Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Count of Monte Cristo)

• Wrongful imprisonment. Edmond Dantès and Andy Dufresne are both innocent men condemned to long prison terms.
• Patient, long-term escape. Both spend years—indeed decades—carefully preparing an escape without attracting attention.
• Freedom through planning rather than force. Neither succeeds through brute strength; intelligence, discipline, and patience are what ultimately free them.
• A new life after escape. Both emerge with carefully prepared identities and resources that allow them to begin again.
• The in-story reference is also significant. The prisoners encounter The Count of Monte Cristo, and Andy describes it as "a story about a prison break." That's an unmistakable wink from King acknowledging the literary ancestor of his own story.

• The Stars My Destination is widely recognized as a science-fiction reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo.
• Both novels feature a betrayed protagonist who survives abandonment, transforms himself, acquires immense power or wealth, and pursues revenge against those who wronged him.
• Alfred Bester acknowledged drawing on Dumas's classic as a major inspiration, and the novel is frequently described by critics as a futuristic adaptation or retelling.

While Colfer hasn't, to my knowledge, explicitly described Airman as a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, it is fair to say that it shares the novel's classic narrative framework: Gifted young hero → false accusation → imprisonment → self-improvement → daring escape → return under a new identity → confrontation with the conspirators. That structure, first made famous by Dumas, has become one of the enduring templates for adventure fiction, and Airman is one of its clearest modern echoes.