This is like a hot time for Mars fiction. I suspect part of the reason that it was picked up is like dystopian future with a twist and also there are murder games. He doesn't say anything about being influenced by the Hunger Games. It's just that the book is being compared to that a lot. And so he kind of combined this idea of what if on Mars with a bunch of other stuff that he was reading at the time. Also like Mars, that's a Roman God. What if there was other Roman stuff going on? Sure. But yeah, that's kind of where this is.