feels hollow.
When an alien warlord returns with plans to finish what the last war began, the fragile balance of this villain-run world begins to crack. Long-buried powers stir, old wounds reopen, and those who once defined themselves as heroes or monsters are forced to confront what they’ve become—and whether the world can survive without anyone willing to stand for it.
Quick Look
Author: Antoine Monks
Title: Heroless
Genre: Superhero Fantasy
Print Length: 309
Publication Date: November 13, 2025
Social media: X | Goodreads
Buy: Next Chapter | Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Google Books | Rakuten Kobo
Author’s website: Link
Q&A with Antoine Monks
Q: What is your book about and what inspired you to write this book?
A: I’ve always been a big fan of superheroes, comics are probably what really got me into reading and writing, and there are a couple of limited series out there about worlds where the bad guys won and I really felt that it was a concept that could be handled in a more meaningful way so I started playing around with some ideas in my head.
Q: When did you start writing?
A: Some aspects of this book, certain scenes and characters, I devised back when I was a child. I couldn’t read or write at all but instead I would draw these little picture books and several of the characters have basically grown up with me and made there way into ‘Heroless.’
A more exact answer would be January of 2017. I had just moved to Prague from Canada and hadn’t unpacked my writing materials so I started writing ‘Heroless’ on my phone just whenever I had time for maybe a month or two. Once I got settled, I didn’t touch it for years. Then in 2022, without feeling confident in my ability to finish the book I was working on at the time (a really long epic fantasy) I started thinking about writing something shorter and easier and aim to go on the querying journey and break out of just endlessly drafting that fantasy series.
Several ideas for superhero stories were kicking around in my mind and the big breakthrough was figuring out how to mesh it all together with the bits of ‘Heroless’ that had been languishing in my phone since 2017.
Definitely the right choice.
Q: Which character was the most fun—or most challenging—to write, and why?
A: First of all, I love all my characters.
That being said.
Carp and the villains in general were the most fun and came the easiest. Most of their scenes are basically unedited from the first draft. I think the police characters and Lily Byle the reporter were the hardest because I have zero personal experience in either field so I had to do a surprising amount of research to make their scenes plausible and authentic. I didn’t want to rely on what I’d seen in movies and TV.
Q: What themes or messages do you hope readers take away from your book?
A: Well I don’t want to influence anyone’s thinking too much beyond what they’ll see when they read my book. Maybe to try and withhold judgement on people and things that we only know from afar unless we’re pretty sure of our sources of information, especially when so much information is at our fingertips in the modern era. And to be ok with the fact that the world is a messy place but to do our best regardless.
Q: Were there any real-life experiences that influenced your story or characters?
A: Some of the meta commentary on superhero fiction directly comes from seeing so many people have heated debates online about what certain fictional heroes mean to them. Just the fact that people are so attached to these types of characters means we should treat it with some gravity. Some of the stuff in chapter ten is based on things I’ve seen in a rather shady area I used to live near. And Brown Derby using sterilized coins to pay for things was inspired by my father sterilizing change in boiling water during the pandemic. He’s a busker so he’s always getting money from completely unknown people.
Q: What question do you wish readers would ask you about the book?
A: I wish people would ask me about the dedication to Philip Wylie. Philip Wylie wrote a book called ‘Gladiator’ way back in 1930, a full eight years before Superman hit comic stands and the earliest Superman stories actually have a bunch of direct inspiration from it that over time has been phased out.
There’s even a scene we’ve seen recreated in Spider-Man over and over where the protagonist, Hugo Danner, enters an event to stay in the ring for a few minutes with a boxer for cash! I can’t hype this book up enough. It was so far ahead of its time that it’ll probably seem deconstructive to modern readers.
The book actually has a cameo in ‘Watchmen’ and the 2009 film adaptation. You can see it on Hollis Mason’s shelf a couple of times.
I really encourage people to read it.
Q: Do you have a favorite quote or moment from the book you’d like to share?
A: “A mask disguises identity twice: first when you
put it on, then when you take it off.”
Q: What was the biggest challenge in writing or publishing it?
A: Writing the query letter and the synopsis!
I ended up hiring Alyssa Matesic to help me with those.
It’s really crazy to write a whole book and then feel stumped when it’s time to explain it concisely.
Q: What’s next for you as a writer?
A: Next I want to get that epic fantasy book polished and sent off to the publisher. I never gave up on it, I just didn’t have full confidence in it back then but now I have a much better idea of what a finished manuscript looks like.
And there is a plan to revisit the world and characters of ‘Heroless’ as well someday.
Top Reviews
Reviewer – 5.0 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Superhero story that isn’t really about good vs. evil
“Heroless as a layered, emotionally grounded take on the superhero genre that focuses on what happens after the mask comes off, permanently. It works best when it explores disillusionment, memory, and power without offering easy redemption or clear moral anchors. Readers who enjoy darker speculative fiction, morally complex characters, and stories about identity after collapse will likely find this deeply engaging. This is a superhero story that isn’t really about heroics at all, but about survival, relevance, and what lingers when the world moves on.”
Author Bio
Antoine Monks was born in 1993 in rural British Columbia, Canada and discovered his passion for storytelling after glimpsing his first comic book, creating his own before being able to read let alone write. In time, words took the place of pictures and the characters he made grew up with him and were joined by more, eventually coalescing into his first novel, Heroless, a novel about superhumans, both good and bad. With a mind for both the spectacular and the humble, his stories build speculations around his best perception of truths.
Today he lives in Prague, Czech Republic, finding yet more inspiration from the old city.
Social media: X | Goodreads
Buy the book here: Next Chapter | Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Google Books | Rakuten Kobo
Author’s website: Link
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