Matthew Reilly (writer)

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Matthew J. Reilly, (born July 2, 1974 in Sydney), is an Australian action thriller writer. His books are based on warfare (normally) and are filled with action throughout the entire book.

Reilly graduated from St Aloysius' College in 1998. While attending the University of New South Wales, he wrote his first book Contest in 1994. It was rejected by every major publishing company in Sydney, which drove Reilly to self-publish 1,000 copies using money borrowed from his family.

Reilly went to a bookstore in Sydney and asked if he could place the copies on one of their book shelves. They accepted the offer and placed them up. Very shortly after, the books had sold out and the owner of the bookstore called Reilly to order more books.

One copy was read by an editor at Pan MacMillan, who immediately signed Reilly up to write Ice Station, which became an international best-seller.

In the years to come, he wrote Temple, Area 7, and Scarecrow, which have since been published in over fifteen countries, including Australia, the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Japan and China.

Reilly is well known for his style of writing, which focuses entirely on Hollywood-style action scenes, relegating drama and character development to second priority. Many critics condemn this, and point out that Reilly unashamedly writes his books to read like movies; however, Reilly's fans argue that his writing style is what makes the books unique and exciting.

Reilly's main influences include Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and possibly Art Bell. His latest work is a novel called Seven Ancient Wonders, a book inspired, or at least influenced, by Indiana Jones. The book was released as Seven Deadly Wonders in the United States.

Matthew Reilly has completed an eleven minute trailer that depicts the beginning sequences of his book Contest. This trailer will form the basis of promotions in Hollywood to help secure funding/distribution for a full length film of Contest directed by himself.

In August 2005, as part of the Australian Books Alive Promotion, Reilly penned the novella Hell Island, a close to 100 page short story following on from Scarecrow.

As seen on 60 Minutes in 2006, Reilly owns and drives a Delorean, one of only a few in Australia. He also has a life-size replica of Han Solo encased in carbonite.

Bibliography

1996 Contest
1998 Ice Station
1999 Temple
2001 Area 7
2003 Scarecrow
2004 Hover Car Racer
2005 Hell Island (Released in Australia only, now on amazon.co.uk)
2005 Seven Ancient Wonders (Also known as Seven Deadly Wonders in the U.S)
Unknown Hover Car Racer 2
Possible Future Protagonist Sequels: William Race (Temple), Jack West Jr (Seven Ancient Wonders) and Aloysius Knight/Shane Schofield (Scarecrow) book(s)

External links

http://www.matthewreilly.com
http://www.thepresidian.net/ (A Matthew Reilly fan forum on which he occasionally appears)

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